Ponti is a story told from the perspectives of three women, a story of friendship and memory over the decades. We meet Szu in 2003 as a bored and anxious 16-year-old who lives with her aunt and mother Amisa. Szu’s beautiful mother, Amisa, was discovered by a film producer in 1977 and cast in a movie as the Pontianak: a mythological, cannibalistic beauty, created when a deformed girl makes a deal with a shaman to become beautiful (this is a real Malay myth that wives tell their husbands!). Then there is Circe, a more privileged and worldly teenager who befriends Szu at school. Ponti doesn’t gloss over the deceitful female rivalry that teenage girls are famous for. The other leading role goes to SIngapore “a character in and of itself – it excludes people and none of them feel quite at home in it.” Having lived in London for a decade Teo had the geographic and emotional distance to describe SIngapore as it really is, pollution and repressive humidity included, as opposed to the travel guide version we may be more familiar with.

Teo has won several literary incentive prizes, and a first version of her debut novel Ponti was chosen for the prestigious Deborah Rogers Writers’ Award and applauded by Ian McEwan ‘Remarkable . . . her characters glow with life and humour’

Sharlene Teo (1987) was born and raised in Singapore and currently lives and works in London. She is part of The Chronicles program during the festival.