| Alfian bin Sa'at | |
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| Born | Alfian bin Sa'at July 18, 1977 Singapore |
| Occupation | playwright |
| Nationality | Singaporean |
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alfian.diaryland.com |
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Alfian bin Sa'at (born July 18, 1977) is a Singaporean writer, poet and playwright. He is a Muslim of Minangkabau, Javanese and Hakka descent,.[1] He is known for his provocative works and is often referred to as his country's enfant terrible.
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An alumnus of Tampines Primary School, Raffles Institution, and Raffles Junior College, Alfian was the chairman of the drama societies, both known as Raffles Players, in both RI and RJC. He also took part in the Creative Arts Programme twice - once at fifteen, and a second time at seventeen - both times under the mentorship of Haresh Sharma. He has since returned to the programme as an occasional mentor.[2][3] During his two years at RJC, Alfian received the Kripalani Award for Outstanding Contribution to Creative Arts.[4] Alfian attended medical classes at the National University of Singapore but did not graduate.
In 1998, Alfian published his first collection of poetry, One Fierce Hour at the age of twenty-one. The book was acclaimed as "truly a landmark for poetry [in Singapore]" by The Straits Times, and Alfian himself was described by Malaysia's New Straits Times as "one of the most acclaimed poets in his country... a prankish provocateur, libertarian hipster".[5]
A year later, Alfian published his first collection of short stories, Corridor, which won the Singapore Literature Prize Commendation Award. Seven of the short stories from the collection have since been adapted for television. In 2001, he published his second collection of poetry, A History of Amnesia, which was hailed by The Straits Times as "one of the most powerful collections by a Singaporean" in addition to being shortlisted for a Kiriyama Asia-Pacific Book Prize. Alfian won both the inaugural National Arts Council-Singapore Press Holdings Golden Point Award for Poetry in the same year, as well as the National Arts Council's Young Artist Award for Literature.
Alfian's plays, written in both English and Malay, have received broad attention in both Singapore and Malaysia. They have also been translated into German and Swedish, and have been read and performed in London, Zurich, Stockholm, Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. His first play was produced when he was 19, and he has had a long association as a playwright with theatre group The Necessary Stage as well as with Teater Ekamatra, a Malay theatre group known for articulating minority concerns in Chinese-majority Singapore.
Alfian is currently the resident playwright of theatre group W!LD RICE.[6] He is currently enrolled for an undergraduate course at the School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University.[7]
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Prose
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Poetry
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