Gwee Li Sui (Chinese: 魏俐瑞, born 22 August 1970) is a literary critic, a poet, and a graphic artist from Singapore.
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Gwee began education at the now-defunct MacRitchie Primary School and then continued at Anglo-Chinese Secondary School, Anglo-Chinese Junior College, and the National University of Singapore. He graduated with a First-Class Honours degree in English literature in 1995 and was awarded the NUS Society Gold Medal for Best Student in English. His Honours thesis was on Günter Grass's novel, The Tin Drum (German: Die Blechtrommel). After completing his Masters under a research scholarship on another German writer Hermann Broch, he worked as a Senior Tutor at the NUS Department of English Language and Literature. In 1999, he was awarded an overseas scholarship to pursue his doctorate in eighteenth-century literature at Queen Mary, University of London. Gwee wrote his doctoral thesis on the discursive influence of Newtonianism on poetry from the English Enlightenment to early German Romanticism.
Returning to lecture at NUS in 2003, Gwee worked as an Assistant Professor in English literature until 2009. During this time, he was a long-standing staff advisor to the NUS Literary Society, which has traditionally groomed some of Singapore's best writers. Academic topics Gwee has written on are vast: the Reformation, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, German idealism, history of science, Christian theology, German literature, and literary theory. In the area of Singaporean literature, he has contributed radical articles on its poetic history up to the present and consistently challenged the standard assumptions made about literary productions in Singapore. In 2010, he was invited to be a foreign writer/critic-in-residence at the Toji Cultural Centre in South Korea.
Gwee wrote what was arguably Singapore’s first full-length graphic novel, Myth of the Stone, published in 1993. This out-of-print book is part-children's story and part-allegory and follows a boy's adventures in a fantastical realm of mismatched mythical creatures. He then produced a well-received volume of humorous verse, Who Wants to Buy a Book of Poems?, which was full of linguistic play, Singlish rhymes, and jabs at social history and culture, in 1998. His poetry is known for its versatility, engaging a wide range of styles and moods, and is featured in several anthologies and literary journals. He has been contributing drawings and comics to a wide range of publications.
Gwee is also the editor of one of two seminal critical volumes on Singaporean and Malaysian literature in English under the title Sharing Borders: Studies in Contemporary Singaporean-Malaysian Literature (2009). In his introduction, he exposes the problems of ideology that continue to plague the new literatures of Singapore and Malaysia ironically in the name of postcolonial studies. He is one of the editors for a bilingual collection of 100 Singaporean and Malaysian poems, From the Window of the Epoch, published in 2010. He recently edited Telltale: Eleven Stories (2010), which features short stories by six Singaporean writers born after Singapore Independence in 1965, and Man/Born/Free: Writings on the Human Spirit from Singapore (2011). The latter was launched in Cape Town, South Africa.
Gwee has been on the evaluation panel for a number of top literary awards in Singapore, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. He edits for an online poetry journal, Softblow, and an Asian commentary website, New Asia Republic. Since 2008, he also hosts a few ongoing series of public interviews with Singaporean writers, publishers, and artists, held at an independent bookstore, BooksActually. He is regularly sought for his opinions on literature, language, and religion in Singapore.
In 2009, following a national controversy where some Christian women seized control over the secular Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), Gwee wrote a notorious Facebook note in his capacity as a Christian. "Christians Against AWARE Takeover!”, and its follow-ups, called on Christians to reject such action in spite of their own religious affiliation and appealed to the Christian women to step down. The essays quickly went viral on the internet and became a focal point of much contention. By the time the scandal was over, the original note alone collected over 1,000 supporters. The AWARE leadership was voted out at its extraordinary general meeting by a margin of 1,414 to 761.
Graphic Novel
Poetry Book
Monograph
Edited Volumes
Essays