Ally Chua is a Singaporean writer now based in Boston. She is the author of Acts of Self Consumption and The Disappearance of Patrick Zhou.
Accolades
Jasmine Goh, Quarterly Literature Review Singapore
“Acts of Self Consumption confronts various paradoxes: holding love encrusted with inherited pain, harbouring desires for safety and risk and balancing genuine impulse with moral guilt…”
“With a voice marked by its distinct assertiveness, it is difficult to believe that this is Chua’s debut collection. Above else, it is the flesh of desire brimming with tactile memory that Chua writes best towards.”
Charmaine Lim, The Straits Times
“Boston-based Singaporean author Ally Chua transitions successfully from poetry to prose, a skill that does not come easily to many writers.”
“A finalist for the 2023 Epigram Books Fiction Prize, this debut novel retains a similar sense of grit and gore present in her poetry collection Acts Of Self Consumption (2023) without coming across as unsavoury or perverse. Rather, the elements add to the uneasy sense that digging into the past can only lead to unwelcome revelations.”
Clement Yong, The Straits Times
“… Chua’s words even have the put-on insouciance of American writer Bret Easton Ellis, part of the literary Brat Pack… In this case, this switch in tone is even more impressive as Chua has reclaimed Ellis’ numbness to talk about the misogyny of 1970s cinema, the women abused by their partners, and her inability to be out and about without constantly being asked if it is safe.”
“… By grappling with herself and others, she has found a way to deliver an annihilating knockout that makes her collection a journey from self-loathing to partial redemption.”
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