Mandakini Arora

MA Creative Writing

2024

Mandakini holds a PhD in History from Duke University and is graduating with an MA in Creative Writing from LASALLE College of the Arts. She has taught courses on gender at the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University. She edited Small Steps, Giant Leaps: A History of AWARE and the Women’s Movement in Singapore (AWARE, 2007) and Jean Marshall’s Pahang Letters, 1953–54: Sidelights on Malaya During the Emergency (Ethos, 2017).

Mandakini conducts oral history and memoir writing workshops and offers developmental editing services for individuals and organisations. She co-chairs the American Women’s Association (AWA) Singapore Writers’ Group and reviews Asian fiction for the AWA magazine. She posts book reviews and book news on Instagram as @travelling_bookmark.

https://instagram.com/travelling_bookmark

mandakinni@gmail.com

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Thesis work

Don't Just Follow the Crowd: Ann Wee is one chapter of a creative nonfiction book in progress. Through history interviews, the book explores the meaning of home for Englishwomen who moved from England to Singapore in the 1950s–1960s.

A work of life writing, this chapter tells the story of one woman, born in 1926 in Northumberland, England, who moved to Singapore in 1950. It creates a patchwork from Ann’s life from experiences she chose to share with the interviewer as she made meaning of her life in Singapore. The thesis engages with an important question which Ann implicitly referred to in interviews. Who am I and where do I belong?

Ann was a white British woman who moved to a British colony. Within that larger identity, she made individual gendered choices – for example, to marry a Chinese Singaporean man, to not work professionally if her in-laws disapproved, to accept a teaching job at her in-laws’ urging, to avoid whites-only colonial clubs such as the Tanglin Club.

As she navigated spaces created by the British Empire, she carved out her own path. Northumbrian, Singaporean, English daughter-in-law in an Asian family, wife, mother, Christian, social worker and adopted daughter/sister of Singapore, were all elements of Ann’s identity which feature in her story of home.

Published work and readings

Published works

Arora, Mandakini (2022). Shaken and Slurred. What We Inherit: Growing Up Indian, edited by Shailey Hingorani and Varsha Sivaram, AWARE, pp. 171–177.
Arora, Mandakini (2019). World a Better Place for Having Her in It. The Straits Times, 15 Dec.
Arora, Mandakini (2017), ed., Jean Marshall’s Pahang Letters, 1953–54: Sidelights on Malaya during the Emergency, Ethos Books.

Conferences and events

Nov 2023. 'Don’t Be a Stranger Now! A Workshop on Workshopping', with the AWA Singapore Writers’ Group, SWF Classroom, Singapore Writers Festival.
Sep 2023. 'Watan: One Punjab, One Homeland', with Graciela Magnoni, Friends of the Museum Monday Morning Lecture, Asian Civilisations Museum.
Apr 2023. 'Stories that Matter', Oral History Workshop, Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE).

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