Slow-burn mystery novel

FIRST-TIME SINGAPORE NOVELIST Clarissa Goenawan clinched awards for her literary effort Rainbirds even before she finished it. The list of accolades is impressive - winner of the Bath Novel Award for unpublished or independently published novelists, finalist of the Dundee International Book Prize for debut novelists, short-listed for the SFWP Literary Award and the First Novel Prize. The book has been simultaneously published by Math Paper Press and Soho Press earlier this year.

Goenawan, of course, is one of the latest in a long list of Singapore women writers who are getting attention around the world. It includes Balli Kaur Jaswal (whose last novel Erotic Stories For Punjabi Widows was personally endorsed by Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon), Sharlene Teo (whose debut novel Ponti was described as "remarkable" by Ian McEwan), Ovidia Yu, Amanda Lee Koe, Vina Jie-Min Prasad, JY Yang, Rachel Heng, Christina Sng and a few others.

For a debut effort, Rainbirds feels assured in its tonal and narrative control of a slow-burn postmodern murder mystery that also delves into the bigger mysteries of the human heart.