Meet Gen.t
Author Amanda Lee Koe on feminism and her strict writing regime
It was a chance encounter of an Alfred Eisenstaedt monograph that gave Amanda Lee Koe the idea for her debut novel, Delayed Rays of a Star. In it was a 1928 picture by the German-born American photographer of three women who would become the main leads of Lee Koe’s story: German-american actress Marlene Dietrich, her idol as a teenager; Hollywood’s first Chinese-american movie star Anna May Wong; and German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, who was known for her Nazi propaganda films. “I was struck by the curious and banal fact that this was a photo taken before any of them became famous for the things they would soon go on to do.”
Lee Koe reconstructed their lives in her fictional masterpiece, which took four years to write. “When I’m working on a novel, I am prepared to have no human contact, eat the quickest and plainest meals, and sit down to write every day for 10 hours.” Since its release last year, the novel has garnered rave reviews from critics. The New York-based author, who won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2014 for her first short story collection, Ministry of Moral Panic, describes her early days as a writer and what her works reveal about herself.
When I was nine,
I started a hand-illustrated erotica magazine with my best friend. It even had a lingerie catalogue with a discount coupon at the back! We were in an all-girls school and I feel that we enjoyed more freedom to express ourselves. When we interacted among ourselves, we were less subjected to a gendered gaze and the accompanying tendency to shame.
Getting into the right headspace [to write] is quite unromantic and utilitarian.
It is like clean eating and strength training, but for the brain. I don’t know how irrelevant information, current affairs or pop music will distract or redirect my synapses, so I have to be careful about what I consume, even if it seems draconian or ridiculous.
All works of art
offer readers or viewers a glimpse into the inner workings of their creators. Slivers of myself inevitably exist in my stories; it just might not be where or what the reader imagines me to be. Also, a reader’s assumptions often reveal more about themselves than they do about me.
Women’s issues are not just women’s issues, but a wider human issue about equality.
When we talk about feminism, we can’t just talk about feel-good, aspirational feminism. Those of us who are more privileged must also be willing to consider, with respect and empathy, how we can be allies to women less privileged than ourselves, across divisions like class and race.