is a writer, editor and arts organiser from Singapore. Shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize and nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award, he is the author of two novels, a novella and the bestselling short story collection Be Your Own Bae (2024). He co-founded the literary charity Sing Lit Station, where he presently serves as the managing editor of its publishing arm AFTERIMAGE.
His writing has appeared in periodicals and publications such as the Berlin Quarterly, the Sewanee Review, The Straits Times and The Epigram Books Collection of Best New Singapore Short Stories anthology series. His first novel, Kappa Quartet (2016), was selected by The Business Times as one of the best novels of the year, and was described by QLRS as “[breaking] new ground in Singaporean writing… an immensely sympathetic and humane exploration of our existential condition.”
Being your best, most authentic self can be a somewhat grievous process: the winner of a beauty pageant bursts into flames the moment she is crowned; a man enters a dream and re-encounters a former lover in Pyongyang, North Korea; a gaggle of hipsters catches news of a secret Bon Iver concert playing somewhere on Dempsey Hill, only to risk the survival of their friendship.
Daryl Qilin Yam’s long-awaited (and bestselling!!) first collection of short fiction combines magical realism, speculative autobiography and ekphrasis to weave illusory figures out of gung-ho millennials and the well-meaning mentor figures who fail them, and unveils the strange quests queer folk must embark on in order to keep a hold on love. Get your copy today from Epigram Bookshop, Kinokuniya, or as an e-book.
“Daryl Qilin Yam masterfully traces quiet heartbreaks, unseen intimacies and urgent longings—the moments of inner epiphany that change everything. Be Your Own Bae is an expansive collection of stories charged with the pulse of the millennial generation. It is as brave and electrifying as a hand held open in the dark to the possibility of touch. It will arrest your heart.”
“Be Your Own Bae is an intimate portrayal of connections formed between friends, lovers and strangers, and the stories we tell in order to find meaning. Reminiscent of Rachel Cusk’s Outline Trilogy but distinct in its observations of millennial life in Singapore, reading BYOB is like eavesdropping on the conversations of strangers and coming away with a richer understanding of ourselves.”
“The short story is my favourite place to meet [Daryl’s] voice... A reprieve in a city founded on panic, outrage and imagined lack, this book about well-travelled protagonists staggering into the bliss of love, before slipping back out again, is more than an affectionate reminder of the beauty and breathlessness of all our intangible connections.”
“There’s no better writer than Daryl Qilin Yam to make you feel feelings that don’t even have names… I finished this collection of loosely-intertwined stories within 24 hours of turning the first page. [...] Every line is poetry, man.”
“Daryl’s stories are a paradox. Breathtakingly experimental in form, but refusing melodrama and flourish, they’re like finely crafted bulbs of clear glass, capturing a queer-inclusive transnational Asian everyday with all their tensions and heartbreaks.”
“Yam’s liquid prose carries us, dreamlike, through these stories. We flow through them and somehow, they flow through us as well. The physical places his characters inhabit are as vivid as the rich inner worlds that they navigate. Their conversations sparkle with words spoken, words unspoken and words unspeakable.”
✺ APPEARANCES
For private, corporate, media or school-based engagements featuring the author such as workshops, readings, talks and interviews, get in touch here.