Somerset Maugham Scandalises 1920s Singapore

BiblioAsia+

Sharing the literary landscape with contemporaries like D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) travelled to Singapore in 1921. Though he was already well-known as a writer then, it was his stay in Singapore that inspired some of his most celebrated short stories. Crime fiction writer Tracey Morton tells us how Singapore inspired his works, why they remain relevant, and whether the Menendez brothers deserve their sentence.

Tracey A. Morton is a Singapore-based Irish/Australian writer and a Cambridge graduate. She is co-host of the podcast, The Asian Bookshelf, and author of the upcoming novel, The Coffee Shop Masquerade. In 2020, she was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize for her short work, “Faded Ink”, and the Virginia Prize for Fiction for The Queen, The Soldier and The Girl. Her novel, Someone Is Coming, based on plantation murders in Malaya in the 1900s, was published by Monsoon Books in 2022 and has been optioned for television.

What Tracey Talked About

• 02:29 – Who Somerset Maugham was
• 04:11 – Why Maugham came to Singapore?
• 06:46 – Which Maugham’s stories had the most impact
• 07:38 – Maugham’s writing style
• 10:03 – How Maugham’s work would be received today
• 10:45 – The influence Asia had on Maugham and his stories
• 13:26 – How Tracey became interested in Maugham’s life and works
• 16:28 – What inspired her to write stories about Maugham
• 18:07 – Tracey’s journey into crime fiction writing and historical research
• 22:18 – How the idea for Someone Is Coming came about
• 26:23 – Tracey’s new book The Coffee Shop Masquerade
• 28:45 – What the Singapore literary scene lacks
• 35:07 – Crime writing is…

Transcript and Resources

• Read the transcript: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/podcast/somerset-maugham-scandalises-1920s-singapore-tracey-morton/transcript/
• Check out the BiblioAsia article "W. Somerset Maugham: Secrets from the Outstations": https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/vol-20/issue-4/jan-mar-2025/william-somerset-maugham-secrets/

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This episode of BiblioAsia+ was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by Doppler Soundlab. The background music "Di Tanjong Katong" was composed by Osman Ahmad and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Tracey for coming on the show.

BiblioAsia+ is a podcast about Singapore history by the National Library of Singapore.