Conversation with Malcom Seah
Malcom Seah is a Singapore-based writer with a keen eye for the uncanny and a deep love for stories that blur the line between the real and the surreal. Currently pursuing a BSc in Economics, Malcom balances the analytical with the imaginative, crafting narratives that reflect both personal truths and the strange wonder of the world around us.
In 2023, he was longlisted for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize, marking him as a promising new voice in Singaporean literature. Swimming Lessons is his debut novel — a haunting and heartfelt coming-of-age story that weaves memory, myth, and mystery into a singular tapestry.
When he’s not writing, Malcom can be found reading speculative fiction, wandering through quiet cityscapes at night, or collecting fragments of conversation and observation for future stories. He believes that the supernatural isn’t always about ghosts — sometimes, it’s just about the parts of ourselves we haven’t fully come to understand.
1. First off, congrats on your debut! Swimming Lessons is such a striking title—simple but loaded. What does it mean to you, especially in the context of Michelle’s story?
Malcom: Thank you so much! It’s been a whirlwind of a journey thus far. Honestly, the inspiration behind the title is more simplistic than people might think. I wanted something relevant yet ambiguous, light yet encompassing. It’s the perfect title – with water, there’s always a sense of duality. Calmness, and destruction. Peace, and turbulence. That’s what Michelle’s story is. It’s fluid, formless and unpredictable, just like her. But you’d have to read the book to really discover why the novel is christened Swimming Lessons, so no spoilers yet!
2. Michelle’s journey feels incredibly personal and raw. What drew you to write from the perspective of a younger sibling navigating grief, memory, and this strange, shifting reality? Was there a moment that sparked it all?
Malcom: I am actually the youngest sibling in a trio and Swimming Lessons is a lot more autobiographical than people might think. There’s a particular permutation of love between siblings – fierce, unspoken, loyal and uneven. It’s not always tidy, it’s not always fair. But it runs deep, like an undertow. It’s beautiful because it’s layered. I wanted to capture that texture - the kind of love that’s as undying as it is turbulent. Swimming Lessons was also a meditation on my experiences bedside with my mother, who was comatose for months owing to a subarachnoid brain haemorrhage. That’s why the hospital scenes have such a visceral sheen to them. I lived it, even before I wrote it.
3. There’s this fascinating mix of the everyday and the supernatural in your novel—like a haunted coming-of-age story. What made you want to blend myth, mystery, and emotional realism?
Malcom: I think everyone would agree with me in saying that growing up is in equal parts letting go of fantasies and a fantasy in itself. Maturation is always a process that’s a little magical and unexplainable. There are some things that can only be expressed through the supernatural. Perhaps it’s because of my upbringing in Southeast Asia (we are enthralled by spirits and myths) that this just seemed like a natural device for the story to incorporate. That’s what I’m attempting to capture – the essence of growing up, complete with all of the disorientation, turmoil and mystery. Maybe that’s why this feels a little bit like a ‘rojak’ of genres.
Rojak: a messy Singaporean salad dish, used colloquially to denote ‘an eclectic mix’ in slang.
4. Captain Ishaan and Constable Michael are such unique characters—very different, yet somehow dealing with the same ghosts. How did their stories come together for you?
Malcom: Truth be told, I never really knew how the arcs of the three characters would coincide or conclude when I was writing the novel. Strangely enough, Swimming Lessons was always going to be Michelle’s story. Michael and Ishaan both came pretty late in the process. As I developed the narrative, I realised that I had to tell their stories too - the beautiful, the sorrowful and the downright horrible. The colourful characters of Swimming Lessons all grapple with people that they’ve lost, are losing, or will lose. What entangles them together is a common human emotion: loss, that offers itself in many different variations. Michael and Ishaan both felt like the perfect foils for Michelle, and the perfect mirrors to reflect the deeper story that I was trying to illustrate.
5. You set the story in Singapore, and it’s not just a backdrop—it feels alive in the book. What were you most excited to show about Singapore through this story?
Malcom: I’d say painting my own rendition of Singapore. A lot of the feedback that I’ve heard surrounding Swimming Lessons has been on how the setting feels hyper-local, yet hyper-foreign. That’s by design. I don’t feel like a true-blue Singaporean, despite being born and bred here my whole life. There’s a certain foreignness that makes Singapore a little alien and dynamic in the novel. The city often gets flattened into skyline shots or nostalgic food montages. But it’s so much stranger and more tender than that. What about the in-between, liminal spaces? Swimming Lessons is ultimately just an extension of my and many people’s perception of the real Singapore. Metropolitan, isolating, with a pinkish underbelly of quiet chaos.
6. The quote from your synopsis really stuck with me: “Reality is a luxury. The Truth is never linear.” That hits deep. How does that idea shape the way you approached writing this book?
Malcom: That is a wonderful question. I really wanted to explore the malleability of time and challenge myself to incorporate different timelines and perspectives simultaneously. Of course, it did complicate things a lot, particularly with regards to the timeline and the line breaks (I understand that the time shifts do take a while to get used to as they are rather ambiguous). I wanted to dispute our perception of time, that it is linear, that is sequential, that it is one-dimensional. That’s why the narrative loves to flirt with frequent back-and-forth, especially in moments of grief and introspection.
7. You’re currently studying economics—and you’re 23! What pushed you to take the leap into writing a novel, and how did you juggle school, life, and this book?
Malcom: I’m sure all authors would agree with me in saying that before they were writers, they were first vicious readers. I’ve written tons of unfinished manuscripts along the years, but never really had anything I could truly claim as mine until Swimming Lessons. Looking back on it, I’ve been writing secretly for five years already. It was always my little private obsession, something that I never wanted to share with the world. When I enrolled into university, it took a backseat for a while. I took some time off to really recalibrate myself after a horrific past two years, and eventually I settled back into telling stories with a renewed perspective. At this point, it’s something that just feels natural. Writing is how I make sense of the world around me, more than spreadsheets, graphs and mathematical models. We all have 24 hours in a day, and I think that it’s quite ample for me to do bits and pieces of everything that I love.
8. Let’s talk writing process. Was this something you wrote in long, obsessive stretches, or were you sneaking in paragraphs between classes and walks with your dogs?
Malcom: I’m not much of a planner myself, so it always came at sporadic bursts. Some days, I’d sit down and pen thousands of words, only to delete most of them by the next day. I’ll write like I am possessed. Other times, I’d scribble simple sentences or words in my Notes application. It could be a singular word like ‘impounded’ or little sentences like ‘how’s the gallery?’. If you looked through my mobile, you’d think I was a madman. When I go back to tinkering with the manuscript, I’d look at what I’ve written and recall where I was, what I was pondering and what my eyes were gazing at. I typically write only when I am unbothered, so unfortunately a lot of the paragraphs were first constructed during ungodly hours of the night.
9. Were there any books, films, or even personal experiences that really influenced Swimming Lessons—either in theme, tone, or structure?
Malcom: Definitely. James Baldwin’s extraordinary Giovanni’s room taught me that prose could bleed and weep simultaneously. Kazuo Ishiguro’s magical Never Let Me Go showed me that sensitivity was an art taught and honed. I also appreciate the maverick R.F. Kuang’s brilliant, cutthroat explorations into the mythical. As you can tell, my personal library displays no obvious pattern of what genres I adore. Because I love everything. There’s a lot of my own journey into adulthood in this novel too, and Swimming Lessons is rooted heavily in my own introspection. I often say that writing this felt like therapy. It was so incredibly cathartic, and Michelle taught me more about myself than anyone ever did.
10. Last one—what do you hope readers feel when they close the book? Is there one thought or emotion you’d want to leave lingering with them?
Malcom: I hope that they feel peace, and quiet. Not the quiet that comes with silence, but the quiet that arrives after a good cry. I hope my readers carry Michelle along with them; not as a character, but as a feeling. I wouldn’t want everyone to make the mistake of taking the people they have for granted before an untimely mishap. Call your sister at 2 in the morning. Hug the people close to you tightly. Remember to love harder and deeper, and without restraint.