Simon Tay is an award-winning writer. His latest book is ENIGMAS, a memoir that pays homage to his father, Tay Seow Huah, Singapore's Pioneer Spy Chief. Simon Lim speaks to Simon Tay to find out more about this memoir. This interview was first heard on the radio show NIGHTS WITH SIMON on ONE FM 91.3, a station of SPH Media in Singapore.

ABOUT THE BOOK
ENIGMAS: Tay Seow Huah, My Father, Singapore’s Pioneer Spy Chief
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Publisher: Landmark Books

“Unfortunately, some important people... such as Tay Seow Huah, had died before interviewers could get to them.” (Lee Kuan Yew on the need to record oral history from key figures in Singapore).
In 1965, Singapore is newly independent. Tay Seow Huah is appointed Director of the secretive Special Branch. Over the tumultuous first decade, he is key in ensuring the country’s stability, shaping strategies and initiating new institutions for intelligence and security. He reports directly to PM Lee.
This memoir reveals the personal roots of Singapore’s pioneer spy chief set in the traumas of WWII, the Emergency in Malaya, and Singapore’s pre-independence political tumult.
This book also tracks Tay Seow Huah’s own challenges: early retirement and his sudden death at 47. It then offers a daring, speculative and emotional conversation that juxtaposes those early years of Singapore with so much that has happened since.

ABOUT SIMON TAY
Simon Tay is a former Nominated Member of Parliament, chair of a major statutory board, and continues to serve as an ambassador for Singapore.
He is concurrently chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Law and senior consultant with a major Singaporean law firm.
His awards for fiction and poetry include the Singapore Literature Prize and the 2019 Southeast Asia Write Award.

OTHER WORKS BY SIMON TAY
Middle and First Info
City of Small Blessings Info
Alien Asian: A Singaporean in America Info
Stand Alone Info

ONE FM 91.3
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SIMON LIM
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