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Dakota 达哥打 by Wong Koi Tet, winner of the 2020 Singapore Literature Prize (Chinese Creative Non-fiction), meets readers in an English translation by Shanna Tan.

本地获奖作家黄凯德曾于 2018 年自费出版《达哥打》，2020年售罄顿成绝版，同年获颁 2020 年新加坡文学奖（⾮虚构写作）。今年 4 ⽉，城市书房同步出版《达哥打》英译本《Dakota》和新版《达哥打》，增添了 6 篇之前未收录的作品。

这是一本写给童年的乡愁之书，收录了 25 篇相关的散文和插画，即是个人情感的切面，也是集体记忆的展现，更是新加坡历史与土地变迁的见证。作者于 70 年代出生并且成长于达哥打，当这个国民⽼社区面临拆除与重建之际，希望借文字记录过往生活的点滴，以一种忧郁并且纯真的目光，细腻的回望关于地方和时间的故事。

Dakota is a sharp and whimsical work of literary creative non-fiction about coming-of-age in the 1970-80s in an iconic Singapore neighbourhood lost to urban renewal named Dakota Crescent. The deeply personal vignettes stitch together a mosaic of Singapore’s urban history. Humorous with a touch of melancholy, Wong Koi Tet’s evocative writing makes us reflect on place as an anchor of history, heritage and home.

“The Longkau’s Name” originally appeared in The Common.

“My Take on Pantheism”, “Twenty-One Grams” and “The Neighborhood Zoo” originally appeared in The Southern Review (Autumn 2022)

“An Instant,” “Because of Cod Liver Oil,” and “Zipping Up” originally appeared in The Georgia Review (Winter 2023)
“.....⻩凯德的散文⾥有小说的叙事技法，又有诗的跳跃思维和凝练的语言，不能用既定且刻板的阅读习惯来对待。那么，把“dakota”当小说来读无妨，纯粹品尝文字的诗质也可以，认定它是自叙体也没错。”
—流苏,《重构黄凯德的Dakota情感符号：达哥打的忧郁》
“我⼀直都把Dakota当成故乡，彷佛如此才能凸显时代的仓促。林有福政府兴建的民宅社区，因为⼀架失事的道格拉斯飞机而得名，红瓦砖墙的老建筑，鸽⼦碎花的游乐场，徐⻛吹叶的石灰地，我的童年在这里，有时热闹有时却又孤独的成形。现在的Dakota已经面目全⾮，⼀半改建成豪华公寓，另一半也快夷为平地，收集在这本书⾥的回忆和挂念，以及文字与插画，⽐怀旧还要耽溺和深沉一些，像是乡愁，不过却是快乐的，⾄少我还可以隐身字⾥行间，顺着书写笔直的线性，弯曲的逆时回返。”—黃凯德

黄凯德，目前为新加坡南大兼职讲师，主要教授创意写作的相关课程。自新加坡国大毕业，获南⼤硕士文凭，过去在报馆任职记者长达7年，并常为本地报章杂志撰写专栏。2015年担任南大中⽂系驻校作家，2020和2022年连续获得新加坡文学奖（小说类与非虚构类）。现已出版的作品包括：《跳死为止。》（文集，1995年）、《修订版》（诗集，1996年）、《代志》（散⽂与短篇小说集，2004年）、《又暗又光亮》（文化评论集，2015年）、《三四行》（半诗集，2016年）、《dakota》（地方散文书写，2018）、《豹变》（短篇小说集，2019）、《三四行2》（半诗集、2021）、《小东⻄》（散文摄影集，2021）、《如果爱情是一间⿁屋》（诗集，2023）。

Wong Koi Tet is an esteemed writer in the Singapore Chinese literary scene and has worn many hats in his writing career: a journalist with a local Chinese newspaper, an editor of literary magazine Afterwards in the 1990s, a drama scriptwriter for the local television channel and now, a part-time creative writing lecturer at Nanyang Technological University. Since 1995, he has published several books of prose, poetry, short stories, and cultural commentary. Dakota 达哥打 was first published in 2018 and clinched the 2020 Singapore Literature Prize in Chinese Creative Non-fiction.

“Dakota is about a place that has expired, about distant memories and forgotten things, but writing it enveloped me in a comforting intimacy.”—Wong Koi Tet

Shanna Tan is a Singaporean translator working from Korean, Chinese and Japanese into English. She translated the bestselling Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum (Bloomsbury, 2023) and is working on a few more projects at the moment.

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