About this ebook
Set in a Housing Development Board (HDB) estate, Gone Case is a coming-of-age story with many memorable moments. It won the Singapore Literature Prize Commendation Award in 1996 and was on the National Library Board's Read! Singapore 2011 list. It was adapted into a telemovie, produced and written by Lee Thean Jeen, directed by Ler Jiyuan in 2013.
Reader Reviews
"GONE CASE might be the most underrated work of fiction in Singaporean letters... I love this book: the Singlish; the spare, sometimes lyrical and always unpretentious language; the silences and what they imply. The novel’s episodic narrative even mirrors the TV serials of the era. I’m waiting for someone to make a proper film of it, and to render on screen, among many memorable images, the most poignant closing paragraph in Singaporean literature."
- Alvin Pang, author of City of Rain and Testing The Silence, from Goodreads
"A quietly disturbing novel on an HDB childhood in Singapore... An overlooked classic of local lit."
- Ng Yi-Sheng, author of last boy
"A thought-provoking bildungsroman that centrals itself around a twelve year old boy. Well written with varied use of figurative language and clearly described. Although the conversations are filled with vernacular terms, their usage makes the story extremely realistic. Excellent literature."
- Apollos Michio, Goodreads
About the author
Dave Chua was born in Malaysia and came to Singapore at the age of ten. He was educated at Dunman High School and Victoria Junior College and studied electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. His short story, "Father’s Gift", won a Singapore Press Holdings-National Arts Council Golden Point Award in 1995. His first novel, Gone Case, was given a Singapore Literature Prize Commendation Award in 1996 and was published the same year.
Chua was involved in the production of the Mediacorp sitcom, Achar!, and Peach Blossom Media’s animated children’s show, Tomato Twins. He writes for various publications such as The Straits Times, Big O, and The Edge and is the Vice Chairman of the Singapore Film Society. For his feature-length scripts, he was awarded a second prize at the Singapore Screenplay Awards in 2001. He has also completed a graphic novel adaptation of Gone Case with the artist Koh Hong Teng.
