e a m harris

Roaming the byways of literature

Archive for the tag “Bali”

A day of silence and its poetry

The last day of March was Nyepi Day for the Balinese. This means a day of silence – traffic stops, people stay at home and contemplate, all is quiet. I wish we had such a day here.

I couldn’t find poems about Nyepi, not in English anyway, but the website Bali for the World has what seems to be a translation of one, as well as a good write up of the deeper meanings of the day.

With flowers make yadnya,
Melasti with going to the beach.

It is the sort of ceremony that ought to have a rich literature. Perhaps some of my readers know of it, if so I’d be grateful if you could let me know.

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A discovery

It’s a week since I blogged. I certainly didn’t mean it to be so long, but the approaching hols have taken up so much time – not to mention putting the house back together after the builders left.

In amongst all this I’ve discovered a new fictional detective. Those who aren’t crime fiction aficionados won’t understand how great this is. A whole new series to seek out, read, compare, anticipate the next one. Marvellous.

The detective in question is Inspector Singh, based in Singapore but often sent by his superiors (who don’t much like having him around) to other countries in the region.

The book I’ve just read is A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul. It reads like a classic mystery but has a dramatic, thriller-like ending. The characters are memorable and I give it an ‘A’ for sense of place – now Bali is on my list of places to visit.

Inspector Singh’s creator is Shamini Flint, who lives in Singapore and is a lawyer by training. She’s already written several Singh books and looks young enough to write many more.

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