4 Pax to Emptiness

4 Pax to Emptiness is an urban fantasy set in Singapore and China, in 1997 Four people from the tiny, wealthy, hypermodern nation of Singapore visit a remote village in the heart of China. It’s almost forty years since the end of a great famine, hardly known to the world outside China, but psychic echoes of that agony still reverberate through the cosmos. It is the Singaporeans’ task to try to heal that spiritual trauma. When the dead have been universally recognised and mourned for, the ’hungry ghosts’ will be at peace. The four are Peter, Katrina, Lumy and Alex: a cripple, a yuppie, a tai-tai and a businessman. On their quest they grow in self-understanding and wisdom, through the guidance of a good spirit named Bezalia. The story is an amusing closeup of Singaporeans as you’ve never seen them before: four insular people confronting cosmic issues, pragmatists on a spiritual quest. It is also a declaration that transcendence is within everyone’s reach.

Stella Kon’s best-known work is the monodrama Emily of Emerald Hill, which appeared in 1982 and has since been performed almost a thousand times in Singapore, Malaysia and elsewhere. She has also written poems, novels and other plays, and librettos for several musicals with composer Desmond Moey. In 2006 she helped to found the arts charity Musical Theatre Ltd, and was its chairperson for fourteen years. More about Stella can be found on her website, www.emilyofemeraldhill.com.sg.