“It’s a double pleasure to read this… First, there’s the joy of gleaning nuggets of knowledge about Singapore and the printed word hitherto unknown; and second, there’s the childlike wonder of never knowing what Stephen Black has in store for us on the next page.”

~ Ng Yi-Sheng
recipient of the Singapore Literature Prize

Full of grief, Singaporean history, printing press lore and sweet memories of love, to read Contact With Shadow is to experience loss– and redemption.
The story: a Cambridge research student comes to Singapore to learn about the island’s pre-Linotype printing history. His wife, an amateur chef, is killed by lightning. Overwhelmed with a sense of loss, he struggles to write his thesis. More often than not, his words are about the woman he loved. A bureaucratic “assistant” enters the picture, as does a Hollywood producer…
Contact With Shadow is an experience, not just a reading experience.