Daryl Qilin Yam

Daryl Qilin Yam (, born 1991) is a Singaporean writer, editor and arts organiser, notable for the transnational themes in his fiction.

He is a co-founder of the literary organisation Sing Lit Station and also serves as the managing editor of the non-profit poetry press, Afterimage.

Early life and education

As a child, Yam was an avid reader of the novels of Enid Blyton, as well as fantasy series such as Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, His Dark Materials and the Bartimaeus Sequence. In his teenage years, he was influenced by Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, as well as the works of Margaret Atwood, Haruki Murakami, Michael Cunningham and David Mitchell.

He began writing at the age of 17, and chose to take the craft more seriously from the age of 20,

Career

Yam conceived his first novel, Kappa Quartet, while taking a shower. It was described by The Business Times as one of the best new books of 2016.

In 2016, Yam co-founded the literary organisation Sing Lit Station with fellow authors Joshua Ip and Jon Gresham.

His novella Shantih Shantih Shantih, published in 2021, describes a freak episode of snowfall in Singapore, witnessed by twelve individuals. The stories could be read out of order, and was compared to Jim Jarmusch’s Night on Earth film and TS Eliot’s “The Waste Land” poem.

His second novel, Lovelier, Lonelier, published in 2024, follows the lives of four friends following the passing of the Comet Hyakutake in 1996. The usage of story within a story literary device as well as the non-existent usage of quotation marks for conversation of the embedded book were noted as "genre-defying stylistic choices". It was longlisted for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award.

In 2024, Sing Lit Station launched Afterimage, a non-profit publishing press that is focused on poetry and Yam has been serving as its managing editor.

Personal life He identifies as a queer writer.