Yu-Mei Balasingamchow Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Lonely Planet Travel Guide Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Yu-Mei Balasingamchow is an accomplished published author.

Her short fiction has won the Mississippi Review Fiction Prize, a Pushcart Prize Special Mention, and has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

She is the co-author of Singapore: A Biography, an editor for How We Live Now: Stories of Daily Living, and serves as a co-editor of In Transit: An Anthology from Singapore on Airports and Air Travel.

Yu-Mei attended Boston University, where she received her MFA in creative writing. Her writing over the years has been achieved thanks in part to support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Ucross Foundation, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Sewanee Writers Conference, the Ragdale Foundation and Vermont Studio Center, and by the National Arts Council and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

The author is originally from Singapore but today resides in Boston. In addition to writing, she serves as an editor at Gaudy Boy, an independent press that brings literature by authors of Asian heritage to an American audience. She also teaches at GrubStreet.

Singapore: A Biography is a 2009 book by Mark Ravinder Frost and Yu-Mei Balasingamchow. For those who love to learn more about places and find out more about history and the culture of various geographic locales, this is a perfect selection.

It was the winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title in 2010. It also was the winner of the 2010 Asia Pacific Publishers Association Gold Medal. Whether you know a little about Singapore or just would like to find out more, this biography takes the reader there to this place and tells the story of this land.

The biography shows readers more about the important moments in the past of the island as they have been capture through personal accounts of different people who went through them themselves. You’ll her about the violent unrest that was rustling on the streets of the city, its corridors of power, the high life of its elites, and the struggles that regular people go through every day here in order to survive.

This drama goes further back than one might think as Yu-Mei takes the reader back through seven centuries’ worth of history. Full of details and information, instead of telling the story of a person this book tells the story of Singapore in ways that are equal parts scholarly and imaginative. If you want to read a nonfiction book that is as engaging as it is interesting, this is likely the book for you. Check out Singapore: A Biography by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow and allow yourself to be transported through time and place!

Names Have Been Changed is a 2026 book by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow. It was released by Tiny Reparations Books. Have you been on the lookout for something new to read but haven’t been sure which novel you ought to add to your list? You may be in the right place.

The girl who is going by the name Ophir has been on the run all around the world and now it’s coming up on a decade. Now she’s spilling it all, going in a podcast and coming clean to the world about the life that she has lived as a fugitive. Through the process she has been able to earn many fans and charm various people even as she is putting her freedom on the line.

Ophir’s story starts in Singapore. There a small crime gets bigger than ever and it ends up estranging her from her home and her family. She has not much to lose so she turns to a world of false identities and completely fake passports, which is slightly helped along thanks to the fact that she is mixed-race. She makes her way all over the world, being spotted anywhere from a hostess bar with a Paris theme in Tokyo to a busy Chinese restaurant in London or a mountain town in Colorado.

She is broadcasting from a location that has yet to be disclosed. As such, she is at times tough, funny, and vulnerable. She’s able to work her magic on listeners with a recounting of the crimes that she has committed but also with things that are deeply personal to her, such as her regrets and her secrets.

She continues to go to different continents and move across class lines. As she does, she has to deal with the shock that comes with constantly having to pick up and relocate with no real home in the world as well as what happens when she has to take a real look at who she is. She also realizes that even though she has been away for so long, she has a deep yearning for home.

Ophir does her best to try and find what comfort she can in the world. She looks for it in different lovers and even luxury goods (that of course she did not come by in an honest fashion), but it doesn’t achieve the full effect that she was hoping for. Even though she doesn’t want to, Ophir ends up attracting trouble towards her. Soon she is dealing with a high stakes choice that could end up altering her destiny forever.

Sometimes the paths that we end up taking so that we can find ourselves and build a home are very complicated. Stylish and interesting, full of twists, it’s a story that readers won’t want to miss. Check out Names Have Been Changed by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow to follow along with everything that happens and to support this author in her fictional debut!