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A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore

SGD 20.90

Poetry • 76 pages
Published 29 May 2026

Poems by Samuel Lee

Last published in 2016, AFTERIMAGE is proud to restore to circulation Samuel Lee’s A Field Guide to Supermarkets as part of its RENDITIONS series, committed to preserving and reintroducing culturally defining works.

A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore is a 19th century reference book (on philology? art history? anthropology? nobody remembers) that fell into a tropical swamp and was rescued, then lovingly restored, by a nice lady in curlers.

Caked in organic matter too dense to scrub off, the pages of Samuel Lee's debut collection reveal visions and premonitions of a city filled with characters engaged in their own private sorrows, both minute and expansive. To read him is to be lost in the aisles of millennia.


🏆 Winner of the 2018 Singapore Literature Prize (Poetry in English)
📌 Enter discount code IDESERVEIT for orders over $50 to get free local shipping.

Poetry • 76 pages
Published 29 May 2026

Poems by Samuel Lee

Last published in 2016, AFTERIMAGE is proud to restore to circulation Samuel Lee’s A Field Guide to Supermarkets as part of its RENDITIONS series, committed to preserving and reintroducing culturally defining works.

A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore is a 19th century reference book (on philology? art history? anthropology? nobody remembers) that fell into a tropical swamp and was rescued, then lovingly restored, by a nice lady in curlers.

Caked in organic matter too dense to scrub off, the pages of Samuel Lee's debut collection reveal visions and premonitions of a city filled with characters engaged in their own private sorrows, both minute and expansive. To read him is to be lost in the aisles of millennia.


🏆 Winner of the 2018 Singapore Literature Prize (Poetry in English)
📌 Enter discount code IDESERVEIT for orders over $50 to get free local shipping.

ISBN 978-981-94-5523-2 (paperback)

First edition, 2026
First (re)published in 2026 by AFTERIMAGE
the publishing arm of Sing Lit Station Ltd
22 Dickson Road, #02-01, Singapore 209506, Singapore

  • Trained in art history and literature at the National University of Singapore, Yale University and the University of Chicago, Samuel Lee (b. 1992) is a writer who lives and works in Singapore.


    The manuscript of his first poetry collection, A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore (2016), was selected for the inaugural edition of Manuscript Bootcamp, and was subsequently published under the Ten Year Series imprint at Math Paper Press. The collection has since been awarded the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018, making him one of the youngest winners of the award to date.