Odeon: An Ode

by Theophilus Kwek

Directly across from the Raffles Hotel Arcade was once a movie theatre that, for an evening at a time, whisked an entire generation away from the grimy streets of 1960s Singapore. In these cinematic pages, we delve into the many lives of 331 North Bridge Road: as rubber factory, postwar cabaret, trade union headquarters and more, tracing the stories of two individuals as they thread through this unlikely window between worlds. Will the old building give up its secrets? Part memoir, part historical reimagination, Odeon examines what it takes to build a life—or a nation—at the crossroads of fate.

108 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 2026

About the author

Theophilus Kwek has published three poetry collections, Giving Ground (2016), They Speak Only Our Mother Tongue (2011) and Circle Line (2013), which was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize. He is a winner of the Jane Martin Prize and the Martin Starkie Prize, and his poems have appeared in The London Magazine, The Interpreter’s House, the Quarterly Literary Review of Singapore, and various anthologies. He studies History and Politics at Merton College, Oxford, and is currently President of the Oxford University Poetry Society, as well as Content Advisor to the Oxford Culture Review.