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Mind the Gap
-- Winner of the 2026 Epigram Books Fiction Prize --
Nora grows up believing in neat routes to success until life forces her off the map.
Nora does everything right. From school debates to political reporting, she grows up believing in merit, hard work and the promise of success. But over the years, careers stall, loyalties fracture and the certainties she once trusted begin to unravel. As Singapore changes, Nora begins to question the cost of keeping up with a society obsessed with forward motion.
A novel about ambition, disillusionment and the quiet compromises people make in order to belong.
Nora grows up believing in neat routes to success until life forces her off the map.
Nora does everything right. From school debates to political reporting, she grows up believing in merit, hard work and the promise of success. But over the years, careers stall, loyalties fracture and the certainties she once trusted begin to unravel. As Singapore changes, Nora begins to question the cost of keeping up with a society obsessed with forward motion.
A novel about ambition, disillusionment and the quiet compromises people make in order to belong.
325 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 23, 2026
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October 2, 2026Singapura adalah negara maju dengan tata kelola terbaik di dunia serta dikagumi karena kebijakan publiknya yang efisien dan berorientasi jangka panjang. Enam puluh tahun setelah kemerdekaannya, Singapura berhasil menjadi salah satu negara dengan PDB per kapita tertinggi di dunia.
Namun, apakah angka-angka ideal tersebut menggambarkan realita yang dihadapi warganya setiap hari? Ini lah yang diangkat oleh Ratna Damayanti Taha dalam 'Mind The Gap', novel yang menjadi Epigram Books Fiction 2026. Buku ini mengikuti kehidupan karakter utamanya, Nora Shariff, seorang perempuan Muslim Melayu Singapura sejak masa sekolahnya pada tahun 1990. Nora adalah murid yang cerdas, kritis, dengan rasa percaya diri yang tinggi. Sejak masa sekolah Nora memperhatikan bagaimana etnis Melayu mengalami perlakuan yang berbeda dan diskriminasi tidak langsung atas nama sistem berlandaskan meritokrasi.
Dalam kurun waktu 30 tahun, seiring dengan kemajuan Singapura, kita menyaksikan begitu banyak dilema dalam hidup Nora yang tak lepas dari sistem, kebijakan publik, dan ekspektasi masyarakat. Mulai dari pemilihan jurusan yang begitu mendewakan STEM, pemilhan karir dan bagaimana masyarakat mendefinisikan 'sukses', hingga dilema menjadi ibu yang dipaksa memilih antara karir atau keluarga karena biaya perawatan anak yang tidak masuk akal. Menariknya, di buku 'Mind the Gap', kita disuguhkan cerita di balik politik dan kebijakan Singapura yang pragmatis dan mengedepankan 'greater good' dan harmoni. Namun pertanyaannya: "at what cost?" Apa yang harus dibayar, dan siapa yang menanggungnya paling besar?
Menurut saya, buku ini bagus banget dan memberi perspektif yang tidak banyak terdengar tentang makna 'kemajuan'. Buku ini juga memberi gambaran tentang sulitnya menjadi minoritas yang ingin membawa perubahan yang mengusung keadilan karena sangat mudah dipersepsikan sebagai pencilan yang akan mengganggu stabilitas sebuah sistem.
Namun demikian, memang karena terlalu banyaknya isu yang ingin disampaikan, buku ini jadi terasa begitu padat. Hal yang wajar ketika 300-an halaman harus merangkum 30 tahun kehidupan seseorang. Pada akhirnya memang tidak ada plot dan klimaks tertentu, karena setiap fase hidup, beda pula 'gong'-nya. Sebagai ibu-ibu urban yang sejak kecil tinggal di Jakarta, saya merasa relate dengan karakter Nora, walau pada kenyataannya di Indonesia, etnis Melayu Muslim berhijab adalah mayoritas.
Recommended sekali untuk penggemar maupun yang penasaran dengan fiksi Asia Tenggara!
Namun, apakah angka-angka ideal tersebut menggambarkan realita yang dihadapi warganya setiap hari? Ini lah yang diangkat oleh Ratna Damayanti Taha dalam 'Mind The Gap', novel yang menjadi Epigram Books Fiction 2026. Buku ini mengikuti kehidupan karakter utamanya, Nora Shariff, seorang perempuan Muslim Melayu Singapura sejak masa sekolahnya pada tahun 1990. Nora adalah murid yang cerdas, kritis, dengan rasa percaya diri yang tinggi. Sejak masa sekolah Nora memperhatikan bagaimana etnis Melayu mengalami perlakuan yang berbeda dan diskriminasi tidak langsung atas nama sistem berlandaskan meritokrasi.
Dalam kurun waktu 30 tahun, seiring dengan kemajuan Singapura, kita menyaksikan begitu banyak dilema dalam hidup Nora yang tak lepas dari sistem, kebijakan publik, dan ekspektasi masyarakat. Mulai dari pemilihan jurusan yang begitu mendewakan STEM, pemilhan karir dan bagaimana masyarakat mendefinisikan 'sukses', hingga dilema menjadi ibu yang dipaksa memilih antara karir atau keluarga karena biaya perawatan anak yang tidak masuk akal. Menariknya, di buku 'Mind the Gap', kita disuguhkan cerita di balik politik dan kebijakan Singapura yang pragmatis dan mengedepankan 'greater good' dan harmoni. Namun pertanyaannya: "at what cost?" Apa yang harus dibayar, dan siapa yang menanggungnya paling besar?
"Why do we call it integration when it's only one side adapting?"
Menurut saya, buku ini bagus banget dan memberi perspektif yang tidak banyak terdengar tentang makna 'kemajuan'. Buku ini juga memberi gambaran tentang sulitnya menjadi minoritas yang ingin membawa perubahan yang mengusung keadilan karena sangat mudah dipersepsikan sebagai pencilan yang akan mengganggu stabilitas sebuah sistem.
Namun demikian, memang karena terlalu banyaknya isu yang ingin disampaikan, buku ini jadi terasa begitu padat. Hal yang wajar ketika 300-an halaman harus merangkum 30 tahun kehidupan seseorang. Pada akhirnya memang tidak ada plot dan klimaks tertentu, karena setiap fase hidup, beda pula 'gong'-nya. Sebagai ibu-ibu urban yang sejak kecil tinggal di Jakarta, saya merasa relate dengan karakter Nora, walau pada kenyataannya di Indonesia, etnis Melayu Muslim berhijab adalah mayoritas.
Recommended sekali untuk penggemar maupun yang penasaran dengan fiksi Asia Tenggara!
September 27, 2026
3.6/ 5
Being Malay in Singapore is very nuanced; we aren't technically outrightly excluded but neither do we wholly feel comfortable existing within Singaporean society. This is especially true if you are Malay and have existed in !
academic spaces.
Mind The Gap is a novel exploring how Singaporean society shapes a young Malay girl, Nora, as she navigates its education system, its expectations of her as a woman, a minority, and as someone with an education, and manages her bold ideas. It's not a book about big changes, but does challenge those of the same community to think about their experiences, their place, and their responsibility within the community.
The story told in parallel to the MRT (train system) development over time, makes for an interesting reading experience; in that Nora changes together with the infrastructure of the country. The journey in which Nora chooses for herself living in Singapore, ultimately echoes how real change in society takes much planning and ideation...only to come at a standstill due to pushback or hurdles suddenly put in place. The changing of the narrative or the forced silence feels all too familiar (but what do i know im just some person on the internet).
Having said that though, I do feel like the book did have some pacing issues particularly with emotional beats feeling glazed over and its characters (including Nora) not quite fully fleshed out. I do however note that this is intended to neither be entirely character or plot driven, and is more a commentary on society as a whole or society thus far. The ending I can see some people having a problem with due to its lack of a true resolution but I again see that this is the intention; to inspire hope, change and further discussion.
Overall an interesting read that really does capture the bits about being Malay Singaporean. I would highly recommend if you yourself are Malay Singaporean because we each have our own stories growing up here. It is a call to action of sorts, and would recommend for those interested in its premise and the purported "gaps" with being born a minority.
Being Malay in Singapore is very nuanced; we aren't technically outrightly excluded but neither do we wholly feel comfortable existing within Singaporean society. This is especially true if you are Malay and have existed in !
academic spaces.
Mind The Gap is a novel exploring how Singaporean society shapes a young Malay girl, Nora, as she navigates its education system, its expectations of her as a woman, a minority, and as someone with an education, and manages her bold ideas. It's not a book about big changes, but does challenge those of the same community to think about their experiences, their place, and their responsibility within the community.
The story told in parallel to the MRT (train system) development over time, makes for an interesting reading experience; in that Nora changes together with the infrastructure of the country. The journey in which Nora chooses for herself living in Singapore, ultimately echoes how real change in society takes much planning and ideation...only to come at a standstill due to pushback or hurdles suddenly put in place. The changing of the narrative or the forced silence feels all too familiar (but what do i know im just some person on the internet).
Having said that though, I do feel like the book did have some pacing issues particularly with emotional beats feeling glazed over and its characters (including Nora) not quite fully fleshed out. I do however note that this is intended to neither be entirely character or plot driven, and is more a commentary on society as a whole or society thus far. The ending I can see some people having a problem with due to its lack of a true resolution but I again see that this is the intention; to inspire hope, change and further discussion.
Overall an interesting read that really does capture the bits about being Malay Singaporean. I would highly recommend if you yourself are Malay Singaporean because we each have our own stories growing up here. It is a call to action of sorts, and would recommend for those interested in its premise and the purported "gaps" with being born a minority.
October 1, 2026
2/5
Good concept. Ok plot. My issue is with the writing.
Excessive amounts of the following were observed:
- Triplets
- “Quiet”/“silent” (but mostly “quiet”)
- Negative parallelisms
Also spotted a typo (“achored”) and a misused semicolon joining an independent and dependent clause (“We’re supposed to thank voters for participating; not tell them they should reflect on their choice.”)
Either this book was written (partially) using AI, or it’s the stuff that AI is trained on. I desperately want to believe that it’s the latter. The strongest reason I have to believe that it wasn’t 100% AI is the description of Anderson Road RGS. But that doesn’t rule out the possibility that it was used.
That said, I enjoyed the conflict between Nora and Indra. Very smart choice of careers for each character. I appreciated that the book acknowledged the core of the relationship was meant to be while maintaining that the two characters had different ideals and external circumstances pulling them in different directions.
Good concept. Ok plot. My issue is with the writing.
Excessive amounts of the following were observed:
- Triplets
- “Quiet”/“silent” (but mostly “quiet”)
- Negative parallelisms
Also spotted a typo (“achored”) and a misused semicolon joining an independent and dependent clause (“We’re supposed to thank voters for participating; not tell them they should reflect on their choice.”)
Either this book was written (partially) using AI, or it’s the stuff that AI is trained on. I desperately want to believe that it’s the latter. The strongest reason I have to believe that it wasn’t 100% AI is the description of Anderson Road RGS. But that doesn’t rule out the possibility that it was used.
That said, I enjoyed the conflict between Nora and Indra. Very smart choice of careers for each character. I appreciated that the book acknowledged the core of the relationship was meant to be while maintaining that the two characters had different ideals and external circumstances pulling them in different directions.
October 19, 2026
As I was reading this, I was thinking about representation and whether saying a book has 'good representation' is really the compliment it's meant to be. It's a little meta the way Nora, the Malay muslim main character, is expected all her life by everybody around her to represent her community in this way or that way, and when the reader pans out and sees the reviews about this book, it's all about how it gives voice to the experiences of the marginalised, etc. And it is, for sure, no doubt, but there is so much more in this book to enjoy and appreciate. Don't read it just to check a diversity box. For me personally I don't think any one book or author should be expected to shoulder the responsibility of speaking for everybody with the same race or religion; books written by Chinese SGeans don't get fetishised in the same way or judged by the same standard. Ironically, the story itself also points to the idea that being exceptional, being outside what is considered the norm, even if supposedly a good thing, may not actually be. I would describe it as part-Bildungsroman, part-political thriller (hear me out), part love story where the relationship matures over decades.
Nora from the get-go is already exceptional, what we could call a model minority, somebody who rose from humble origins to attend prestigious institutions, marry somebody of the same educational pedigree, obtain a respectable white collar job, and be granted opportunities for visibility and outreach. The political operates on two levels in Nora's life, the first being pageantry she finds her family embroiled in when Indra has the (mis)fortune of being handpicked for leadership, and the second being the arena of daily life where she cannot avoid microaggressions or being told what kind of Malay she is, isn't, or should be, be it in school, the workplace, the home, or social settings. I hesitate to say that this is a political book, because it is, but mostly in the sense that Nora cannot simply exist as herself without being implicated by her Otherness in Singapore, her homeland but also not quite. There is a sense that whatever she does, whether or not she succeeds, she is proving someone right.
As a child, Nora begins to see the flaws in the way children are taught to think along binaries. Even in an elite school, in an intellectual CCA, students and teachers alike struggle to talk about real life people in real life jobs; reality is irrelevant but it should not be. She also realises that adults are not exempt from injustice. Miss Wee may be the teacher and judge of the class's debate competition but ultimately she has to compromise her principles to comply with direct orders from her superiors--growing up and being employed does not mean freedom but a different kind of entrapment. When Nora herself grows up and interns at a local newspaper, constantly she is made to negotiate with her own principles and journalistic integrity. If it were all bad, the choice would be simple, but like in real life, there is good too, good worth staying for, possibly. I loved this part most because we witness her growth from underdog to begrudgingly respected journalistic vigilante, taking down durian cartels and tackling racist policies. Her transition into motherhood will strike a chord with many, with the candid discussions of how to afford childcare, the lack of good options, the struggle even to find a place with availability, not to mention the question of who to shoulder the burden after hours if both parents are currently working full-time, which in this country translates to 9 to 10-hour work days. The way her SAHM duties strain her personal identity and marriage is realistically painful. One can't help but root for her, this woman who used to be a girl with big dreams.
More to come after discussing with others! (Maybe...)
Nora from the get-go is already exceptional, what we could call a model minority, somebody who rose from humble origins to attend prestigious institutions, marry somebody of the same educational pedigree, obtain a respectable white collar job, and be granted opportunities for visibility and outreach. The political operates on two levels in Nora's life, the first being pageantry she finds her family embroiled in when Indra has the (mis)fortune of being handpicked for leadership, and the second being the arena of daily life where she cannot avoid microaggressions or being told what kind of Malay she is, isn't, or should be, be it in school, the workplace, the home, or social settings. I hesitate to say that this is a political book, because it is, but mostly in the sense that Nora cannot simply exist as herself without being implicated by her Otherness in Singapore, her homeland but also not quite. There is a sense that whatever she does, whether or not she succeeds, she is proving someone right.
As a child, Nora begins to see the flaws in the way children are taught to think along binaries. Even in an elite school, in an intellectual CCA, students and teachers alike struggle to talk about real life people in real life jobs; reality is irrelevant but it should not be. She also realises that adults are not exempt from injustice. Miss Wee may be the teacher and judge of the class's debate competition but ultimately she has to compromise her principles to comply with direct orders from her superiors--growing up and being employed does not mean freedom but a different kind of entrapment. When Nora herself grows up and interns at a local newspaper, constantly she is made to negotiate with her own principles and journalistic integrity. If it were all bad, the choice would be simple, but like in real life, there is good too, good worth staying for, possibly. I loved this part most because we witness her growth from underdog to begrudgingly respected journalistic vigilante, taking down durian cartels and tackling racist policies. Her transition into motherhood will strike a chord with many, with the candid discussions of how to afford childcare, the lack of good options, the struggle even to find a place with availability, not to mention the question of who to shoulder the burden after hours if both parents are currently working full-time, which in this country translates to 9 to 10-hour work days. The way her SAHM duties strain her personal identity and marriage is realistically painful. One can't help but root for her, this woman who used to be a girl with big dreams.
More to come after discussing with others! (Maybe...)
October 1, 2026
Girl, if I had a dime for every problem packed into this book, I’d be a billionaire.
If I had to describe Mind the Gap using a food analogy, it felt like being served an endless variety of dishes that all somehow tasted completely identical. The story tries to do way too much at once. Every topic wants to be discussed, every conflict needs an explanation, and every single character is handed a detailed backstory, even when it adds zero value to the central plot.
Because the narrative is so scattered, the book completely loses its focus. It ends up feeling flat and monotonous, dragging along without any real sense of momentum or a proper climax.
Honestly, this style of exhaustive, tell-all storytelling might work effectively for a non-fiction biography, but for a work of fiction, it just falls completely flat.
If I had to describe Mind the Gap using a food analogy, it felt like being served an endless variety of dishes that all somehow tasted completely identical. The story tries to do way too much at once. Every topic wants to be discussed, every conflict needs an explanation, and every single character is handed a detailed backstory, even when it adds zero value to the central plot.
Because the narrative is so scattered, the book completely loses its focus. It ends up feeling flat and monotonous, dragging along without any real sense of momentum or a proper climax.
Honestly, this style of exhaustive, tell-all storytelling might work effectively for a non-fiction biography, but for a work of fiction, it just falls completely flat.
October 13, 2026
A good debut novel, and one that is incredibly socially relevant in today's world. The novel is witty, and contains very beautifully written sentences, but overall there was a lack of emotional depth; the writing skims emotions on the surface, but never digs deep enough for the reader to hold onto them. The book itself contains a lot of commentary and issues relevant to both Singapore and the wider world, but I do feel with so many issues packed in, some emotional value may have gotten lost along the way. The MRT analogy started strong; but I feel it fell apart halfway through the book, and felt a bit forced toward the end.
September 24, 2026
Fascinating portrait of life for Singapore’s minority malay muslims over the last thirty years. A very polished story, seething with rage against racial and economic injustice, yet warm and funny at the same time. I will miss spending time in the ‘void deck’ with this book. The use of the MRT map as a parallel for the lives of ordinary Singaporeans is also very poignant. Overall a wonderful read, though readers will probably need some familiarity with the culture and politics of the region.
September 21, 2026
I really enjoyed the use of dialogues to create complex and distinct characterisation of Malay Muslims navigating the terrain of sanitised harmony. I found the allegorical use of MRT lines brilliant and lens a refreshing angle to the story!
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