Author Session: Thum Ping Tjin (The Albatross File Unredacted)

About the Session

Join Thum Ping Tjin (“PJ”) in an author session presenting his book, The Albatross File Unredacted: What the Official Story Leaves Out.

About the Author

Thum Ping Tjin (“PJ”) is Founder and Managing Director of New Naratif. He has a doctorate in history from the University of Oxford, where he was a Fellow between 2014 and 2022. He works on Southeast Asian nationalism and decolonisation.

About the Book

While the official exhibition and accompanying book, The Albatross File (2025), promised to reveal the inside story of Singapore’s separation from Malaysia, the newly declassified documents reveal something more unsettling.

Based on a close reading of these records, The Albatross File Unredacted challenges the official account of Lee Kuan Yew as a leader overtaken by events. It shows instead that Lee was not merely swept along by history: his choices helped push Singapore towards separation. The result is a fuller, more human portrait of Lee: not as myth, but as a brilliant and forceful political actor whose triumphs and failures shaped the birth of independent Singapore.

IN-STORE EVENT

Date: 30 June 2026, Tuesday
Time: 8.00pm
Venue: Wardah Books, 58 Bussorah Street, Level 2 (Stairs only)

Free with registration. Click here to register.