Marc de Faoite

An early version of my story 'Seed' is included in 'Everything About Us' -the third book in the Readings From Readings series - edited by Sharon Bakar and available in all good bookstores in Malaysia or available on-line from Gerakbudaya Goodreads

A few years ago a Singaporean publisher had the idea of publishing a series of books of very short stories with food based themes. One of the themes was MSG (Monosodium Glutamate) - a flavour enhancer common in Asian cuisine. My submission, featured here below, was accepted, but unfortunately due to financial constraints only two books in the series were ever published, so rather than leave this languish unread on my hard-drive I thought I'd leave it to languish unread here instead. Miss Singapore girl, mall shopping goddess, miracle secret genes, mesmerising swaying gait, melts solid gold.  Meets someone gifted. Mystery single guy. Man simple generous, makes special gifts.  Midday secret gallery. Motel story guessed.  Meanwhile sick genius, meticulously slippery geek, might steal glimpses. Malicious silent gaze. Murders special gentleman.  Main street gasps. Movie smoking gun. Murky solving guilt. Merlion simply growls. Media’s strange ...

My short story Across the Square featured on Jotters United .  The style is quite different from how I usually write - it's not quite a poem, it's still a story.  Unfortunately it is all completely true. 

I'm flattered to have one of the stories from Tropical Madness featured in India's prestigious Northeast Review .

Read my short story Protection in Roadside Fiction - April 2014 edition

This story first appeared in Fish Eats Lion , an anthology of Singapore-based speculative fiction published in November 2012 by Math Paper Press  and available for purchase here .  "Marc de Faoite contributes "Last Time Kopitiam," in which a young man unwittingly becomes a tool for urban renovation." - PublishersWeekly As he stood alone in the near silence of the wood-panelled, carpeted elevator only the numbers on the digital display above the door and the popping of his eardrums gave James Sullivan any indication that he was moving upwards through the innards of the building. He was both curious and apprehensive. Juniors like him rarely even got to take the elevator to the CEO's floor, never mind meet the man in person. "Sit down Sullivan. Tea?" "Yes please," said James, as he took a seat on the opposite side of Prescott's huge desk. Prescott had a coveted corner office. The two walls behind him were floor to ceili...

I was 19, a student and a Francophile. In love with all things French. French food, French cinema, French accents. French women. One in particular. Let’s call her S. We spent a summer at her family home in the north of Burgundy. A landscape of vast deciduous forests, not the endless vineyards further south. Her parents favoured the self-sufficient style of life and lived at the entrance of a tiny village in a sturdy limestone roadside house that had once been a traveller’s hotel. If you kept going along this forgotten back road you would eventually reach Paris, but no one travelled this winding national road anymore. Unless they were lost, or lived nearby. There was land behind the house that led down to the village stream. Every square inch of the acre or so was cultivated with neat rows of vegetables and fruit trees. The picture perfect kitchen garden and then some. Her parents also owned a flowering meadow on the slope of land across the road. At the foot of the slope sto...

The day I got hit by lightning was swelteringly tropical hot, my brain slowly stewing inside my overheated skull. When it gets like this even breathing seems like such hard work. Downstairs, in the shared swimming pool, I still sweat from the heat. I share the pool with a few hundred residents, in theory at least. Less than a dozen use it regularly. I am one of them. I swim most days in a vain attempt to curb the inversion of the triangular torso of my youth. I’m fighting a losing battle against the combined effects of gravity, middle age and rich Malaysian food. When the rain comes the security guards come too. Nice chaps, all Nepali. I spent a few months in their country once and know enough words to make them smile. I argue that I am wet already and rainfall won’t make me wetter. They point fingers to the dark clouds. Fingers that make descending zigzags. Very dangerous, they say. I laugh, but get out to humour them and towel myself dry. The day of the lightening strike my ...