The Mortar and Pestle That Stirred a Storm
In the dim kitchen of a Guadalajara home, a mortar and pestle sits in the corner—not as a cooking tool, but as a talisman. For most, it’s a culinary staple; for Hamant Singh, it’s a symbol of creation, destruction, inheritance, and kinship.
It was here, surrounded by the hum of the city and the smell of spice and stone, that Singh completed his latest work, Of Spice and Stone (2025). The book is unlike anything on the literary market: a heady mix of dark tales, poetry, and recipes, each revolving around that humble yet powerful kitchen object. To Singh, it’s not just a book—it’s a cultural séance, a way to bring disparate worlds and traditions into dialogue with one another.
But this was never the work of a man who stayed in one lane. Singh’s career has been built on a refusal to obey literary boundaries.
From Singapore to the Sublime
Born in Singapore, Singh was drawn early to the spaces between fear and fascination—the Sublime as it manifests in horror, the occult, and the ritualistic aspects of culture. He began not with food, but with shadows and spirits.
His debut poetry collection, The Sibyl (2022), was a revelation: equal parts prophecy and nightmare. Its reception proved Singh was onto something rare. The Science Fiction Poetry Association nominated one of its poems for the 2022 Rhysling Award. Soon after, the book itself landed on the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection, before also being nominated for the 2023 Elgin Award. These honors cemented him as a literary voice capable of transfixing both niche and mainstream audiences.
A Chaotic Literary Arc
For Singh, chaos isn’t a theme—it’s an operating principle. His bibliography reads like a map with no compass, yet each point is connected by a restless desire to push language and structure beyond comfort zones.
After The Sibyl, he released CHAOS: Remnants of Ruptured Reflections (2023), an unapologetically fragmented exploration of human fracture. That same year brought NÁUSEA | CONFESIÓN, a daring bilingual collaboration with Mexican poet Pedro Tsamaxan. The book was written under inebriation, each page a swirling, blurred testament to altered perception.
In 2024 came VALTOHA, a deeply personal nonfiction work retracing his grandfather’s roots in Punjab. Part memoir, part historical reflection, it showed a softer but no less intense side to Singh’s artistry—proof that chaos can also cradle tenderness.
The Breakthrough to Of Spice and Stone
If Singh’s earlier works were storms, Of Spice and Stone is a full monsoon—flooding genres, languages, and forms into a single, defiant text. It is culinary horror, cultural anthropology, and intimate memoir braided into one. The book invites readers to taste memory, to smell grief, to chew on the connective tissue between love and loss.
It also marks Singh’s first major project conceived entirely in Mexico, a country whose traditions of food, death, and storytelling have seeped into his work like spice into stew.
What Makes Hamant Singh Unstoppable
Few writers can say they have spanned horror poetry, intoxicant-induced prose, family memoir, and food as metaphor—all in under three years. Even fewer have done so while earning recognition from some of literature’s most selective award bodies.
Singh’s uniqueness lies not just in his subject matter but in his process. His works often reject linearity, instead embracing fragmentation, hybridity, and the willingness to let form follow emotional truth. In his own words:
“I don’t think anyone has ever written occult/horror poetry, then a book about inebriation, then about my grandfather, and finally now about food and cooking.”
This refusal to be predictable is both his signature and his challenge to readers: step into the chaos, and you might just find coherence.
The Road Ahead
Currently based in Guadalajara, Singh continues to work on multiple projects simultaneously—an approach as chaotic as the worlds he builds. His social media channels offer glimpses into this process, from candid reflections to hints of upcoming themes.
For those who have followed him since The Sibyl, each new release is a reminder that Singh’s career isn’t a straight line—it’s a constellation, best appreciated in its entirety rather than one point at a time.
Step Into the Chaos
Hamant Singh isn’t simply telling stories; he’s bending them, breaking them, and reassembling them into something unclassifiable yet deeply resonant. To read his work is to join him in the spaces between—between cultures, between genres, between order and disorder.
Explore his books, follow his ongoing experiments, and immerse yourself in a literary voice that refuses to be contained. For the curious, the brave, and the chaos-seekers, Singh’s world is wide open.
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