“Singapura means lion-city; prehistoric, myopic, Sanskrit-speaking visitors having spotted a mangy tiger or two in the mangroves. Sly Malays sometimes call it Singa pura-pura, which means ‘pretending to be a lion’…. It is a profoundly provincial town pretending to be a metropolis.”

—  Anthony Burgess

Fiction, The Right to an Answer (1960)

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Anthony Burgess 297
English writer 1917–1993

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