You might recall recently seeing one of these moving around Facebook:

These are three hilariously-written, completely Singaporean-sounding parodies written by 30-year-old Suffian Hakim, hosted on his personal site.

Suffian, who by day is a content lead at local digital media agency Vocanic, first wrote the three chapters in 2013.

After he discovered that there really was great interest in his written-on-a-whim chapters, Suffian decided to take things a step further, and started working on a book.

His first independent print run of 300 copies was about two years later, which ended up being completely sold out.

Interestingly, close to three years later, people started picking up his stories again and sharing them on Facebook:

Which inspired Suffian to work on a second print run — and it's official: Harris Bin Potter and the Stoned Philosopher will be out in two bookstores (Booktique at Citylink Mall, and Books Actually on Yong Siak Street) from this weekend onwards.

Suffian is also timing the release of this 500-copy print run in conjunction with the annual #BuySingLit movement, which will be on this weekend too. You can read about that here.

We also took the chance to ask him a few questions, the answers to which sure didn't disappoint:

How long did you spend on The Stoned Philosopher, and when did you decide to make the chapters a full-length book?

I believe I spent nearly eight hundred Red Bull cans' worth of time on the book. I took about 2 years. I was juggling this with a full-time job, so I wrote it after hours, in the MRT to and from work, during my lunch breaks, late into the night. In this time, I rewrote the story twice. In the first two iterations, I was writing moments rather than scenes. Everything I wrote existed simply to set up a joke, but the jokes did not meld together and were too jarringly disconnected to fit into the framework of a story. It was only towards the second quarter of 2015 that I wrote a narrative that met both the demands of the story as well as the parody. There were frustrations, but it was a lot of fun. I also have a GIF of Emma Watson in my phone where she says "It's not leviosa, it's leviosaaa" and it reminds me that writing the perfect scene just requires a slight change to the ones that I felt did not work.

Ever since the story in its earliest form went viral, my friends have always encouraged me to turn it into a full-fledged book. But it was only in 2013 when Guy Vincent, CEO of Publishizer, approached me to have the book made on his platform that I gave it serious consideration. Guy is a fantastic visionary who has supported me every step of the way. My only problem with him is that he doesn't have a sister named Gal.

How many chapters does the book have?

There are 22 chapters, including a chapter nine and three-quarters.

Does it have any illustrations?

None, because when I try to illustrate, it ends up looking like this:

Of course, I tried to look for other illustrators. I grew up with dreams of becoming an author; when I thought about the illustrations for my book, I've always wanted the magic of Josh Kirby (who illustrated the very brilliant Discworld series, and the poster for Return of the Jedi). I wanted to get him to illustrate Harris bin Potter but he was unavailable, mainly because he was unalive.

So, who's publishing your book this time? Or are you doing it independently again?

I'm doing it independently again, but I have a fantastic manager supporting me this time around. I'm the most scatterbrained, least organised person on Earth, and she has been a godsend in getting things in order. The fact that I'm replying to this email and not playing FIFA 17 pays testament to her managerial capabilities.

Honestly, the thought of approaching a publisher daunted me a bit. I pictured the conversation to go something like:

"Hey, I have a book which is basically this mad local parody of Harry Potter where he talks to boxes. Get it? He's a parceltongue!"

"Uhhh, okay. You want us to put that next to our beautiful coffee table book about awesome architecture, and our book about the tragic plight of a single mother and her heroic struggle to overcome the odds?"

"Well, independent publishing it is for me then."

Did anyone help chip in ideas for the plot and other Singlish jokes?

The question should be: Did anyone not chip in ideas? When the blog entry went viral, a lot of people came forward with ideas on how to advance Harris bin Potter. It was one of the more enjoyable parts of the process, seeing my friends tear at elements of Harry Potter like it was a singular roti prata kosong that they then dip in curry before presenting their piece of prata to me again as something less white, more brown, and altogether more delicious. A couple of them I ran with. The rest did not fit well into the narrative.

Some friends wanted to be written into the book as well, and it was a lot of fun giving them a role and a voice in the fictional realm of Harris bin Potter.

Also, is the story closely aligned with the original Philosopher's Stone?

The first chapter, up to chapter nine and three-quarters, do. After that, the parody dissolves into deconstructive satire.

There is also a book-within-a-book called The Book of Mermy, which is a sort of funhouse mirror to Harris bin Potter. You could call it a deconstruct of a deconstruct. Deconstructception? You'll see what I mean.

It does get layered in the second half of the book. It becomes quite the kuih lapis. I really kinda splattered cerebrally on those pages. The second half explores the concept of Western popular culture as a symbol of progress, and how it really holds up against our sense of identity.

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If you like the book, do sarpork hor. The three chapters on his site aren't in the book, by the way, so you'll be reading all-new stuff! Here's a sneak peek of the cover and a couple of pages:

See more details on where and how to get your hands on a copy here.

Top image from suffianhakim.com

Since you're here, how about checking out these two other great articles?

The official Mothership stand on the eternal debate: Books vs Movies

Related article:

Harris Bin Potter is the new age Harry Potter that S’poreans need

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