Bears in various forms have been popular in myth and fiction for thousands of years, from Inuit traditions and the Greek myth of Callisto to John Irving’s cameo appearances of bears in his novels, and from William Kotswinkle’s bear turned New York literary sensation to, of course, Winnie the Pooh, Paddington Bear, and The Three Bears. We respect them and are in awe of their size, physical strength, and seemingly introspective intelligence. Not to mention bear cubs are so cuddly they inspired the ubiquitous teddy bear. Yoko Tawada, award-winning novelist who was born in Tokyo and lives in Germany, has no fewer than three bears starring as main characters in her novel, along with a cast of other bears and non-bear animals (including those of the human species).
Beautifully poised and profound, Louder than Hearts, a collection by Lebanese-born poet Zeina Hashem Beck, articulates the reverberations of home, exile and family history in the 21st century from the perspective of an Arabic woman, feeling her otherness and connection with communities locally and abroad, and her empathy towards the homelessness suffered by the refugees.
The Asian Review of Books is highlighting works of authors appearing at the Asia House Bagri Foundation Literature Festival later in the Spring. This list will be updated regularly as we get get closer to the festival opening, so bookmark this page and check back. Recent additions include an a new essay from Ece Temelkuran, an extract from Louder than Hearts, poetry by Zeina Hashem Beck, a review of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko and a review of and excerpt from The Kingdom of Women: Life, Love and Death in China’s Hidden Mountains by Choo Waihong.
Opera Hong Kong’s recent run of Gioacchino Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia was notable for an unusual production which frothily updated the action with a 1930s classical movie musical vibe—complete with the “Hollywood” sign as backdrop and dance routines in various period costumes—and perhaps more significantly for the Asian debut of young American mezzo-soprano Stephanie Lauricella, who took the lead role of the ingenue Rosina.
In 2016, Deepak Unnikrishnan won the inaugural Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, with his then-unpublished manuscript, Temporary People. The prize awards US$10,000 and publication to a first-time, first-generation American author.
Now usually found in Chicago, Deepak Unnikrishnan is a first-generation American author from… where? He grew up in Abu Dhabi, but his parents are pravasis, the Malayalam word for migrants and temporary workers.
Western commentators are wont to complain that China doesn’t always seem committed to “international norms”. Robert Bickers’s new book Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination helps explain why: “international norms” were used for a century to justify encroachments on Chinese sovereignty.
The Kingdom of Women by Singaporean author Choo Waihong is a first-person account of the author’s experiences living with the Mosuo, an ethnic minority community resident in South-West China and one of the world’s last surviving matrilineal and matriarchal societies.