Time is one of the grand themes of literature and art. A new comics anthology, Delay, brings together 11 pieces of graphic fiction in the short form from various Southeast Asian artists including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and connects the concept of time to such situations as feeling stuck, waiting, hesitation and anxieties about outcomes Delay itself, as conceptualised by the editors Charis Loke and Paolo Chikiamco, and as captured by the writers in their contributions, has been handled in various scenarios: from old age, migration to recipes, exploration, parenting, infatuation and death. Published by the Singapore-based Difference Engine, the volume draws attention to the wider region’s expressions of the comics craft.
Set in the tea gardens of colonial Assam, Moonlight Saga follows the communities who built and maintain these delicate ecosystems on the frontiers of India, and the tensions and pressures of plantation life. Originally published in Assamese in 2022 and recently translated into English, this family saga set on the Atharighat Tea Estate in Assam, just below the Bhutan border, portrays life from both the perspective of Western planters and the Adivasi, India’s indigenous population, the labourers who sustain it. These alternating accounts provide contrasting portraits of life, danger and change on a colonial tea plantation. There is relatively little Assamese literature translated into English and this novel additionally benefits from a translation which incorporates some of the songs and phrases from Assamese.
Lyrical Translation is a literary history of modern Korean poetry’s origins and its development through translation. As the use of Korean became increasingly restricted during the Japanese occupation, translation was not a choice but a necessity for higher education and intellectual labor. Yet it also had an expansive, creative function: Korean poets wielded it as an instrument to reimagine their literature.
Slavery underpins so much of the pre-modern Islamicate world, with its slave-sultans, eunuchs, elite dancing girls as well as household servants, and yet we don’t know much about this social institution and what we know is probably wrong. Perhaps because contemporary historians considered slavery so natural, we can glean little insight from their texts about how the institution functioned; who became enslaved, how did the slave trade work; how were its victims treated? Craig Perry seeks answers to those questions by delving deeply into the Cairo Geniza, a trash repository which by serendipity preserves for us tens of thousands of private, legal and commercial documents from the 11th-12th centuries. With these, he comes to a number of surprising conclusions about the workings of medieval slavery in the lands of Islam.
In a 2019 interview with Words Without Borders alongside her translator Natascha Bruce, Hong Kong writer Dorothy Tse said, “I believe experimenting with language brings insight to any type of writing.” Later in the interview, Bruce remarks, “There is usually a playful element to Dorothy’s work, coexisting with—or perhaps contributing to—a deeply sinister one.”
In September 2016, Islam Karimov—the first president of a post-Soviet Uzbekistan–died, at age 78. His death ended an oppressive dictatorship that had governed the Central Asian country for decades, which led to corruption, environmental damage, and political repression. Karimov was replaced with Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who instituted a tentative program of reforms.
A young boy follows the tail of a breeze to find a hidden bay. There he sets sail on a whirlwind journey to find a world that is ever-expanding and full of wonders. A lyrical tale of discovery, Little Bay reminds us to embrace the unknown and live with curiosity and presence.
The “Chicken’s Neck”, or Siliguri Corridor, was created in the aftermath of Partition. Just 22 kilometres wide at its narrowest point and roughly 60 kilometres long, it connects India’s northeast to the rest of the country. Bordering Bangladesh and Bhutan and with China in close proximity, security theorists have long worried that this strategically vital region, could be severed and India’s northeast rendered landlocked in the event of conflict. In some sectors, Indian and Chinese troops are stationed just 30 metres apart, the closest proximity anywhere along the entire Sino-Indian border. How this strip of border was created, and how it has been shaped by recent politics, is the topic of In the Margins of Empires: A History of the Chicken’s Neck by Akhilesh Upadhyay.
Written 40-50 years ago during the South Korean dictatorship from the 1970s-80s, now newly-translated into English and framed by reflective essays, Kim Hyesoon’s poetry collection The Hell of That Star is a violent and grotesque testament to a censored time. Having worked as an editor during the regime, Kim is familiar with the censorship apparatus that her book contends against.
Jagadish Chandra Bose was a Bengali scientist who convinced a largely skeptical world that plants are living beings. I first encountered his work in an essay called “Ahoto Udbhid” (“The Injured Plant”), in which he records a plant’s response to different kinds of stimuli.
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