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“The Man Who Stole the Gods” by Matthew Campbell
A New York Times headline from late February read “Cambodia Celebrates the Return of Looted Artifacts From a Tainted Dealer”. It wasn’t front-page news, and readers may have missed the connection to previous scandals involving such storied institutions as New York’s Metropolitan Museum, the Smithsonian, the Denver Art Museum, Sotheby’s and Spinks, all of whom…
“America, but Bigger” by Mark Kawar
That the US is “imperialistic”, if not necessarily “imperial”, has been a point of political rhetoric my entire life. That,…
“Night Train” by Xu Zechen
Chen Munian is not a murderer. Yet who is he accused of murdering? Why can he not shake off the…
“Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal” by Sandip Roy
A young, aspiring actor joins an itinerant theatre troupe to perform on makeshift stages in remote villages, traveling from place…
“Witness to Korea, 1945-47: The Unfolding of an Authoritarian Regime” by Frank Hoffmann and Mark E Caprio
Histories of the Korean War (1950-1953) published in the United States have been surprisingly numerous for a conflict known as…
“Cultural Mavericks: The Business and Politics of Independent Bookselling in China” by Zheng Liu
Cultural Mavericks traces the rise of independent bookselling in China over the last twenty years. That such a rise should merit a two-hundred-page academic study is, at first glance, counter-intuitive; this, after all, has been an era in which online bookstores and other digital reading solutions have, in the west, made independent bookselling seem an…
“Fortress of the Forgotten Ones” by Fahmida Riaz
Karl Marx famously argued that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Fahmida Riaz’s Fortress of the Forgotten Ones, a historical novel set in 5th-century Ctesiphon, capital of the Persian Sasanian empire at its zenith, shows that this struggle existed long before its appearance in The Communist Manifesto. The…
“The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo” by Zen Cho
While it can certainly be awkward for book reviewers to meet authors after having panned their books, these are not…“The Unrepentant” by Sharmini Aphrodite
Rich in detail and the range of characters it features, The Unrepentant is as an impressive collection of 14 short…
“Rat Race” by Mamta Kalia
Rat Race is a slice-of-life story following characters in a modern, capitalistic India as they balance the demands of ambition…“The Country Doctor’s Tale” by Mohamed Mansi Qandil
In 2006, Mohamed Mansi Qandil won one of Egypt’s most prestigious literary prizes, the Sawiris Cultural Award, with his breakthrough…
“No Man River” by Dương Hướng
A sweeping historical novel, Dương Hướng’s No Man River charts Vietnam’s path to independence from the anticolonial struggle against the French to what is known locally as the “American War” and finally the brief Sino-Vietnamese border war in the late 1970s. It covers these conflicts in fewer than 250 pages, and without a single battle…
“Becoming Allies: Civil Liberties Activism in India” by Ankita Pandey
What motivates individuals to stand up against injustices that don’t personally affect them? Becoming Allies explores a vital but often overlooked dimension of social movements: the role of those who…
“Lahore After Modernism” by Chris Moffat
Lahore After Modernism is a pioneering study of architecture and the politics of construction, destruction and conservation in urban Pakistan. In the decades after independence in 1947, architects in Pakistan…
“Earthly Playing Field” by Radhika Singh
Roma has a steady job, a mortgage, and a surrogate family in Queens. But as she moves through her daily routines, the powerful Empire that rules her world bares its…
“High Lands, Pure Earth: Place Making, History, and Urban Transitions on the Tibetan Plateau” by Eveline Washul
High Lands, Pure Earth foregrounds Tibetan experiences of urban transitions in China’s late-reform period. In the 21st century, China’s accelerated urbanization has transformed the Tibetan Plateau. Yet Tibetan urban experiences…
“Koreatown, NYC: The Consumption of a Transnational Brand” by Jinwon Kim
In the past decade, Korean entertainment has gained global recognition, with Korean movies and TV shows winning Oscars and Emmys, and K-Pop groups becoming wildly popular. In Manhattan, Koreatown has…
“Owls in the Ginza” by Suzanne Kamata
Thinking of leaving the country? Does the life of a digital nomad beckon to you? Suzanne Kamata has been there, done that, and is still doing it. Living in Japan…
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