In the early 19th century, the Dutch administration simply removed sufferers from public view: campaigns targeted anyone “looking ugly”. Towards the end of the century, colonial science considered leprosy a hereditary disease of tropical subjects, and therefore undeserving of the colonial government’s limited resources. The leprosariums were emptied.
In January 1980 a young police officer named John MacLennan committed suicide in his Ho Man Tin flat. His death came mere hours before he was to be arrested for committing homosexual acts still, at that point, illegal in Hong Kong. But this was more than the desperate act of a young man, ashamed and…
Nigel Collett’s A Death in Hong Kong: The MacLennan Case of 1980 and the Suppression of a Scandal has won the 2017 Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong History Book Prize.
The Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong has launched AsiaGlobal Online, a new journal focusing on “policy-relevant insights on global issues and from Asian perspectives.”
Arguably the most successful Western opera singer to come out of China, soprano He Hui is known for her roles in Madama Butterfly, Tosca and Aida.
Here is an unsystematic survey of “best books” lists and a highly unscientific indication as to where Asian books appear in the radar on the mainstream English language press. Only relatively long lists were chosen.
A tour around the region’s past and present in books: some high notes of the past year.
A selection of photos from Musica Viva’s “La Bohème”, December 2017.
The Circassian sounds like the name of a film; there’s more than enough material here for one. Eşref Bey, or Eşref Kuşçubaşı or any of the other names by which he went, played many roles in his life: brigand, family man, military leader, spy, rebel. He crossed paths if not quite swords with TE Lawrence—Lawrence…
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,…
Watching a performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello in the current political climate can be profoundly depressing.
True Crime Japan: Thieves, Rascals, Killers and Dope Heads; True Stories From a Japanese Courtroom by Paul Murphy is reviewed in the Japan Times. Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style by W David Marx is reviewed in the LARB. Gently to Nagasaki by Joy Kogawa is reviewed in Macleans and the National Post. Me Against…
“The Vietnam war airman who dodged a million bullets”: Don Harten survived more than 300 combat missions during the Vietnam war, one of which ended with a ditching in the South China Sea in a super typhoon. In new book Midair, the flyer’s nephew documents a charmed life and a raid that may have ended…
No Knives in the Kitchens of this City by Khaled Khalifa is reviewed in the National. The Weight of Paradise by Iman Humaydan reviewed in the National. The Parcel by Anosh Irani is reviewed in the Toronto Star. Once Upon a Time in India: The Marvellous Adventures of Captain Corcoran by Alfred Assollant is reviewed…