The Dawn of the Warrior Age: War Tales from Medieval Japan, Royall Tyler (trans), (Columbia University Press, April 2024)
The Dawn of the Warrior Age: War Tales from Medieval Japan, Royall Tyler (trans), (Columbia University Press, April 2024)

The war between the Heike and Genji clans in the 13th and 13th centuries is among the most compelling and significant moments in Japan’s history, immortalized in The Tale of the Heike. Beyond the events recorded in this canonical text, the conflicts of the surrounding years are crucial to medieval Japanese culture and history. In 1156, power began to slip away from the court nobility in Kyoto. A shogunate was later founded in Kamakura, and in 1221, it won a decisive victory over the court.

Gandhi’s Australia, Australia’s Gandhi, Thomas Weber (Orient BlackSwan, March 2024)
Gandhi’s Australia, Australia’s Gandhi, Thomas Weber (Orient BlackSwan, March 2024)

Gandhi’s importance in the Western world, and his interaction with foreign visitors, have been well-documented. However, most of these accounts have focused on Britain and the United States. Today, as India’s diaspora grows in numbers and influence, the inspiration of Gandhi in other parts of the world needs to be understood. This is particularly true of Australia.

Impossible Speech: The Politics of Representation in Contemporary Korean Literature and Film, Christopher P Hanscom (Columbia University Press, March 2024)
Impossible Speech: The Politics of Representation in Contemporary Korean Literature and Film, Christopher P Hanscom (Columbia University Press, March 2024)

In what ways can or should art engage with its social context? Authors, readers, and critics have been preoccupied with this question since the dawn of modern literature in Korea. Advocates of social engagement have typically focused on realist texts, seeing such works as best suited to represent injustices and inequalities by describing them as if they were before our very eyes.

Blurred Boundaries: A Martial Arts Legacy and the Shaping of Taiwan, Hong Ze-Han, Christoper Bates (trans) (YMAA, December 2023)
Blurred Boundaries: A Martial Arts Legacy and the Shaping of Taiwan, Hong Ze-Han, Christoper Bates (trans) (YMAA, December 2023)

The civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists drove the largest refugee exodus in the modern history of China, across the sea to the southern island of Taiwan. Martial artists of many styles were among this diaspora. In the 1940’s areas of Taipei, Taiwan were terrorized by local gangsters. Supported by desperate martial artists who had to flee mainland China with no other resources but their martial skills, they robbed and extorted the population. The locals trying to rebuild a new life after the Japanese occupation, often hired their own cadre of martial artists. The Hong family was one of these merchant families.

Teaching the Young: The Early Childhood Development Profession in India, Kinnari Pandya, Jigisha Shastri, Vrinda Datta (eds) (Orient BlackSwan, February 2024)
Teaching the Young: The Early Childhood Development Profession in India, Kinnari Pandya, Jigisha Shastri, Vrinda Datta (eds) (Orient BlackSwan, February 2024)

Care and education of young children is crucial for a nation’s development and the early years teacher is the most important person in a child’s life after her parents. While early education has been in the hands of informally qualified educators in India for the past several decades, the National Education Policy 2020 has emphasized the need for qualified and skilled teachers to transact a quality early childhood programme.

Hotel Arcadia, Sunny Singh (Oneworld/Magpie, March 2024)
Hotel Arcadia, Sunny Singh (Oneworld/Magpie, March 2024)

First paperback publication for the acclaimed international thriller by Sunny Singh: A terrorist siege in a luxury hotel. Among the survivors … Sam: a war photographer, famous for her haunting pictures of the dead. Abhi: the hotel manager, desperate to keep the guests safe. He never wanted to be a hero; he just wants to avoid disappointing his father and brother any more than he has already.

Mei’s Mermaid Mission, Crystal Z Lee, Allie Su (illus) (Balestier, February 2024)
Mei’s Mermaid Mission, Crystal Z Lee, Allie Su (illus) (Balestier, February 2024)

The mission of the Mermaids International Rescue Alliance (MIRA) is to guard the ocean and protect the sea creatures. There are many mermaid members in MIRA from all over Asia, such as Princess Hwangok (Korea), Roro (Indonesia), Jiao (China), Ningyo (Japan), Songkhla (Thailand), Duyung (Malaysia), Sovann Macha (Cambodia), Sirena (the Philippines), and Mei (Taiwan).

Singaporean Creatures: Histories of Humans and Other Animals in the Garden City, Timothy P Barnard (ed) (NUS Press, January 2024)
Singaporean Creatures: Histories of Humans and Other Animals in the Garden City, Timothy P Barnard (ed) (NUS Press, January 2024)

Modern Singapore is the city in a garden, a biophilic and highly managed urban space that is home to a variety of animals, from mosquitoes to humans to polar bears. How has this coexistence worked as we enter the Anthropocene? How have human-animal relationships shaped Singapore society—socially, economically, politically and environmentally—over the last half century?

Eight Dogs, or “Hakkenden” Part Two—His Master’s Blade, Kyokutei Bakin, Glynne Walley (trans) (Cornell University Press, November 2023)
Eight Dogs, or “Hakkenden”
Part Two—His Master’s Blade
, Kyokutei Bakin, Glynne Walley (trans) (Cornell University Press, November 2023)

Kyokutei Bakin’s Nansō Satomi Hakkenden is one of the monuments of Japanese literature. This multigenerational samurai saga was one of the most popular and influential books of the 19th century and has been adapted many times into film, television, fiction, and comics.