New Non-Fiction Books

New Book Announcements | New Non-Fiction Books
“Observing the Unseen: Curiosity and Common Knowledge in Early Modern China” by Andrew Schonebaum
9 April 20269 April 2026
Observing the Unseen explores how literate and marginally literate people in China between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries investigated the invisible, the ubiquitous, and the inexplicable. Whether through medical encyclopedias, daily-use almanacs, or novels and anecdotes, readers pursued knowledge of the natural world with curiosity shaped as much by wonder as by empiricism. Rather than privileging…
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New Book Announcements | New Non-Fiction Books
“Emotions, Affect, and Narrative in Korean History and Culture”, edited by Jisoo M Kim
5 April 20268 April 2026
This collection of eleven essays explores emotions and affect in Korean culture across a broad temporal span, from the Koryŏ dynasty (918–1392) to the present. Drawing on a diverse array of sources—including memoirs, diplomatic letters, newspapers, films, video diaries, photographs, and ethnographic interviews—the volume examines how emotions intervene in public discourse and how affect is…
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New Book Announcements | New Non-Fiction Books
“Taiwanese Face, Chinese Masks: Yang Mu and His Postcolonial Poetry” by Wen-chi Li
23 March 20268 April 2026
This groundbreaking study examines the poetry of Yang Mu, a pivotal Taiwanese writer who used Chinese literary forms to challenge Sinocentric narratives during Taiwan’s White Terror and democratization. Drawing on postcolonial theory and close reading, it explores his poetic use of ambivalence, mimicry, and minor narrative to resist cultural hegemony and reclaim historical memory.
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New Book Announcements | New Non-Fiction Books
“American Peril: The Violent History of Anti-Asian Racism” by Scott Kurashige
16 March 20268 April 2026
During the COVID-19 pandemic, racist demagoguery fomented a campaign of terror against Asian Americans. But these attacks were part of a much longer pattern that made anti-Asian racism integral to the outbreak of white supremacist, misogynist, and colonial violence across 175 years of US history. Written in the radical spirit of Howard Zinn, American Peril…
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New Book Announcements | New Non-Fiction Books
“The Wu Ming-Yi Companion: Literature, Environment, and Translation through Compound Eyes”, edited by Michael Berry and Kuei-fen Chiu
2 March 20268 April 2026
Wu Ming-Yi is one of Taiwan’s most celebrated contemporary writers, whose work bridges literature, environmental thought, and history with a global perspective. The Wu Ming-Yi Companion, edited by Michael Berry and Kuei-fen Chiu, is the first comprehensive volume in English dedicated to his oeuvre, offering new scholarship from leading researchers across Taiwan, Hong Kong, North…
Read More “The Wu Ming-Yi Companion: Literature, Environment, and Translation through Compound Eyes”, edited by Michael Berry and Kuei-fen Chiu
New Book Announcements | New Non-Fiction Books
“Lyrical Translation: The Creation of Modern Poetry in Colonial Korea” by David Krolikoski
22 February 20268 April 2026
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…
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New Book Announcements | New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Beyond the Sewol: Activist Theatre and Performance in South Korea and the Diaspora” by Areum Jeong
14 February 202624 March 2026
On April 15, 2014, the Sewol ferry departed from Incheon, bound for Jeju Island, with 476 people onboard. After receiving a distress call, authorities urged the crew to prepare for evacuation. Instead, passengers were told to stay in their cabins and wait for help. Most died waiting for rescue.
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New Book Announcements | New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Decolonial Keywords: South Asian Thoughts and Attitudes”, edited by Renny Thomas and Sasanka Perera
6 February 202624 March 2026
The volume presents a set of keywords and concepts embedded in the languages of South Asia and its vast cultural landscape. It reiterates specific attitudes, ways of seeing and methods of doing, which are embedded in the historical and contemporary experiences in the region. The words, concepts, ideas and attitudes in this volume explore the…
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New Book Announcements | New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Political Thought and Japan’s New Left Movements”, edited by Christopher Perkins and Ferran De Vargas
2 February 202624 March 2026
Arguing for the importance of taking Japanese political thought seriously, this book is the first to bring together authoritative essays by world experts on the thinkers who shaped Japan’s New Left movement. In doing so, it demonstrates the distinctiveness and significance of Japanese left-wing thought, providing an invaluable resource for students of 20th-century radical politics.
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New Book Announcements | New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Meandering to Manila” by Keith Dalton
22 January 202624 March 2026
Keith Dalton was a journalist with foreign correspondent dreams. He had them as a 10-year-old. They never went away. Dalton was 25 when he crammed a typewriter in his backpack and set off from Australia to Southeast Asia, convinced he could be a self-made foreign correspondent. Writing as he went, Dalton took buses, trucks, trains, planes,…
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New Book Announcements | New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Cross-border intimacies: Affect and emotions in marriage migration between China and Taiwan” by Lara Momesso
11 January 202624 March 2026
Cross-border Intimacies is a powerful account of the experiences of migrant women and their families between China and Taiwan. Since the early 1990s, economic exchanges between the two countries have paved the way to migration and sociocultural interaction across a previously closed border.
Read More New Book Announcement: “Cross-border intimacies: Affect and emotions in marriage migration between China and Taiwan” by Lara Momesso
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Fuji: A Mountain in the Making” by Andrew W Bernstein
27 September 202527 September 2025
Mount Fuji is everywhere recognized as a wonder of nature and enduring symbol of Japan. Yet behind the picture-postcard image is a history filled with conflict and upheaval. Violent eruptions across the centuries wrought havoc and instilled fear. Long an object of worship, Fuji has been inhabited by deities that changed radically over time. It…
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New Non-Fiction Books | Non-Fiction Reviews
“Triangle Republics: Literary Transits Between Cross-Border Between the Cold War Koreas and Japan” by I Jonathan Kief
24 September 202526 September 2025
A new book offers what many readers will find surprising insights into the circulation of texts in the Cold War among three neighbouring countries at odds with one another: North Korea, South Korea, and Japan.
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New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Sing Me a Circle: Love, Loss and a Home in Time” by Samina Najmi
14 September 202514 September 2025
“All points on a circle are always the same distance from the center.” These exquisite personal essays trace the orbit of Pakistani-American author Samina Najmi as she reflects on events, people, and places that shape her traditional childhood in Pakistan and continue to inspire her as she pursues her dreams of education and travel, enlarging…
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New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Poverty in Modern Chinese Realism: From Russia, with Squalor” by Keru Cai
23 August 202523 August 2025
Keru Cai’s Poverty in Modern Chinese Realism examines the ways in which early 20th-century Chinese writers drew upon Russian works about the socially downtrodden to describe poverty, in a bid to enrich Chinese culture by creating a syncretic new realism. Modern Chinese realist writers turned to the topic of material poverty—peasants suffering from famine, exploited…
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