China’s Church Divided: Bishop Louis Jin and the Post-Mao Catholic Revival, Paul P Mariani (Harvard University Press, July 2025)

An illuminating portrait of how Shanghai’s Catholic community surged back to life after the Cultural Revolution—and of a Church divided between allegiance to the Vatican and loyalty to the Communist party-state.

Siva Choy: The Life of a Singaporean Legend, John Halliwell (March 2025)

Best known in Singapore as the writer and performer of the smash-hit comedy album “Why U So like dat?’, Siva Choy was a multi-talented musician, journalist, stand-up comedian, movie actor and teacher. An intimate and revealing new book paints an affectionate portrait of a life filled with pioneering artistic endeavour.

Power, Resistance, Ideology and the State: Charles Tripp and the Comparative Politics of the Middle East, Toby Dodge, Daniel Neep, Ali M Ansari (eds) (Gingko, May 2025)

The work of Charles Tripp—professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) for over three decades—has shaped a distinct approach to the study of Middle East politics: an analytical sensibility that is empirically rich, theoretically insightful, and historically sensitive.

Living Outside the Village, Ma Thanegi (ThingsAsian Press, March 2025)

Ma Thanegi’s roots are deeply planted in Myanmar. She’s the great-niece of a noble scoundrel who once ornamented the court of King Thibaw, her country’s last king, and the great-granddaughter of one of the last queen’s ladies-in-waiting. The daughter of a sophisticated, mercurial intellectual and the brilliant, tempestuous beauty who was his wife, Ma Thanegi has spent her life in Myanmar with the ambition of revealing its beauties and virtues to the rest of the world. She’s achieved her goal through her writing, with six books written in English and published internationally, but until now her own story has been told only in fragments.

The Malay Experiment: The Colonial Origins and Homegrown Heroics of The Malay Regiment, Stuart Lloyd (CatMatDog Storytelling, March 2025)

It started as a British experiment in 1933: Could the Malays form an effective modern fighting force? From an experimental company of 25 raw recruits, within 10 years the regiment created legendary heroes in their gallant last stand against the Japanese in Singapore, February 1942.

Asian Celebrity Cultures in the Digital Age, Jian Xu, Glen Donnar, Divya Garg (eds) (Hong Kong University Press, March 2025)

Asian Celebrity Cultures in the Digital Age represents the first comprehensive study on the transformations of celebrity cultures in increasingly globalised and digitalised Asian societies. It discusses relations between Asian celebrities and digital media across emerging phenomena in celebrity practices, cultures, politics, fandom, and economies.

Contesting Inequalities: Mediated Labor Activism and Rural Migrant Workers in China, Siyuan Yin (Stanford University Press, May 2025)

In Contesting Inequalities, Siyuan Yin traces the historical and structural forces surrounding the plight of migrant workers, especially women workers, and examines the relationship between media and different forms of collective action in China. Moving beyond considerations of short-term strikes, she analyzes how mediated practices have been incorporated as both means and ends in labor activism.

The Politics of Sorrow: Unity and Allegiance Across Tibetan Exile, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa (Columbia University Press, February 2025)

The Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet in 1959 after its occupation by China and established a government in exile in India. There, Tibetan leaders aimed to bring together displaced people from varied religious traditions and local loyalties under the banner of unity. The Politics of Sorrow tells the story of the Group of Thirteen, a collective of chieftains and lamas from the regions of Kham and Amdo, who sought to preserve Tibet’s cultural diversity in exile.

Ethnic Minority Cinema in China’s Nation-State Building, Kwai-Cheung Lo (University of Michigan Press, February 2025)

Kwai-Cheung Lo’s Ethnic Minority Cinema in China’s Nation-State Building investigates the convoluted relations between cinematic productions about non-Han ethnic minorities and China’s nation-state building project from the early Republican era of the 1920s to the current authoritarian regime in the 21st century.