Arun, a young Mekong upland girl, falls in love and fascination with the forest and all it contains. The murder of a ranger and a frightening epidemic set her against the unprincipled and greedy exploitation of the natural world. The story encourages understanding of the increasing dangers to the environment and to human life that…
When friends give her a 23-and-Me test as a gag, high school senior Chloe Chang doesn’t doesn’t believe anything will come of it. It’s been just Chloe and her mom her whole life. But the DNA test reveals something Chloe never expected—she’s got a whole extended family from her father’s side half a world away…
In Burmese Haze (a reference to George Orwell’s classic novel), former US official Erin Murphy gives a personalized history of the past fifteen years of Myanmar history, with particular focus on, if not always from the perspective of, US policy towards this often opaque Southeast Asian country. Murphy was herself in the thick of it,…
On October 27, 1930, members of six Taiwanese indigenous groups ambushed the Japanese attendees of an athletic competition at the Musha Elementary School, killing 134. The uprising came as a shock to Japanese colonial authorities, whose response was swift and brutal. Heavy artillery and battalions of troops assaulted the region, spraying a wide area with…
This book provides an in-depth ethnographic study of science and religion in the context of South Asia, giving voice to Indian scientists and shedding valuable light on their engagement with religion. Drawing on biographical, autobiographical, historical, and ethnographic material, the volume focuses on scientists’ religious life and practices, and the variety of ways in which…
The scholarly culture of Ming dynasty China (1368-1644) is often seen as prioritizing philosophy over concrete textual study. Nathan Vedal uncovers the preoccupation among Ming thinkers with specialized linguistic learning, a field typically associated with the intellectual revolution of the eighteenth century. He explores the collaboration of Confucian classicists and Buddhist monks, opera librettists and…
The first book to tell the stories of the most revered living Japanese ceramists of the century in their own words, tracing the evolution of modern and contemporary craft and art in Japan, and the artists’ considerable influence, which far transcends national borders.
In these stories of unease, readers will find an ailing son trying to rewrite his father’s ignoble death, a Seoul taxi driver who succumbs to a devil’s plan, a park that offers one man redemption, and another, King George’s in Hong Kong, that haunts its one-time visitor.
Paper Republic’s definitive guide to contemporary Chinese literature in translation features detailed biographical entries covering almost 100 of the most important writers working in the Chinese language today, from Anni Baby to Zhang Yueran, by way of Nobel Prize-winner Mo Yan.
Rise of the Water Margin immerses the reader in a near-future world grounded in American and Chinese cultural and political landscapes bickering over climate responsibility wherein technology challenges humanity to redefine its relationship with the Earth.
Kai and Ami are dancing butterflies from Taiwan! They have a performance coming up at the Winter Festival dance show in the southern part of the island. They are currently in northern Taiwan, so they need to hurry and start flying south. That’s far for a butterfly! Kai is worried about the long journey, and…
This is the first and only book in English to take you on a deep dive into the Japanese film industry. You will join well-known directors, cast, and staff for tales of backroom set dealings. The author’s own unlikely story starts with joining the Japanese crew on a George Romero-directed TV commercial shot in Los…
In 1864-65, it took Gustavus Farley Jr 123 days by ship to reach Hong Kong from Boston, USA, a journey which he diarizes in the last letter in this collection. Although only twenty years old, he already had several sea-miles under his belt. At 17, he had been sent to London from his home in…
Although Gideon Defoe’s An Atlas of Extinct Countries, described by the publisher as “Prisoners of Geography meets Bill Bryson”, is glib and on occasion snarky, it overlays a serious and topical point: what is a country, what are borders and who says so? “Treating nation states with too much respect is maybe the entire problem…
Fleeing from grief, Sarah takes solace in a small campus town. Apprehensive yet hopeful, she settles into her new life in a rented studio apartment at Gemvilla. At a dinner party, she meets and befriends her neighbors—a reclusive musician, a literature student, a shaman, a conspiracist, a reluctant engineering student.