“Deep Singh Blue” by Ranbir Singh Sidhu
There may come a time when Asian-American writing loses its hyphen and becomes “American”. Ranbir Singh Sidhu’s debut novel Deep Singh Blue provides some indication that this point may be approaching.
“Across the Ussuri Kray: Travels in the Sikhote-Alin Mountains” by Vladimir K Arsenyev, translated by Jonathan C Slaght
Vladimir K Arsenyev was an army officer, explorer and writer active in Russia’s Far East in the waning years of the Romanov dynasty. His major claim to fame, outside Russia at any rate, is having introduced the world to the aboriginal hunter and trapper Dersu Uzala, who several decades later became the subject of an…
“Singapore Love Stories”, edited by Verena Tay
Singapore Love Stories is a collection of seventeen short stories, from Singaporean and Singapore-based writers. The anthology is edited by local author Verena Tay, who contributed “Ex”, while Australian expat author Raelee Chapman, who contributed “The Gardener”, is credited as “anthology coordinator and compiler.”
“Ethnic Conflict and Protest in Tibet and Xinjiang: Unrest in China’s West”, edited by Ben Hillman and Gray Tuttle
Ethnic Conflict and Protest in Tibet and Xinjiang: Unrest in China’s West is a collection of academic articles edited by Ben Hillman and Gray Tuttle. Although ethnically and historically quite dissimilar, the two regions of Xinjiang and Tibet occupy a similar space in China’s political landscape. Both are large volatile regions on the country’s western…
“Are You an Echo?: The Lost Poetry of Misuzu Kaneko”
After the 2011 tsunami, TV commercials were, out of respect, replaced with public service messages. One was the following poem: If I say, “Let’s play?” you say, “Let’s play!” If I say, “Stupid!” you say, “Stupid!” If I say, “I don’t want to play anymore,” you say, “I don’t want to play anymore.” And…
“The Music Child and the Mahjong Queen” by Alfred A Yuson
Alfred A Yuson’s The Music Child was shortlisted for the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize at a time when the prize was for unpublished manuscripts. Although the finished novel took the better part of a decade to finally emerge, The Music Child and the Mahjong Queen exemplifies the Prize’s objective of facilitating the publication of…
“Once Upon a Time in India: The Marvellous Adventures of Captain Corcoran” by Alfred Assollant
The times are a-changing for superheroes. Weary, doubtful and even hated for their supernatural aptitude of putting the world’s needs before theirs, our 21st-century champions are in the middle of a mid-life crisis that is spurning countless books and Hollywood box-office hits. Now the rave is all about bringing them back into the Xanax realm…
“A History of Modern Chinese Fiction” by CT Hsia
Those with an academic interest in Chinese literature are undoubtedly aware of the CT Hsia classic History of Modern Chinese Fiction which has just been reissued by the Chinese University Press. Those who aren’t might find the thought of a 600-page tome of literary criticism to be more than a little daunting; that would be…
“Slow Boat to China and Other Stories” by Ng Kim Chew
Unlike his Malaysian-Chinese compatriots, Tash Aw and Tan Twan Eng who have become well-known for novels which fit pretty squarely into the English-language, Ng Kim Chew writes in Chinese from a base in Taiwan. Slow Boat to China is a collection of his short stories, the first book of his—as far as I can tell—to…
“Powerplay: The Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia” by Victor D Cha
It is unfortunate that Victor Cha chose to overlay his otherwise interesting history of the development of America’s Asian alliances in the early Cold War years with international relations theory and academic jargon more suitable to journals that only professors read. After reading the initial chapters where he discusses “determinants of overdependence,” “entrapment fear,” “undercommitment…
“Womansword: What Japanese Words Say About Women” by Kittredge Cherry
Princeton University, or at least the HR department, recently promulgated new policies discouraging if not quite banning such terms as “man made”, “manpower” and “man” (as a verb); these are to be replaced with such gender-neutral terms as “artificial” and “staff” (as noun and verb). “Workmanlike” is to become “skillful” (although they don’t seem exact…
“Half the Sky” by Luise Guest
Luise Guest’s Half the Sky is a welcome addition to works on Chinese contemporary art. Amid all the froth of the Chinese art scene, Guest focuses solely on female artists, long overlooked and under-studied, presenting the work and thoughts of some thirty artists.
“Where the Jews Aren’t: The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia’s Jewish Autonomous Region” by Masha Gessen
In a corner of the Russian Far East, just across the Chinese border and wedged in between Heilongjiang’s upturned chin and lip, lies the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (Region) whose capital is Birobidzhan. The Oblast is somewhat larger than Israel, but with a fraction of the population: it peaked at 214,000 in the late 1980s, and…
“Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy” by Ece Temelkuran
In Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy, political commentator Ece Temelkuran invites the reader to draw up a chair as she attempts to untangle the complicated, often contradictory, nature of her country’s current political environment.
“The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern China” by Jeffrey Wasserstrom (editor)
Integral to the misguided conception of China as unknowably complex is the sheer scale of its history. While historians of the United States, for example, need to cultivate a knowledge base which extends back a few centuries or so, scholars of Chinese history must contend with a national story of anything between three thousand and…
