“Old Kiln” by Jia Pingwa
Mud, blood, farts and plenty of swearing: esteemed author Jia Pingwa minutely details the brutal reality of peasant life in this magnum opus set during the Cultural Revolution.
“Gingko Season” by Naomi Xu Elegant
The American expat-in-Asia novel has been done so many times it’s practically its own genre, but the inverse is almost unheard of—until now. Naomi Xu Elegant’s debut novel, Gingko Season, is a witty, humorous and clever story of twenty-five-year-old Penelope Lin, an expat from Beijing who navigates adulthood alongside a diverse cast of friends.
“Bali 1952: Through the Lens of Liu Kang” by Gretchen Liu
Bali 1952: Through the Lens of Liu Kang documents a seven-week trip to Java and Bali in 1952 by four China-born and Shanghai-trained Singapore artists—Chen Wen Hsi, Chen Chong Swee, Cheong Soo Pieng and Liu Kang—to sketch and paint tropical beauty.
“Before Colonization: Non-Western States and Systems in the Nineteenth Century” by Charles R Butcher and Ryan D Griffiths
That Before Colonization can be read in several ways is to its favour, but also makes it hard to review. It takes aim at the way international relations (referred to by the field’s formal initials IR) has tended to go about its business; it is also a refreshingly straightforward discussion of, as in the subtitle,…
“Hidden Heroes: Anthology of North Korean Fiction”
It’s customary to begin writing on North Korea by acknowledging how difficult it is to get reliable information from such a secretive and tightly-controlled regime in such a highly politicized context. Though an undoubtedly repressive regime, in an information vacuum misinformation can spread, such as the easily-disproved but persistent misconception that all North Korean citizens…
“The Cleaving: Vietnamese Writers in the Diaspora”
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and what is now celebrated in Vietnam as the unification of the country. Outside of Vietnam, this anniversary is tinted with stories of exile, of loss and trauma, of surviving in a new country and culture, where Vietnamese voices often go unheard. The Cleaving…
“Ryu” by Akira Higashiyama
The ghosts of those wronged in war invariably call out for vengeance. When the conflict is a civil war, all the more so. Families may be split apart, feuds started, and children called upon to settle scores they weren’t alive to start. The civil war that swept through China from 1927 to 1949 is no…
“One Hundred Flowers” by Genki Kawamura
Kōhaku, the annual singing competition between the red and white teams, is a popular New Year’s event in Japan. In One Hundred Flowers, mother and son gather to celebrate the holiday at home by watching the program and eating dinner—a poignant reminder of how their relationship has changed over time. As a single mother, Yuriko…
“Tianjin Cosmopolis: An Alternative History of Globalization” by Pierre Singaravélou
In his book Tianjin Cosmopolis, Pierre Singaravélou remarks that “The history of modernity is a history of possible futures as much as a study of the processes of modernization.” Thanks to a new translation from the original French, English readers now have a chance to consider one possible future of China that never came to…
“A Thousand Blues” by Cheon Seonran
Initially evoking the sterile chill of a dystopian sci-fi tale, with horse-riding jockey robots and humans replaced by automation, Cheon Seonran’s A Thousand Blues quickly reveals itself as something far richer: a thoughtful exploration of humanity’s uneasy coexistence with technology, as well as the contradictions of a society that both creates and undermines its own…
“Goddess Complex” by Sanjena Sathian
In Sanjena Sathian’s new novel, Goddess Complex, women’s bodies are reduced to the idea of their divine if not interchangeable—wombs. The protagonist, Sanjana Satyananda (the stark similarity in names between the author and her character is no coincidence) is a thirty-something burnt-out academic who feels intense alienation toward motherhood. She spends the course of the…
“The Spider” by Aurko Maitra
Set in West Bengal, Aurko Maitra’s debut novella The Spider grapples with the human predisposition to violence, to unmediated crimes of rape and murder. Maitra has spent part of his career as a journalist in this state of east India known for endless political violence, which, like clockwork, occurs as local elections approach and politicians…
“Sakina’s Kiss” by Vivek Shanbhag
It’s a brave step to have a coward as your protagonist but acclaimed author Vivek Shanbhag’s unlikeable creation proves to be a memorable device for exploring power, patriarchy and politics in contemporary India.
“Mending Bodies” by Hon Lai Chu
Fifteen years have passed between the publication of Hon Lai Chu’s 《缝身》 (“Seam”) and Mending Bodies, its English translation by Jacqueline Leung. Readers who feel those years mark a drift toward dystopia may detect the eerie touch of prophecy in Hon’s writing. Yet she also digs into human problems with neither expiration date nor borders.
“The Second Book of Prophets” by Benyamin
It’s not every day one comes across a new novel about Jesus as a social activist, least of all one in translation from Malayalam. So Ministhy S’s recent translation of renowned Indian writer Benyamin’s 2007 novel, The Second Book of Prophets, is unexpected, to say the least. One need not know much about biblical stories…
