“Hokusai’s Daughter” by Sunny Seki
Sunny Seki opens his new children’s book, Hokusai’s Daughter, with Hokusai, the famous painter and printmaker from the Edo period, walking alongside his young daughter.
“Island” by Sujit Saraf
Sujit Saraf has set his new novel in the Andaman islands, located in the Indian Ocean, far from the Indian mainland, geographically but also culturally. Island’s protagonist, Nirmal Chandra Mattoo is a middle-aged man, working in a shop in the capital, Port Blair, selling counterfeit tribal artwork to tourists.
“Murakami Haruki on Film” by Marc Yamada
The diversification of Japanese Literature available in translation means that the release of a new novel by Haruki Murakami is not met with quite the fanfare it once was, but interest in movie adaptations of the author’s work is higher than ever. This is due at least in part to the enthusiasm with which critics…
Podcast review: “The Mongols: Terror of the Steppe” from the “Fall of Civilizations” podcast
Books can be the subjects of podcasts, podcasts can spawn books, but only rarely does a podcast itself rise to be a possible stand-in for a book. Paul Cooper’s recent two-part podcast “The Mongols: Terror of the Steppe” is one of these.
“I’ll Have It Here: Poems” by Jeet Thayil
As an award-winning novelist, Jeet Thayil may need little introduction, but given that I’ll Have It Here is his first collection in a decade and a half, some readers may need some reminding that he is also an accomplished poet.
“Gods, Guns, and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity” by Manu S Pillai
In the early 19th century, Reverend Andrew Fuller, a leading evangelical, dismissed the possibility of any anti-colonial unity in India, claiming that “Hindoos resemble an immense number of particles of sand, which are incapable of forming a solid mass. There is no bond of union among them, nor any principle capable of effecting it.” Yet,…
“Kyoto’s Gion Festival: A Social History” by Mark Teeuwen
In the wake of the COVID pandemic, tourism is again booming in Japan. July 2024 saw the highest inflow of visitors ever recorded—more than 3 million entries in the month alone. For many, if not most, tourists, the city of Kyoto will rate a very high priority. The spring and autumn are usually regarded as…
“On The Other Side” by Rahman Abbas
Originally published in 2011 and now translated from Urdu by Riyaz Latif, On The Other Side bears the distinct trademarks of Rahman Abbas’s writing: poetic language, an emphasis on the gullies of Bombay, the dangerous divisiveness of religion in contemporary India, and the iron grip of patriarchal terror.
“Steamships across the Pacific: Maritime Journeys between Mexico, China, and Japan, 1867–1914” by Ruth Mandujano López
Ruth Mandujano López starts her book Steamships across the Pacific with, as seems almost de rigueur now for almost any book about Latin American-Asian relations, with the history of the Manila Galleon, but for her, this is a point of comparison and departure.
“Mornings with My Cat Mii” by Mayumi Inaba
A much-loved memoir about a Japanese author’s relationship with her cat is translated into English for the first time by award-winning translator, Ginny Tapley Takemori. Writer Mayumi Inaba won many prizes for her stories and poems before her untimely death from cancer in 2014. She was well-known as a cat lover, particularly her calico, Mii….
“The Great Mughals, Art, Architecture and Opulence” edited by Susan Stronge
The Great Mughals, Art, Architecture and Opulence, edited by Susan Stronge, is a new book published by V&A publications to coincide with the exhibition currently on display at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.
“Tokyo Swindlers” by Ko Shinjo
In the corner of a busy cafe in Tokyo, three men meet over coffee. But the trio of Goto, Takumi, and Sasaki are not who they seem—they are rehearsing carefully scripted roles in a property scam. With real estate values soaring in the city, schemes to make a quick profit are on the rise.
“Miss Samuel: A Jewish-Indian Saga” by Sheela Rohekar
Novels set around the Jewish Bene Israel community in India are as rare as hen’s teeth, but Sheela Rohekar’s 2013 Hindi novel, Miss Samuel: A Jewish-Indian Saga, translated this year into English by Madhu Singh, must be one-of-a-kind. Rohekar is perhaps the only Jewish author in India who writes in Hindi. Her novel reads as…
“Carnival” by Sayam Bandyopadhyay
Set in the early to mid-19th century in British-occupied India, Sayam Bandyopadhyay’s Carnival, at the outset, focuses on a middle-aged recluse living in Calcutta. Despite becoming a landowner at his father’s death, Rajaram Deb prefers a monotonous life confined to the walls of his bedroom—often at the cost of his responsibilities—barring rare moments of socializing….
“Behind the Painting” by Siburapha
Titles from the venerable Penguin Classics imprint are usually books one knows one should have read even if one hasn’t (yet): known unknowns, as the famous saying goes. Behind the Painting by Thai author Siburapha is, even for the well-read anglophone consumer of literature, likely to qualify as an unknown unknown. First published 1937, this…
