“The Journey of the Ancestors’ Gifts” by Linda Trinh
When Anne, Liz and Jay Nguyen arrive for the first time at their Grandma Nội’s childhood home in Vietnam, the three siblings soon realize that something doesn’t quite feel right.
“India’s Military Strategy: Countering Pakistan’s Challenge” by S Kalyanaraman
The late S Kalyanaraman was one of India’s foremost strategic thinkers until his untimely death in 2022 due to complications from COVID-19. He worked as a research fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. His last book, India’s Military Strategy, concisely explains and assesses the evolution of India’s military…
“From From” by Monica Youn
Deeply experimental, creative and thought-provoking, From From by leading Korean-American poet Monica Youn, looks at the complexity of race through myths, history and popular culture, comparing the ways “otherness” is seen in both East Asian and Western cultures and norms. Through these complex, original and tragic-comic poems, the poet explores the deep roots of human…
“Music Making in Iran from the 15th to the Early 20th Century” by Amir Hosein Pourjavady
The history of Iran’s rich musical culture presents a paradox. On the one hand, there is a distinctive Persian style of music, different from its Arab, Turkish, Central and South Asian neighbors. It has its own modes, its own vocal styles, its favorite instruments, its own performance genres. On the other hand, for many centuries…
“The Black Lizard” by Edogawa Rampo
Edogawa Rampo (or Ranpo) was one of the most prolific Japanese mystery and crime writers of a century or so ago, and his work has remained in the public eye, whether in Japanese film, manga, video games, or translations. Born Taro Hirai, in 1923 he made his literary debut under a pen name chosen in…
“The Book of the Činggis Legend: A Critical Edition of a Seventeenth-century Volga-Turkī Source”, edited and translated by Mária Ivanics
Genghis Khan established the greatest land empire ever known. His heirs saw to it that his accomplishments be remembered in a number of now classic works, like the Secret Histories of the Mongols, the Compendium of Histories by Rashiduddin, and Juvayni’s History of the World Conqueror. But souvenirs of Genghis Khan also survived in folk…
“Into Siberia: George Kennan’s Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia” by Gregory J Wallance
It can be hard to imagine now, but there was a time, about 150 years ago, when Americans had a favorable and amicable view of Russia, “a ‘distant friend’” of the United States, a colorful but mysterious land filled with tragically romantic characters,” as Gregory Wallance writes in Into Siberia, his engrossing account of, as…
“Zadie Ma and the Dog Who Chased the Moon” by Gabrielle Wang
Eleven-year-old Zadie Ma has what her younger brother Teddy calls a “superpower”: some of the stories that Zadie writes come true. It’s true of the ants whose lives Zadie saves from her mother’s wrath by writing a story about a little ant who anticipates the poison. It’s true of a fox she writes about that…
“Crocodile Tears” by Amado V Hernandez
T his time last year, Penguin Southeast Asia released Amado V Hernandez’s first novel The Preying Birds (Mga Ibong Mandaragit), a classic of modern Filipino literature that had somehow more or less missed the attention of international publishers up to that point. This has been followed, in just the space of just twelve months, with…
“The House of Doors” by Tan Twan Eng
In 1921, Somerset Maugham and his partner Gerald Haxton traveled throughout Asia, which included a sojourn in Penang. Maugham gathered personal stories from people he met in Malaya that would inspire his fictional work, The Casuarina Tree, a collection of six stories published in 1926.
“A Young Englishman in Victorian Hong Kong: The Diaries of Chaloner Alabaster, 1855-1856”, by Benjamin Penny
You never know what’ll show up in the archives. In 2015, Benjamin Penny stumbled across the 19th-century diaries of one Chaloner Alabaster in the Special Collections room of London’s SOAS. Alabaster left England in August 1855 to take up a position as “student interpreter” in the China Consular Service. He ended up making a career…
“The Bridesman” by Savyon Liebrecht
Savyon Liebrecht’s novel, The Bridesman, opens with the narrator on a flight from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv. It’s been twenty-four years since Micha left Israel for the United States and he’s heading back on an all-expenses-paid invitation from his beloved aunt Adella. Liebrecht’s novel, translated from the Hebrew by Gilah Kahn-Hoffmann, is a short…
“The Kidnapping of Mark Twain” by Anuradha Kumar
Art imitating life, or is it the other way around? Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character so popular and ubiquitous in popular culture that he almost seems real; many, indeed, have thought him so. Samuel L Clements, by contrast, was a real man so flamboyant, omnipresent and iconic that he can seem almost fictional, a…
“Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop” by Hwang Bo-Reum
When Lee Yeongju burns out at work and leaves her husband, she finds solace in pursuing her childhood dream of opening a bookshop. Her goal is to bring joy to other readers in Seoul and to get back into reading, a pastime she enjoyed back in middle school before she got caught up in the…
“His Majesty’s Headhunters: The Siege of Kohima That Shaped World History” by Mmhonlümo Kikon
It is a battle that has been called “the Stalingrad of the East”, but a more accurate description might be“India’s forgotten battle of World War II”. The Battle of Kohima, which was fought between British/Imperial and Japanese troops during 4 April through 6 June of 1944, according to author Mmhonlümo Kikon, “shaped world history”. It…
