The Noh Family, Grace K. Shim (Kokila, May 2021)
The Noh Family, Grace K. Shim (Kokila, May 2021)

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 Korea. Her father’s family are owners of a famous high-end department store, and are among the richest families in Seoul. When they learn she exists, they are excited to meet her. Her mother has reservations, she hasn’t had a great relationship with her husband’s family, which is why she’s kept them secret.

Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment, Renny Thomas (Routledge, December 2021)
Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment, Renny Thomas (Routledge, December 2021)

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 they express them.

The Culture of Language in Ming China:  Sound, Script, and the Redefinition of Boundaries of Knowledge, Nathan Vedal (Columbia University Press, April 2022)
The Culture of Language in Ming China: Sound, Script, and the Redefinition of Boundaries of Knowledge, Nathan Vedal (Columbia University Press, April 2022)

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 cosmological theorists, who joined forces in the pursuit of a universal theory of language.

The Paper Republic Guide to  Contemporary Chinese Literature (Paper Republic, March 2022)
The Paper Republic Guide to Contemporary Chinese Literature (Paper Republic, March 2022)

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.

Strategies of Authoritarian Survival and Dissensus in Southeast Asia: Weak Men Versus Strongmen, Sokphea Young (Palgrave Macmillan, July 2021)
Strategies of Authoritarian Survival and Dissensus in Southeast Asia: Weak Men Versus Strongmen, Sokphea Young (Palgrave Macmillan, July 2021)

This book analyses how authoritarian rulers of Southeast Asian countries maintain their durability in office, and, in this context, explains why some movements of civil society organizations succeed while others fail to achieve their demands.

Refreshing the Singapore System: Recalibrating Socio-Economic Policy for the 21st Century, Terence WL Ho (World Scientific, August 2021) By (author): Terence W L Ho
Refreshing the Singapore System: Recalibrating Socio-Economic Policy for the 21st Century, Terence WL Ho (World Scientific, August 2021)

Entering the 21st century, however, slowing economic growth, an ageing population, global competition, and widening income dispersion have put the Singapore System under strain. This has prompted a significant refresh of social and economic policies over the past 15-20 years.

Moonlight Rests on My Left Palm: Poems and Essays, Yu Xiuhua, Fiona Sze-Lorrain (Astra House, September 2021)
Moonlight Rests on My Left Palm: Poems and Essays, Yu Xiuhua, Fiona Sze-Lorrain (trans) (Astra House, September 2021)

Born in 1976 in Hengdian village, Hubei Province, Yu Xiuhua is a poet from an impoverished rural background who was born with cerebral palsy. She began writing poetry in 1998. Her poetry collection Moonlight Rests on My Left Palm sold over 300,000 copies in China. Yu received the Peasant Literature Award in 2016 and the Hubei Literary Prize in 2018. 

Em’s Awful Good Fortune: A Novel, Marcie Maxfield (She Writes Press, August 2021)
Em’s Awful Good Fortune: A Novel, Marcie Maxfield (She Writes Press, August 2021)

Not your typical story about an American abroad. Instead, Marcie Maxfield pulls back the curtain on the globe-trotting world of a “tagalong” wife to explore issues of marriage and compromise. Moving backward and forward—both in time and between cities and countries (Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai and Seoul)—Em’s Awful Good Fortune is woven together thematically by bit and pieces of Em’s life: love, loss and betrayal.