Christopher Beckwith likes to shake up the staid world of archeologists, philologists and historians with big claims. In his Empires of the Silk Road, he argued the debt of world civilization to unfamiliar peoples from inner Asia, changing a Euro-centric or Sino-Centric approach to history into steppe-centricity. The Scythian Empire takes this one step forward by attributing many of the contributions from the steppe to a single people, the Scythians. In Beckwith’s telling, the Wusun, the Xiongnu, the Yuezhi, the Tokharians and the Soghdians are all Scythians, as are the Medes.
Power tales. Brief by design (micro-stories, really). But unforgettably impactful. Their professor-author first delivered them as his signature “class-openers” on US university campuses.Literature, history, science, philosophy, the scriptures, and even personal life – all are raided for these stories. Nimble and quick, they bridge diverse knowledge fields, never failing to leave an inspirational stamp on the reader’s soul.
Author Kyla Zhao got her start in publishing at the age of sixteen writing for the Singapore editions of prominent glossy magazines penning wedding articles for Harper’s Bazaar, then went on to Tatler and Vogue. She centers her debut novel, The Fraud Squad, in the world of Singapore glossies with a Pygmalion twist. The story is fun and while it could be tempting to compare it to Crazy Rich Asians or The Devil Wears Prada, Zhao’s novel distinctively stands on its own with its exploration of the role society magazines play in cities like Singapore and Hong Kong.
Opera Hong Kong’s La bohème was originally scheduled for last May, but was bumped off the schedule by the tail-end of a Covid surge. The delayed production was well worth waiting for.
In 1974, India surprised the world with “Smiling Buddha”: a secret underground nuclear test at Pokhran, Rajasthan. India called it a “peaceful nuclear explosion”—but few outside of India saw it that way. The 1974 nuclear tests became a symbol of India’s ability to help itself, especially given how the country was left out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, an agreement the country argued was colonial.
In a museum in Mumbai, a chance viewing of a photograph of a Punjabi princess inspires Italian author and journalist, Livia Manera Sambuy, to investigate the rani’s life which, unexpectedly, becomes a journey of self-discovery too.
A half-century and more ago, when I was growing up, there was a comic book series in the United States called “Classics Illustrated” which retold novels, myths and—my own favorites—history in a format normally reserved for Spiderman. These were probably not the most accurate introductions to Marco Polo or Caesar, but they stirred the imagination.
Karma Pakshi is considered influential in the development of the reincarnate lama tradition, a system that led to the lineage of the Dalai Lamas. Born in East Tibet in the 13th century, Karma Pakshi himself was the first master to be named Karmapa, a lineage that continues to modern times and has millions of admirers worldwide. During his lifetime, Karma Pakshi was widely acknowledged as a mahāsiddha—a great spiritual adept—and was therefore invited to the Mongol court at the apogee of its influence in Asia.
Amado V Hernandez’s The Preying Birds (Mga Ibong Mandaragit, first published in 1969) is a classic of modern Filipino literature and, according to translator Danton Remoto, a required text in Filipino schools. That it is only just now appearing in an international English-language edition is something of a surprise.
A 2022 round-up of reviews of works in translation from Arabic, Turkish, Farsi, Dari, Pashto, Kazakh, Russian, French and Spanish.
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