Geographic labels are sometimes misnomers. The Dead Sea’s name is not, for the most part. Its high salinity levels kill most forms of life, barring a couple hardy microbes and algae—and even these are threatened by environmental change. Except the Dead Sea has been part of human history for millennia. Jericho, the world’s oldest city, sits nearby. It features prominently in the Bible. Greeks, Romans, Jews, Arabs, Europeans all interact with the Dead Sea. And it’s now a tourist hotspot, a source for resources extraction–and a political hotspot, shared between Jordan, Israel, and the contested area of the West Bank.
Dreamy and playful, Gabrielle Tse’s debut pamphlet Rustlings speaks to memory and domesticity, maintaining a balletic lightness above fractures in language and heritage. With all its subtle sounds and textures, Rustlings is a sensuous exploration of the absences and complications of daily life.
Radha Vatsal specializes in mysteries set in World War I-era New York City. Her latest, No 10 Doyers Street, is set a decade before that in 1907 New York City when mayor George B McClellan had grand plans to build new parks and bring safe drinking water to residents of the city. One of these plans included bulldozing Chinatown so it could be turned into one of these planned parks. The star of her book is an Indian female newspaper reporter named Archana Morley who finds herself covering more than one story in Chinatown. The result is a descriptive, engaging thriller set in the dark alleys of New York’s Chinatown more than a hundred years ago.
The legacy of empire in Asian is palpable in Lisbon, from the images of Infant Jesus made in gold by Goan craftsmen, to the nambam lacquer screens depicting the exotic Portuguese merchants in Japan. Portugal exited Asia only in 1997 with the return of Macau to Chinese administration, but until now, Asian art in the Lusitanian capital reflected incompletely the extensive adventures of the Portuguese in Asia. After all, their merchants, mercenaries and missionaries traded, soldiered and preached in Nagasaki, Agra, Pagan, Ayudhya, Malacca, Banda and Kandy.
The Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet in 1959 after its occupation by China and established a government in exile in India. There, Tibetan leaders aimed to bring together displaced people from varied religious traditions and local loyalties under the banner of unity. The Politics of Sorrow tells the story of the Group of Thirteen, a collective of chieftains and lamas from the regions of Kham and Amdo, who sought to preserve Tibet’s cultural diversity in exile.
Akha Ghanr is, for Akha communities, a “highly pragmatic system of customary law encompassing an entire way of life”, or it could be better described as “Ancestral ways”, acknowledging the role and leadership of their ancestors, something that is central to Akha identity and culture. How it has changed over time is the subject of Micah F Morton’s new book, Enchanted Modernities which explores the evolving role of Akha Ghanr within Akha societies across China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. Akha Ghanr isn’t a religion in itself but rather an intricate set of ancestral cultural practices that shape Akha society. How Akha Ghanr has adapted to modernity and high rates of Christian conversion is a crucial part of this book, as is the role of neo-traditionalists seeking to both preserve Akha Ghanr and adapt it to the realities of modern life.
Li Qingzhao (1084-1151 CE) is considered the greatest woman poet in Chinese history but, as translator Wendy Chen writes in her introduction, Li “remains relatively unknown in the West.” Chen, who first heard Li’s poetry as a child, is determined to help change this. The Magpie at Night is Chen’s translation of the Song-dynasty writer in a collection of poetry that feels both of its era but also carries a timeliness that renders Li’s poetry as accessible as it is moving.
What is Hinduism? For centuries, that question was particularly thorny, both for local Indians and for colonial outsiders. People inside and outside the country tried to define what Hinduism was. Missionaries grappled with Hindu practices, finding both similarities and dangerous differences with their own Christian faith. The East India Company adopted several Hindu rituals to keep the peace, much to the chagrin of officials back in London.
“I feel like there must be some way”, ends the title of one story in Tomoka Shibasaki’s A Hundred Years and a Day, “of visiting the places that exist only in people’s memories.” Each of the 34 fictional vignettes in this collection is a standalone slice-of-life that features a character, now advanced into middle-age, recollecting a formative experience of their youth. Through these recollections, Shibasaki creates a humanistic chronicle that touches on the tragic beauty of mortality.
Who is Shuzo Takiguchi? Neglected and out of print for decades in Japan, ignored by the anglophone world, awareness of his contributions to 20th century Japanese writing and fine arts is long overdue. Profoundly influenced by French surrealism, Takiguchi’s heady mix of mythological rumination and avant-garde modernist poetry has finally been made available to an international audience with the bilingual publication of A Kiss for the Absolute: Selected Poems of Shuzo Takiguchi, translated by poets Mary Jo Bang and Yuki Tanaka. Meticulously harvested from a cache comprising a ten-year period of intense literary composition from 1927-1937, this edition of thirty-five poems gives needed shape to Takiguchi’s wide-ranging legacy as an eclectic visionary—critic, translator, poet, artist, collector, curator.
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