Wars produce confusion and panic that often result from fears—rational and otherwise—among government officials and populations subject to war’s vicissitudes. During World War II, British officials in India and their colonial subjects feared a Japanese invasion of the sub-continent that never occurred. Krea University philosophy professor and former editor of The Hindu Mukund Padmanabhan tells this fascinating story in his debut book The Great Flap of 1942.
In July 2021, Naomi Osaka—world number 1 women’s tennis player—lit the Olympic Cauldron at the Tokyo Olympic Games. The half-Japanese, half-American, Black athlete was a symbol of a more complicated, more multi-ethnic Japan—and of the global nature of high-level sports. Osaka is now about to start her comeback, after taking some time off following the birth of her child.
Apocalypse narratives from the West tend to relate to the end of the whole world, rather than just a region or a country. Aliens, climate change, zombies, nuclear wars—the scale of these narratives is global. When Indian voices do come to these themes, they more often than not come across as very rooted in Indian geography and history. Therefore, Indian comedian Kanan Gill’s Acts of God will surprise those who hold Indian sci-fi as relevant to Indian history or its postcolonial context alone, for Gill’s debut novel comes with a sensibility with potential appeal to global readers of science fiction.
Kiyoko Murata’s A Woman of Pleasure is a story of Japan’s pleasure quarters in 1903 and 1904. Fifteen-year-old Aoi Ichi grew up on a rocky volcanic island, “the sort of place where stumbling upon a folkloric demon would come as no surprise”. She always expected to grow up like her mother, a strong swimmer and diver who supports her family with the fish and shellfish she catches. But now, to support a loan to her impoverished family, she has been sold to an exclusive brothel in Kumamoto, a regional capital along an inland sea on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu.
Sweet malida is a dish made from rice grains softened in water mixed with sugar and dried fruit and nuts. It’s enjoyed in Afghan, Indian and Pakistani homes, and it’s also a dish popular with the Bene Israel, a Jewish community with a 2000 year history in India. Zilka Joseph has written before about her Bene Israel background, but her new book, Sweet Malida: Memories of a Bene Israel Woman, is a more vivid account of the origins of the Bene Israel and its many delicious culinary dishes.
A propulsive, extraordinary novel about a mother and her daughters’ harrowing escape to Taiwan as the Communist revolution sweeps through China, by debut author Eve J. Chung, based on her family story.
Futaro Yamada, discovered by the hugely influential mystery writer Edogawa Rampo, was hugely prolific in his lifetime, with many of his stories being adapted to film, such as Nagisa Ōshima’s thriller Pleasures of the Flesh (1965) and Samurai Reincarnation (Kinji Fukusaku, 1981). If Yamada’s name is known in the Anglophone world, however, it is usually for the manga and anime adaptations of his series The Kouga Ninja Scrolls. This newly translated edition of his 1979 novel The Meiji Guillotine Murders is an opportunity to experience his work more directly. Though published by Pushkin Press’s Vertigo imprint, which publishes detective fiction from around the world, The Meiji Guillotine Murders is a historical fiction. It has neither the narrative nor the feel of a traditional detective story, exemplified by the work of fellow Vertigo-published authors Seishi Yokomizo and Yukito Ayatsuji.
Empires are one of the most common forms of political structure in history—yet no empire is alike. We have our “standard” view of empire: perhaps the Romans, or the China of the Qin and Han Dynasties—vast polities that cover numerous different people, knit together by strong institutions from a political center. But where do, say, the empires of the steppe, like the Xiongnu or the Mongols, fit into our understanding of empire? Or the Portuguese empire, which got its start as an array of ports and forts in South and Southeast Asia? Or the Manchus, who waltzed into a collapsing Ming China and rapidly re-established its governing structures—with themselves at the head?
Care and education of young children is crucial for a nation’s development and the early years teacher is the most important person in a child’s life after her parents. While early education has been in the hands of informally qualified educators in India for the past several decades, the National Education Policy 2020 has emphasized the need for qualified and skilled teachers to transact a quality early childhood programme.
At first glance, Sophie Wan’s debut novel, Women of Good Fortune, set around a glamorous wedding in contemporary Shanghai, may seem like an archetypal romantic comedy of girl meets boy, girl loses boy, and girl gets boy at the end. But it soon becomes evident that the novel is instead a more sobering story that calls to mind Frances Cha’s If I Had Your Face, another debut novel that features a group of friends who are trying to navigate the sometimes-impossible expectations and demands on young women in East Asia.
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