New book announcement: “Mischief of the Gods: Tales from the Ethiopian Streets” by Itsushi Kawase

Mischief of the Gods: Tales from the Ethiopian Streets, Itsushi Kawase, Jeffrey Johnson (trans) (Awai Books, June 2023)
Mischief of the Gods: Tales from the Ethiopian Streets, Itsushi Kawase, Jeffrey Johnson (trans) (Awai Books, June 2023)

This is the first English translation of 2021 Suntory Literary Prize-winning author and visual anthropologist Itsushi Kawase. In this playfully-structured collection of stories and photographs, Kawase journeys from Japan to the Ethiopian streets of Gondar. Join him in Africa where he learns from a diverse cast of characters including local bards, prostitutes, musicians, priests, the homeless, spirit mediums and even a few deceptive guides. This work, translated by Jeffrey Johnson, is sure to surprise and captivate readers.

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“The Enlightenment of Katzuo Nakamatsu” by Augusto Higa Oshiro

Latin America is home to a large East Asian diaspora, the result of much the same forces that created the not dissimilar diaspora in North America; the authors arising in that other diaspora, however, write in Spanish (and perhaps Portuguese, depending on how one defines things) rather than English. Very few of these works end up in English. The arrival of The Enlightenment of Katzuo Nakamatsu by Augusto Higa Oshiro in an inspired translation by Jennifer Shyue, is a glimpse into a world and literary tradition that English readers rarely get to experience.

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Podcast with Deepra Dandekar, translator of “Yamuna’s Journey” by Baba Padmanji

In 1856, the East India Company imposed the Hindu Widow Remarriage Act, allowing widows to remarry after their husband’s death. The Act was controversial at the time: Hindu traditionalists, particularly in higher castes, prevented widows from remarrying to protect the family’s honor, and even teenage and child widows were expected to live lives of austerity.

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“Korea at War” by Michael J Seth

Korea was a unified, homogeneous country from the seventh century CE until 1945 when in the wake of the Second World War it was partitioned by the United States and the Soviet Union and formally became two separate states in 1948. Since that time, writes James Madison University history professor Michael J Seth, Korea has been a nation divided into vastly different social systems and “perpetually at war” with itself. Seth’s new book Korea at War attempts to describe and explain this geopolitical transformation.  

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“An Afterlife for the Khan: Muslims, Buddhists, and Sacred Kingship in Mongol Iran and Eurasia” by Jonathan Z Brack

In the Middle Ages when representatives of different religions met for formal disputations, they did not cite chapter and verse from their own scriptures, knowing full well that their opponents would not consider these sources credible. Instead, they used common sense. They shared many common assumptions about the nature of reality, the sacred and the profane. They mostly agreed that God created the world, and humans had been set inside that world in order to fulfill their destiny. The question was how best to do this, and which religion offered the best guidance for that. 

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New Book Announcement: “An Ecological History of Modern China” by Stevan Harrell

An Ecological History of Modern China, Stevan Harrell (University of Washington Press, June 2023)
An Ecological History of Modern China, Stevan Harrell (University of Washington Press, June 2023)

Is environmental degradation an inevitable result of economic development? Can ecosystems be restored once government officials and the public are committed to doing so? These questions are at the heart of An Ecological History of Modern China, a comprehensive account of China’s transformation since the founding of the People’s Republic from the perspective not of the economy but of the biophysical world. Examples throughout illustrate how agricultural, industrial, and urban development have affected the resilience of China’s ecosystems—their ability to withstand disturbances and additional growth—and what this means for the country’s future.

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Opera in brief: He Hui debuts “Der fliegende Holländer” in Guangzhou; Diana Damrau and Nicholas Testé in recital; Musica Viva’s “L’elisir d’amore” for students

The first half of May was been a busy fortnight for opera in the Greater Bay Area. The renowned Chinese soprano He Hui sang her first Wagner role, Senta in Der fliegende Holländer, at the Guangzhou Opera House on 5 and 7 May, a dramatic move (literally and figuratively) away from the Verdi and Puccini heroines for which she is best known.

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“Ma Is Scared” by Anjali Kajal

In these ten stories, selected by translator Kavita Bhanot, Anjali Kajal examines the lives of women across two generations of, mainly, mothers and daughters, set in current-era Northern India. No one who has lived in the region will be surprised at the unfortunate incidents portrayed in these stories: harassment of females by men on the streets, in homes and in workplaces is “normal” and overlooked. Her stories, told in an unembellished style, and largely kept in the original cadence by the translator, are hard-hitting because they reflect daily real-life incidents and trends.

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“Kantika” by Elizabeth Graver

Once upon a time, many of the largest cities in what was at the time called the “Near East” enjoyed the benefits of the presence of thriving Jewish communities. Constantinople, Aleppo and Baghdad were just a few cities with tens of thousands of Jews that have since dwindled down to almost a handful. In award-winning Elizabeth Graver’s new novel, Kantika, she writes about her grandmother’s Sephardic family from Constantinople. At the end of the book, she states that she decided to use family photos and real names to keep parts of her story true all while using creative license with ancillary details. 

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