A round-up of reviews of works in translation from Bahasa Indonesia, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Pali, Bengali, Tamil, Farsi, Armenian and Arabic: classics, contemporary fiction, short stories and poetry. From roughly East to West: Bahasa Indonesia The Wandering by Intan Paramaditha, translated … [Read more...]
Southeast Asian Women’s Fiction: 5 Short Reads
January 4, 2021 by
Southeast Asian literature has not garnered as much attention as its neighboring counterparts. And yet, the worlds and characters crafted by Southeast Asian writers form a rich and subtly critical scene that begs to be discovered. Women writers, in particular, have much to do with enriching this … [Read more...]
Our best Filipino books of 2020
January 4, 2021 by
I’d like to think there are more Filipinos who read this year. The success of online book fairs such as Aklatan and the ease of having a book — or books — delivered to your home have certainly satiated our need to explore worlds elsewhere or understand the direness of our situation. In Glenn … [Read more...]
6 Must-Read Indonesian Novels, Stories, and Poems
January 2, 2021 by
Indonesia, Asia’s largest archipelago, is one of the world’s most ethnically, religiously, and culturally diverse countries. It is a place called home by every kind of human being. As soon, Indonesian novels, stories, and poems offer readers that same kind of diversity and excitement. The … [Read more...]
5 Food Novels by Southeast Asian Women Writers
January 2, 2021 by
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” Francis Bacon’s familiar maxim, about the degrees with which a reader might interact with a book, takes a renewed meaning in light of food literature. This particular category of texts has gone under many … [Read more...]
