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Asian Review of Books

New Books Network

The Asian Review of Books is the only dedicated pan-Asian book review publication. Widely quoted, referenced, republished by leading publications in Asian and beyond and with an archive of more than two thousand book reviews, the ARB also features long-format essays by leading Asian writers and thinkers, excerpts from newly-published books and reviews of arts and culture. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review

arts books

All Episodes

34:51

Lindsey Miller, "North Korea: Like Nowhere Else"...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/09/02

It’s a cliche to call North Korea the most isolated country in the world. Those of us living outside the country often have very little idea of what life there is like, often only seeing what its government would like us to see: military parades, missile launches, and joyous crowds. Yet Lindsey Miller, author of North Korea: Like Nowhere Else: Two Years of Living in the World's Most Secretive State (September Publishing: 2021) is a window into how ordinary North Koreans live. They are more than the

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41:04

Jagjeet Lally, "India and the Silk Roads: The History...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/08/26

When we think about modern trade, we tend to think about the sea: port cities and large ships carrying goods back and forth. It’s a story that tends to put Europe at the center, as the pinnacle of shipping and maritime technology. Jagjeet Lally’s India and the Silk Roads: The History of a Trading World (Hurst, 2021) corrects this narrative. For Jagjeet, the way we talk about globalization misses the continued land trade that happened throughout Central Asia, with India as a hub. Traders traveled

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36:10

Jason M. Kelly, "Market Maoists: The Communist...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/08/19

We think we know the history of China’s opening to the outside world. Maoist China was closed off, until Deng Xiaoping decided to reform the economy and open up to international trade, leading to the economic powerhouse we see today. Except Deng’s opening was built upon an existing foundation of international trade, as shown by Professor Jason Kelly’s Market Maoists: The Communist Origins of China’s Capitalist Ascent (Harvard University Press, 2021) Jason M. Kelly is a historian of modern China with

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31:54

Pornsak Pichetshote, "The Good Asian, Volume 1"...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/08/12

Edison Hark, the star of The Good Asian (Image Comics: 2021), the new comic series written by Pornsak Pichetshote and illustrated by Alexandre Tefenkgi, never signed up to investigate a murder in Chinatown. As the only Chinese-American law enforcement officer in the United States, he travels to San Francisco in 1936 to help find a Chinese maid who has run away from the household of the man who raised him. But he stumbles upon a crime scene that harkens back to an old crime legend: a hitman for the

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34:48

Tom Lin, "The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu" (Little,...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/08/05

It’s a common tale: a gunman out for revenge in the American West, whose six-shooter leaves a trail of bodies behind him. But The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu (Little, Brown and Company, 2021), the debut novel from Tom Lin, takes a novel twist on the genre by having its gunman be Ming Tsu: a Chinese man, orphaned in the United States, out on a journey to murder those who press-ganged him to work on the railroads. But The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu is more than that, as it delves into the

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47:51

Chris Miller, "We Shall Be Masters: Russian Pivots to...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/07/29

Russia’s position between Europe and Asia has led to differing conceptions of “what Russia is” to its leaders. Russia’s vast holdings east of the Urals have often inspired those who led Russia to look eastward for national glory, whether through trade, soft power, or outright force. Yet these Russian “pivots to Asia” often ended soon after they began, with outcomes far more limited than what those who launched them hoped to achieve. Chris Miller’s We Shall Be Masters: Russian Pivots to East Asia

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54:14

Tonio Andrade, "The Last Embassy: The Dutch Mission...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/07/22

On January 10th, 1795, a very tired caravan arrives in Beijing. The travelers have journeyed from Canton on an accelerated schedule through harsh terrain in order to make it to the capital in time for the Qianlong Emperor’s sixtieth anniversary of his reign. The group is led by two Dutchmen: Isaac Titsingh and Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest, who are there to represent the interests of the Dutch Republic at the imperial court. It’s a momentous occasion, especially after the disastrous British

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41:59

Suchitra Vijayan, "Midnight's Borders: A People's...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/07/15

Borders are “important”: they define, in legal terms, who we are, our identity, and our rights. Except borders are rarely imposed with any thought to the people actually living there. And once a border is imposed, it can radically change the lives of those who live alongside it, dividing communities forever more. India’s border, imposed by colonial authorities and disputed by successor governments, makes this clear. Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India (Context / Melville House,

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50:49

Marie Favereau, "The Horde: How the Mongols Changed...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/07/08

Most of our understanding of the Mongol Empire begins and ends with Chinggis Khan and his sweep across Asia. His name is now included among conquerors whose efforts burn bright and burn out quick: Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and so on. Except the story doesn’t end with Chinggis’s death. As Professor Marie Favereau notes in The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World (Harvard University Press: 2021), the empire that he built continued to shape, incubate and grow the political cultures it

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45:22

Larry Feign, "The Flower Boat Girl: A Novel Based on...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/07/01

It can be easy to forget amongst the glistening skyscrapers, bustling streets and neon lights, but the Pearl River Delta used to be a haven for banditry and piracy. As the authority of Imperial China waned, pirate fleets based out of Guangdong Province roamed the waves, raiding traders and taking captives. One of these captives, and later pirates was Cheng Yat Sou—the “wife of Cheng Yat”—who rose from humble beginnings to eventually bring together the competing pirate fleets into a

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41:26

Namit Arora, "Indians: A Brief History of a...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/06/24

We can sometimes forget that “India”—or the idea of a single unified entity—is not a very old concept. Indian history is complicated and convoluted: different societies, polities and cultures rise and fall, ebb and flow, as the political makeup of South Asia changes. Namit Arora, author of Indians: A Brief History of a Civilization (Penguin Viking, 2021), details some of these changing cultures. From the early Harappans, to the Buddhist centers of Nagarjunakonda and Nalanda, and ending at Varanasi,

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42:00

Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez, "Empire's Mistress,...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/06/17

Isabel Rosario Cooper, if mentioned at all by mainstream history books, is often a salacious footnote: the young Filipino mistress of General Douglas MacArthur, hidden away at the Charleston Hotel in DC. Empire’s Mistress, Starring Isabel Rosario Cooper (Duke University Press: 2021) by Professor Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez refuses to reduce Cooper’s life to that simple statement. The book investigates Cooper’s life both in the Philippines, where she was a famed vaudeville and film actress, and in the

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44:05

Samira Shackle, "Karachi Vice: Life and Death in a...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/06/10

A young man who turns his desire to join the army into a long stint as a volunteer ambulance driver. A teacher living in an old slum who is the only one brave—or foolish—enough to confront the gangs. A refugee who becomes a community organiser. A woman in a traditional village looking at the new development quickly encroaching on their land. A bored engineer who finds his calling as a crime reporter. These people are subjects of Karachi Vice: Life and Death in a Contested City (Melville House,

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32:47

Catherine Menon, "Fragile Monsters" (Viking, 2021)

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/06/03

The year is 1985. Durga is visiting her grandmother Mary in rural Malaysia. It’s not a particularly happy occasion: Mary is tough and sharp-tongued, and “home” sparks bad memories for Durga. But a fireworks accident that sends Mary to hospital begins to unravel family secrets that had been building over generations, built by both Mary and Durga. Fragile Monsters, the debut novel by Catherine Menon (Viking, 2021), jumps between the Malaysian Emergency and the Eighties to explore themes of gender,

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35:47

Emei Burell, "We Served the People: My Mother's...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/05/27

During the Cultural Revolution, many young Chinese in the cities were encouraged — if not ordered — to move to the countryside. Millions of young Chinese in high school and university moved to rural China ostensibly to “receive re-education from the poorest lower and middle peasants to understand what China really is” (to quote Mao Zedong, at the time). Many students remained in the countryside until the end of the Cultural Revolution almost a decade later. One of these young Chinese people was the

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42:03

Mehr Afshan Farooqi, "Ghalib: a Wilderness at My...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/05/20

Mirza Ghalib is one of the most celebrated poets in the Urdu literary canon. Yet, at the time, Ghalib was prolific in both Urdu and Persian. His output in Persian output dwarfs his Urdu writing (at least in its published form), and he often openly dismissed his Urdu works, once writing: Look into the Persian so that you may see paintings of myriad shades and hues; Pass by the collection in Urdu for it is nothing but drawings and sketches. Ghalib: A Wilderness at My Doorstep: A Critical

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43:54

Jenny White, "Turkish Kaleidoscope: Fractured Lives...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/05/13

The scene is Turkey in the mid-to-late Seventies. A young male college student hops onto a bus. He sits next to a cute female student from his class, but before they can strike up a conversation, they see a right-wing passenger, walk up to another passenger and hit him on the head with a hammer. The young woman screams. The two students get off the bus, only for the female student to call the male student a “disgusting fascist” and leave in anger. Scenes like this are seen in Turkish Kaleidoscope:

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44:15

Amit Chaudhuri, "Finding the Raga: An Improvisation...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/05/06

Dismissal, in fact, is the default response to khayal (the preeminent genre of North Indian classical music), well before we get to know what khayal is, and vaguely term its strangeness 'classical music'. Those who later become acquainted with its extraordinary melodiousness forget that on the initial encounter it had sounded unmelodious. These words are part of the introduction to Amit Chaudhuri’s newest book Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music (New York Review Books / Faber and

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42:37

Razeen Sally, "Return to Sri Lanka: Travels in a...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/04/29

Return to Sri Lanka: Travels is a Paradoxical Island (Juggernaut, 2019), the latest book by Professor Razeen Sally, describes the country with the following words. There are shelf-loads of recent books about bigger and better-known countries, not least on Sri Lanka’s giant northern neighbour. But little Sri Lanka hardly pops up on the world’s radar screen. When it does, it presents a fractional, distorted view – bombs going off one day, ethnic riots another day, alleged war crimes. On more peaceful

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39:34

Raza Mir, "Murder at the Mushaira: A Novel" (Aleph...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/04/22

May 1857. The Indian city of Shahjahanabad, today called Delhi, is tense. British officers are worried about rumors of insubordination and rebellion elsewhere in India, while the local residents both await and fear a coming storm of revolutionary fervor. Trying to make a living in this setting is Mirza Ghalib, one of India’s most celebrated poets, well known for his works in Urdu and Persian. He is also the protagonist, at least in a fictionalised form, of Murder at the Mushaira (Aleph Book Company,

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