Latest issue
Latest issue
November 2026
The state and the sin
Rafly Gilang Pratama
Prabowo’s government now calls the “spread of LGBTQ culture” a non-military threat. Rafly Gilang Pratama grew up in Indonesia carrying some of the same prejudice.
November 2026
The Hong Kong story in fiction
Jennifer Eagleton
As authoritarian control makes it increasingly difficult to engage in ‘hard’ resistance and confront power directly, fiction can step in to tease out the things that might otherwise go unsaid.
November 2026
On their own terms
Calla Lim
The lives and experiences of queer Singaporeans should not be ignored any further, and books like SQ21 – Families and Fearfully & Wonderfully Made place these stories front and centre.
November 2026
The “very nice” funeral
Lila Roberts
According to Aluk Todolo, the indigenous religion of the Toraja in the Tana Toraja highlands of Sulawesi, death is not a single event but a passage to Puya, the spirit world.
November 2026
Rave culture
Erin Hale
More than thirty years after the first rave, Taiwan’s rave scene is once again booming, thanks to a surging global interest in electronic and techno music and a new generation of social media–savvy organisers.
November 2026
When Ranto Reads Poetry Every Morning
Wawan Kurniawan
A short story by Wawan Kurniawan, translated from Indonesian by the author.
November 2026
Learning journeys
Tamar Herman
Michelle Cho and Joe Lim of Singing Beetle on the company’s first K-pop group, 1VERSE, and their vision of a space that looks out for artists’ happiness, mental health, and ability to make a sustainable living.
November 2026
To inhabit a chimera self
Arathi Devandran
Belonging is of our own making, and it can look like a space just about wide enough to hold all our mismatched parts.
November 2026
Dancing in shackles
Martin Laflamme
Read together, three books on China take us through short-lived periods of openness, political shifts, and reminders that present realities may not last forever.
November 2026
Carried in silk
Khoa Nguyen
For some, wearing áo dài can feel like a hindrance. For others, it’s the only extravagance they have.
November 2026
The afterlife of memory
Xinrou Shu
Tiananmen Square is a major tourist attraction, but it also carries a far greater political meaning. While working as a fixer for a foreign production crew, a young Beijing native reflects on memory, presence, and silence.
November 2026
Survival requires small fictions
Shumin Tan
Adorable by Wan Phing Lim makes attempts to make sense of things visible: coping mechanisms appear not as background habits but as part of the very fabric of social reality.
November 2026
Messy realities
Ja Ian Chong
Works like Blood Dawn: World War II and the Making of Modern Asia highlight how prone people everywhere can be to excess, even violence, as they pursue competing political visions and ambitions.
November 2026
Lung Examination of a Single
Xin Ru, translated from Chinese by Zheng Wei
A poem by Xin Ru, translated from Chinese by Zheng Wei.
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From the archive
The Koro Report
Faisal Tehrani
The dictator with a peculiar condition
Stand and fight
Calum Stuart
The way Daniel York Loh, a London-based actor of Singaporean and British heritage, sees it, there’s no way anyone can resist rising facism simply by being ‘reasonable’ and ‘sensible’.
Resurrection
Bryony Lau
The disgraced Filipino family is back in charge
Family and food
Wang Zengqi
‘My Grandmother’ and ‘Potatoes’
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