Meatamorphosis
Rupert Winchester
Han Kang’s The Vegetarian is a short, dark, depressing but brilliant novel
Aquarium life
Wayne McCallum
Intrigue, mystery, subterfuge, robbery and murder — think an exotic fish
Sok sa bai
Nguyen Qui Duc
A trip down the Mekong River becomes surreal
Chat Tomuk
Mekong Review
The long-awaited Heng Samrin autobiography
More than just memory
Patrick Deer
Viet Thanh Nguyen tests the limits of fiction
The king still never smiles
Nicholas Farrelly
The enigma of Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej
When genocide starts
Minh Bui Jones
The éminence grise of the Cambodian genocide
The Lady’s not for turning
David Eimer
Who needs friends when a whole country is in love with you?
Thirty years of change
Khac Giang Nguyen
The legacy of Vietnam’s doi moi
Beauty scar
Pam Allen
Magical realism meets gritty realism
The magic is gone
Liam C. Kelley
The time has come to rethink Asian studies
Poetry
Maung Chaw Nwe, Sokunthary Svay
The latest in verse from around the Mekong region
Sorrow in a shopping mall
Chris Taylor
The word “miracle” is bandied about far too much in the context of China
From teacher to torturer
Philip Coggan
At S-21, Duch was responsible for the torture and death of some 14,000 people
Politics and patronage
Robert Turnbull
Personal patronage keeps the Cambodian arts alive
Wrong season dengue
Kim Philley
Dengue fever may become one of this century’s most devastating pandemics
Down the Mekong
Charnvit Kasetsiri
The Mekong is threatened by upstream hydroelectric dam projects
Lao hit ball
Robert Cooper
One sport has played a surprising role in defining Laos and the Lao — tikhi
The real thing
Connla Stokes
The undefinable, addictive nature of Vietnamese food
Books for everyone
Nic Dunlop
Established in Chiang Mai in 1989, publisher Silkworm now boasts more than 200 titles
The second laugh
Rachel Wong
Only Lonely Planet can get you “off the beaten path”, onto “the road less travelled”
Death or freedom
Sebastian Strangio
Myanmar fell apart as soon as it became independent
Duras, mother and Cambodia
Penny Edwards
The life and work of Marguerite Duras
Defying Big Brother
Kenneth Wong
I came across a Winston Smith, a clerk who erased “unpersons”
Victor’s justice
Minh Bui Jones
The international defence counsel-cum-Khmer Rouge fellow traveller
Carry on empire
Simon Winchester
All empires inevitably fade, including France’s in Southeast Asia
Cambodia’s lost literary life
George Chigas
Cambodia’s first Khmer-language literary journal
This old house
Kevin Doyle
Since this house was built, Cambodia’s name has changed half a dozen times
Rituals and religion
Paul Fuller
The difference between lived Buddhism and Buddhism of popular imagination
Lost ground
Chris Taylor
Nostalgia, destruction and unplanned reconstruction
Wayne’s wat
Jeff Kisseloff
Decades after Vietnam, Wayne Matthysse discovered why he was still alive
Hidden history
Luke Hunt
Steven Boswell talks about his book King Norodom’s Head
Annamite journeys
Wayne McCallum
Where peoples, plants and animals are found nowhere else
Chasing the past
Rajan Venkataraman
The Last Reel and A Tomb for Khun Srun, for all their differences, share striking parallels
Dreamworld
Rupert Winchester
A huge step forward for Beijing-based Hong Kong novelist Chan Koonchung
Sweet humdrum days
Connla Stokes
Hanoi at the dawn of the new millennium
Marginal Countries
Mario Del Pero
A long apology for Kissinger’s crimes
Purity and Danger
Minh Bui Jones
Putting the family ghost to rest
Soth Polin
Penny Edwards
What happens when the musicality of Khmer literature is transposed to a new world order?
The anarchist
Soth Polin
Oh my dear, how still you lie, spread-eagled in the white snow that’s stained with the scarlet pools of your blood …