The long road
Tom Vater
Nepal’s Supreme Court has ruled in favour of marriage equality, but people on the ground say there’s still a long way to go before same-sex marriage gains acceptance across the country.
Goodbye to Cousin Merle
Jeremy Mair
Cousin Merle’s abscission from the family tree didn’t elicit any great feeling on my part, but the fact that there was no Chinese blood in the family was a little more complicated.
Points deducted for
Sreedhevi Iyer and Balli Kaur Jaswal
How to score points when the score-board always changes?
Moke
Martin Stuart-Fox
Lieutenant Colonel E.D. Murray—“Moke” to friends and fellow officers—knew nothing about Cambodia, but for a few brief weeks towards the end of 1945, he was, in his own words, its “uncrowned king”.
The valued and the expendable
William Arighi
Both Patricia Evangelista and Neferti X.M. Tadiar’s books question what it means to be human. While some are valued because of their contribution to capitalism, those who are less productive in the profit-making sense are treated as disposable.
Personal ghost stories
Jennifer Luangphonh
Some ghosts aren’t vengeful spectres waiting to shock or scare in the night. Even so, it might still be unbearable to think of them.
The mystery of the Little People
James Baron
Few who encounter Pas-ta’ai, the ritual to the “little people”, and the complex, sometimes contradictory, folklore associated with it are unmoved. Some even become obsessed with unravelling the ceremony’s mysterious origins.
A different kind of love story
Catherine Wang
Beyond the reality of family relationships, How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies paints a portrait of Thai Chinese culture that’s at once singular and relatable.
Undiplomatically speaking
Isaac Neo
While the bulk of the book focuses on diplomacy, Living the Asian Century can also be read as an introduction to the governance style of Singapore’s first generation of leaders as seen through Mahbubani’s eyes.
Arranged marriage
Areej Kiani
Gossip spreads in a Pakistani neighbourhood after a couple’s daughter elopes with a man late at night.
The forgotten lion
Liew Kai Khiun
Despite having held a number of important portfolios as a minister in the city-state’s early years, S. Rajaratnam’s legacy remains largely obscured in Singapore’s public imagination.
We are gonna make it
Ruby Thiagarajan
Instead of asking what is or how to be one’s authentic self under capitalism, Peripathetic is curious about whether capitalism leaves us with any room for authenticity at all.
Survival and unconventional success
Ariel Athwal-Yap
The lesson in Ganapathy’s book is salient and applicable to societies beyond Singapore: working class ethnic minorities disenfranchised by dominant societal structures often find themselves enmeshed with criminal justice institutions.
Lost and found
Miguel de la Fuente-Lau
For a relatively slim volume, Lio Mangubat’s Silk, Silver, Spices, Slaves: Lost Tales from the Philippine Colonial Period, 1565–1946 covers a broad swath of Philippine history.
On the streets
Leigh Doughty
A poem by Leigh Doughty
Vietnam’s Latin script
Thiện Việt
The adoption of chữ Quốc ngữ, the Vietnamese alphabet that has officially been in use for over a century now, was a notable part of Vietnam’s effort to pull itself out of China’s orbit.
Thirst for love
Alvin Larida
A poem by Alvin Larida, translated from Kinaray-a.
The hardliner
James Crabtree
Matt Pottinger doesn’t much like the term “China hawk”. Even so, he’s become one of the most prominent voices in the United States pushing for a tougher line against Beijing.
Writing Myanmar
Peixuan Xie
For San Lin Tun, writing about Myanmar in English is a way for Myanmar writers to take control or ownership of the country’s narrative.
Racism and repression
Andreas Harsono
Indonesia’s National Library may not contain a lot on West Papua, but five books, reviewed by Andreas Harsono, describe its tormented history.
Imagining Orwell in Burma
Joe Freeman
Theroux’s Burma Sahib is a novel about awakenings: sexual, political and literary. Filling a historical void with fiction, Theroux invents and probes every nook and cranny of Orwell’s life in Burma.
The defector talks
Paul French
Thae Yong-ho’s book, a must read for the dedicated band of North Korea watchers, reminds us of the millions still struggling to survive between the 38th Parallel and the Yalu River.
Compromise(d)
Martin Laflamme
Zhou Enlai might have attempted to temper some of Mao Zedong’s worst excesses, but he did not have the courage to defy Mao when it counted the most.
The nostalgia of the colonised
Ting-Jen Kuo
Taiwan is constantly forced to assert its own identity and presence. Yet this struggle hasn’t made it impervious to colonial hangovers.
The decoloniser
Munkhnaran Bayarlkhagva
Gankhuugiin Purevbat was never keen to claim credit, but his contribution to the rebirth of Mongolian Buddhism and the decolonisation of Mongolia cannot be denied.
Elsewhere than Here
Brandon K. Liew and Daryl Lim Wei Jie 林伟杰
Poetry from Brandon K. Liew and Daryl Lim Wei Jie 林伟杰
Enduring
Kirsten Han
Hai Fan’s Delicious Hunger doesn’t focus on major historical milestones, but it doesn’t mean that the experiences described in this collection of short stories are inconsequential—quite the opposite.
Grey, all grey
Haresh Sharma
Like many in Singapore, artists exist on a strange monochromatic spectrum—the lighter side provides access to opportunities and awards, the darker potentially leading to loss of employment. How should one navigate this space?
Looking in
Ruby Jusoh
The rich traditions of Adat Perpatih in Negeri Sembilan demonstrate how deeply rooted customs can evolve while maintaining their core values.
Family duty
Kang-Chun Cheng
Creating Feeding Ghosts, a graphic memoir, was the only way Tessa Hulls could think of to repair her relationship with her mother and make sense of the responsibilities borne by each generation.
Ekphrasis
Michelle Aung Thin and Khin
Using the photographic archive to rethink Myanmar’s past.
Translating Javanese
Jennifer Lindsay
She Wanted to be a Beauty Queen is a good read for anyone, but, together with supplementary material like George Quinn’s comprehensive afterword, is an especially terrific resource for students of Indonesian or Southeast Asian literature.
A bookworm’s haunt
Nicholas Yong
A focus on Singaporean authors, coupled with the fact that bookstores in the city have found it increasingly difficult to survive, makes Book Bar feel like an anomaly.
A-ma
Sawarin Suwichakornpong
“Whenever I think of a family member, I always think of A-ma. Her life tells the story of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia.”
Barnard’s bestiary
Peter A. Coclanis
That animals and plants have been inserted, in increasingly powerful ways, in historical narratives represents a powerful challenge to human-centred accounts that have long been dominant.
Kurang ajar
Es Foong and Melizarani T. Selva
Two Malaysian daughters reflect on the myths of their upbringing, and how these have facilitated and obstructed their sense of home.
Irises
Eileen Chong
A poem from Eileen Chong
The Word Museum
Damhuri Muhammad
What if politicians had to be confronted with all the words they’d threaded into false promises?
Headlines
Cassiopeia Gatmaitan
A poem by Cassiopeia Gatmaitan.
Jade, Pine, Orchid, Kidney
Robert Wood
Eileen Chong’s poetry defies national categories, making its way into cracks and crevices like an orchid in cement, grown beautiful and a little wild.