To traverse the unbearable
Liesl Schwabe
“As Freud has said, if we don’t mourn, we’ll be trapped forever in melancholy as a violent site. That, to me, is a worldwide symptom”
Category: Issue 40
In search of ilish
Mohsina Malik and Ashish Kumar Kataria
In Bengali culture, ilish is deeply intertwined with identity, memory and celebration. But the fish has also been caught up in questions of trade, diplomacy and politics between India and Bangladesh.
Between survival and betrayal
Ying
A look into the lives of Vietnamese workers in Myanmar’s scam centres.
The power of fandom
Nway and Htaike
In a world that often overlooks the power of young people online, fan communities have emerged as an unseen engine of revolution in Myanmar
Summoning Saigon’s musical past
Michael Howard
A conversation with Saigon Soul Revival, a band “on a mission to bring back the raw, live sound of 1960s and 1970s Vietnamese rock and soul music”.
Memories of a golden age
Sokummono Khan
In the face of funding cuts and growing oppression, Cambodian reporters cling on to hope through memories of a golden age of journalism.
A bankruptcy and a dream
Mali Wongwiwat
The Miss Universe franchise has been dismissed as a chauvinistic relic, but Thailand’s long-standing fixation with such pageants suggests that there are deeper implications.
No straight lines in Shivajinagar
Sudipto Sanyal
Neighbourhood conversations, sights and sounds in Shivajinagar.
The ‘desert book’
Nat Ty
Attempting to rebuild their relationship after her coming out, a daughter finds a momentary connection with her mother over Sanmao’s Stories of the Sahara.
This Lingga morning
Damina Khaira
Far from dismal or desolate, Lingga mornings reveal the everyday intimacies borne through connections near and far.
빛 (Hope)
Taeyeon Song
While Y2K’s SM Town artists reflected a new era and hopeful future, the K-pop artists of 2025 have been positioned as soft power cultural pawns.
Resurrection
Tse Hao Guang
Waves Rising beautifully commemorates Ho Poh Fun’s life’s work, perhaps feeling like it needed to smoothen out some things bubbling just under the surface.
Flight Plan
Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray
A comic by Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray, reflecting on her shifting relationship with hope.
Malaysia’s reading riddle
Susan Loone
Banning books might bring the Malaysian government short-term political gain, but this restriction of access to different perspectives could have serious long-term repercussions.
In the company of ghosts
Leong Kar Yen
On not coming to terms with the past in Indonesia.
Malayness
Rowena Abdul Razak
Dina Zaman brings a lot from her past to Malayland, but she’s also firm in looking forward and seeking the humanness in Malaysia’s obsession for categories and othering.
A passage to Bohemia
Jonathan Victor Baldoza
A historian journeys to České Budějovice in Bohemia in search of the archive of Filipiniana left behind by Ferdinand and Friedrich Blumentritt.
A world that no longer exists
Victoria Audu
If history is written by the victors, then literature is the rebellion of the defeated.
Singapore’s utopia of rules
Naima Morelli
David Graeber’s notion of “total bureaucratisation” isn’t just a fitting analytical tool for global contemporary life; it also mirrors, with uncanny accuracy, the paradoxes of Singapore’s cultural policy.
Black cat
Domar Batucan Recopelacion
A poem from Domar Batucan Recopelacion
The curious case of the Cold War
Dương Mạnh Hùng
Two group shows staged in Bangkok question mainstream Cold War narratives through contemporary art.
After the war, The river remembers, Letters from the diaspora
Aisha Khalid
Poetry by Aisha Khalid.