Threadbare
Gill Green
Enthusiasts will appreciate Devare’s book, but not experts in the field
Category: Reviews
Smuggling the bodacious
Hans van Leeuwen
We sit looking at the screen. “PM lauds communist youth” looks back at us
Sre Ambel
Jeff Kisseloff
For McCallum, it wasn’t enough just to write about the environment
Saving the garden
David Hutt
Dr Siri meets solemn and dogmatic cadres in Laos
It ain’t pho
Connla Stokes
My father’s improvised experiments with Vietnamese cuisine were declared a success
Out of the box
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Vietnamese-American literature fulfills the function of ethnic writing
Derelict beauty
Cristina Maria Chiorean
The soul of Yangon reposes in buildings built by British, Indian and Chinese settler-traders
One Chinese
Chris Taylor
‘Do you speak Chinese?’ is akin to asking ‘Do you speak Romance?’
Benedict Anderson
John Sidel
Benedict Anderson left a prodigious legacy for Southeast Asian studies
The Bangkok plot
Luke Young
William J. Rust sheds new light on postwar Cambodia
Regeneration
George Chigas
A new generation of Cambodian writers are given voice in English in Modern Literature of Cambodia
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
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
The Lady’s not for turning
David Eimer
Who needs friends when a whole country is in love with you?
Beauty scar
Pam Allen
Magical realism meets gritty realism
Sorrow in a shopping mall
Chris Taylor
The word “miracle” is bandied about far too much in the context of China
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
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”
Rituals and religion
Paul Fuller
The difference between lived Buddhism and Buddhism of popular imagination
Wayne’s wat
Jeff Kisseloff
Decades after Vietnam, Wayne Matthysse discovered why he was still alive
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
Marginal Countries
Mario Del Pero
A long apology for Kissinger’s crimes
Mad, bad and French
Michelle Vachon
Michelle Vachon explores the “bad Frenchmen” of Indochina
Death railway
Alasdair Richards
The railway line that cost as many as 100,000 lives