The Buddermokan shrine in Sittwe is said to have been built in 1756. It has since survived colonialism, war and Nature—a stubborn relic of history in a hostile environment that wanted it gone.
When rising sea levels threaten to submerge the gravesite of his father, a young man is forced to return to his hometown and confront the dilemma between honouring his father’s dying wishes or to give in to nature.
Amid Southeast Asia’s array of noodle dishes, bak chor mee doesn’t have the exalted status of pho or pad thai. Nevertheless, it’s a beloved staple dish consumed by Singaporeans, and even became a political statement once.
When Witit Chanthamarit was a child, independent bookstores were not the rarity they are today. In opening Vacilando, he hopes to recapture the sense of community he’d felt before.
Bertil Linter’s book on the Wa isn’t merely a fascinating look at a little-penetrated hermit kingdom; it’s also a case study of how China manipulates the politics of its border zones in pursuit of global ambitions.
In Vanessa Chan’s The Storm We Made, a family is undone by a secret betrayal during the British and then Japanese colonisation of Malaya.
Over a quarter of a century, Malaysiakini grew from a scrappy start-up to a Malaysian media institution. In some ways, to know the history of this news portal is to know the history of modern Malaysia.
Clare Hammond, author of On the Shadow Tracks, did not love the trains she rode. But her exploration of Myanmar’s dilapidated tracks reveals the link between the railways and the military’s power, while documenting the lives on and around ramshackle trains.
A poem by Alyza Taguilaso
A letter to a friend, on thoughts of ‘home’ prompted by the Thai dream-pop duo, HYBS.
Gordon Conochie’s book amounts to perhaps the most detailed autopsy yet of the death of Cambodia’s democracy.
The poet Kyi Zaw Aye once asked, “How can we encounter true love in times of war?” Since the 2021 coup in Myanmar, some couples have been trying to find their own answers.
As the forest and the tiger vanish, the myths that enchant them evolve and find their way into other vernaculars beyond folklore and popular beliefs.
Decades after the end of Suharto’s New Order regime in Indonesia, a collective nostalgia for the supposed ‘good old days’—driven by historical revisionism and propaganda—is influencing contemporary Indonesian politics.
The destruction wrought by Typhoon Haiyan will never be forgotten by Filipinos—even if some valuable lessons still haven’t been learned a decade later.
A short story by Lý Văn Sâm, translated from Vietnamese by Ryan Nelson and Khanh Hoa Le.
A piece of flash fiction by Linda Collins and Noelle Q. de Jesus. Commissioned as part of a collaboration between RMIT’s nonfiction/lab and Mekong Review.
The arts can remind us of our connections to home and nature as we are propelled forward by development projects that prioritise profit over nurturing rootedness and well-being.
In short vignettes, Y-Dang Troeung gives a compelling account of the journey which brought her family from Cambodia’s Kampong Thom to white rural Canada, beyond the feel-good newspaper headlines.
Bali is home to a thriving community of local artists with international pedigrees, all actively working from the island, opening their studios to visitors and fostering a local art community.
The Second Link curates writing that moves beyond the “exhausted metaphors and dusty tropes” of the longstanding rivalry between Malaysia and Singapore.
Susann Pham’s Vietnam’s Dissidents is a bold piece of empirical work and a welcome and timely addition to the literature on contemporary Vietnam.
Poetry from John Brixter Tino
The twenty-six films screening in Retrospective: Wang Sha & Ye Feng are a testament to the legendary comedians’ breadth both as solo performers and a beloved pair.
bani haykal’s work embodies durational labour, culminating in serial ruminations on topics that keep him awake at night—capitalism, environmental protection, widening inequality divides.
A short story by Marbin Gesher Jay S. Deniega.
Living in Indonesia most of my life, I’ve always felt that I might be visibly ‘too Chinese’. In fact, Indonesia’s tricky relationship with its ethnic Chinese population began all the way back to the Dutch occupation.
In Southeast Asia, the short story has perhaps been more significant than the novel: it is portable, more easily translated and it also migrates.
In the two novellas, journeys depart from or hope to return to “an eastern port” (Singapore) but instead they both disappear into the obscurities of the seas.
Like a magnificent tortoise, my aunt, the long-time Singaporean activist Constance Singam, ambles towards us to meet my children for the first time.
Both Oasis of Now and Tomorrow Is a Long Time are meditations on love, time and space.
In Maymyo Days: Forgotten Lives of a Burma Hill Station, Stephen Simmons does not dwell on the crusty stragglers of the Raj. He chooses to focus on those who made a lasting contribution of some kind, whether tangible, cultural or political.
Climate activists are still stumped by the question of how to ensure that public power results in real, meaningful change. At the same time, the climate movement is setting its sights further than ever.
Street 200 in Phnom Penh is where people come together with a common passion for cinema.
Touching that sensitive Cambodian topic of land ownership and dispossession, Further and Further Away questions the nature of relationships entertained with the land.
A short story by Damhuri Muhammad
The Indonesian film industry is often underrated and overlooked, but Timo Tjahjanto is one of its directors to have attracted international attention for his work.
What unfolds in Pulp III: An Intimate Inventory of the Banished Book is Shubigi Rao’s documentation of her encounters with texts in varying formats that, at some point in the past, confronted ‘banishment’.
Set in Singapore, catskull is a “neo-noir thriller meets coming-of-age mystery” that explores the violence of the city and the many forms that it takes: physical, racial, institutional.
Noise can be a powerful tool of protest but also healing, its cathartic value directly correlated with its loudness.