Points deducted for
Sreedhevi Iyer and Balli Kaur Jaswal
How to score points when the score-board always changes?
Category: Volume 1
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.
Poetry
Ocean Vuong, David Chandler
The latest in verse from around the Mekong region
Meet Kill
Sebastian Strangio
When Kem Ley’s murderer was asked for his name, he offered a chilling sobriquet: Meet Kill.
Poetry
Monica Sok, Ravi Shankar
The latest in verse from around the Mekong region.
Damming the Mekong
Michael Buckley
Vietnam lies at the wrong end of the Mekong River.
Out of the box
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Vietnamese-American literature fulfills the function of ethnic writing
Truth to power
Penny Edwards
You Need to Apologise to the People is in Burmese, written by a Burmese, about Burmese people
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 Viet bride
Trang Ha
I would forever remember Dan’s silence. Silently loving me. Silent before my family’s insults and dissuasion.
Fish need water
Thaveeporn Vasavakul
It will take fifty years to restore the marine ecosystem of Vietnam’s central coast
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
Cambodian vérité
Daniel Mattes
The sixty-ninth Cannes Film Festival premiered Cambodian director Davy Chou’s first feature film, Diamond Island.
Songs of survival
David Hutt
‘”I survived the Khmer Rouge, I survived the Soviet Union, and I survived cancer,” says Cambodian composer Him Sophy
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