A rojak* of items that caught
my eye this week…
Mao
Dun Literature Prize
The Mao Dun Literary Prize (茅盾文学奖) is awarded every four years by the Chinese Writers Association. Any novel written by a Chinese national, published in mainland China, and with over 130,000 characters is eligible. If you read Chinese, click here for the full list of this year's contenders - 252 in all. None of the titles in contention has yet been translated into English. For analysis in English from China literary expert Bruce Humes, click here.
Governments Make Bad Editors
PEN America has just released a report Censorship and
Conscience: Foreign Authors and the Challenge of Chinese Censorship. For full details click here.
Indonesian Women and
Local Politics: Islam, Gender and Networks in Post-Suharto Indonesia by Kurniawati
Hastuti Dewi
In an important social change, female Muslim political
leaders in Java have enjoyed considerable success in direct local elections
following the fall of Suharto in Indonesia. Newly-published Indonesian Women and Local Politics shows
that Islam, gender and social networks have been decisive in their political
victories. Islamic ideas concerning female leadership provide a strong
religious foundation for their political campaigns. However, their approach to
women's issues shows that female leaders do not necessarily adopt a female perspective when formulating policies. This new trend of Muslim women in
politics will continue to shape the growth and direction
of democratisation in local politics in post-Suharto Indonesia and will
colour future discourse on gender, politics and Islam in contemporary Southeast
Asia.
Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi is senior researcher at the
Research Center for Politics, Indonesian Institute of Sciences in Jakarta,
Indonesia.
Published by NUS Press, Singapore, in paperback, USD34
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