49 authors under 45 from across Asia have today been published in a themed edition of the Griffith Review,
one of Australia’s leading literary magazines. Griffith Review 49: New Asia Now, edited by Julianne Schultz and
Jane Camens, and published in parallel with an edition of Asia Literary Review, takes a journey through the region’s
diversity, featuring a new generation of literary stars.
All the contributors were born since 1970 and so,
despite national and regional differences, they have grown up during a period
of extraordinary change: countries decolonised, civil wars fought and won,
political systems turned inside out, authoritarian states fallen to
democracies. In the process, relentless economic growth has lifted the standard
of living in the region at an unprecedented pace, and has created the largest middle class
the world has ever known.
The contributors explore the meanings of these enormous changes in
country after country, in family and community, for the diasporas and for those who
stayed in traditional homelands. Their contributions are feisty, elegant, thoughtful and
curious about pasts that have largely been swept aside, for fear that narratives
of what went before may get in the way of modernisation. Some pieces explore what
was lost along the way.
Overall, New Asia Now reveals the shifts that are bringing the continents of Australia and Asia
closer; they bring Australian readers in particular into a greater awareness of
their place in the larger regional picture.
Contributors from Asia
China: Sheng Keyi, Murong
Xuecun, Jenn Chan Lyman, Merriden Varrall
Hong Kong: Keane Shum, Nicholas
Wong
Thailand: Vornai Vanijaka, Ploy
Pirapokin
Philippines: Miguel Syjuco, Glenn
L Diaz, Johanna Lynn B. Cruz,
Indonesia: Maggie Tiojakin, Okky
Maasari, Dewi Anggraeni, Eliza Vitri Handayani, Prodita Sabarini, Dea Anugrah,
India: Annie Zaidi, Siddhartha
Deb, Anjum Hasan, Mohit Parikh, Majid Maqbool, Lavanya Shanbhogue
Pakistan: Shandana Minhas
Singapore: Joshua Ip, Damyanti
Biswas
Malaysia: Jarni Blakkarly, Ted
Mahsun, Omar Musa, Lian Low
Vietnam: André Dao, Shiela Ngoc
Pham
Cambodia: Romi Grossberg, Laura
Jean McKay
Japan: Sally McLaren, Romy Ash,
Siobhan Harvey
Nepal: Manan Karki
North Korea: Jang Jin-Sung
Burma: Ko Ko Thett
Mongolia: Kirrl Shields
Sri Lanka: Danushka Silva
Contributors based in Australia
and New Zealand
Candice Chung, Omar Musa,
Michelle Law, Ellen van Neerven, Lian Low, André Dao, Jarni Blakkarly, Danushka
Silva, Laura Jean McKay, Alice Bishop, Michele Lee, Elaine Laforteza, Cameron
Muir, Merriden Varrall, Kirril Shields, Shiela Ngoc Pham, Michelle Law, Tammy
Law, Jessie Cole, Romy Ash, Siobhan Harvey
