A rojak* of items that caught my
eye this week…
Hong Kong missing bookseller
For coverage within Asia of the missing
bookseller in Hong Kong, who reappeared this week in China, see, for example:
Missing
Hong Kong bookseller is in China: city government (Channel News Asia)
Rights activists dismiss confession over Chinese media of missing Hong Kong bookseller
(The Straits Times, Singapore)
(The Straits Times, Singapore)
Taiwan Aboriginal Literary Awards
The winners of the Taiwan Aboriginal
Literary Awards were announced this week.
The 36 recipients were from the
indigenous tribes of Amis, Atayal, Bunun, Kahabu, Paiwan, Pazeh, Puyuma, Rukai,
Saisiyat, Sediq, Truku and Tsou. They were selected from amongst a field of 99
entries in the categories of essay, novella, poetry and translation. For
coverage in Taiwan Today (English edition), click here.
Jaipur Literary Festival 2016
Jaipur, Asia's largest literary festival, kicked off on Thursday, in a testament to the growing global influence
of Indian readers, and Indian literature. Follow along on Twitter, or Facebook.
Book of the Lunar Year
Asian Books Blog is running a
poll to find readers’ choice for the Book of the Lunar Year. For details of the
shortlist, and of how to vote, see here.
Each Sunday between now and Feb
7, when voting closes, I’ll be giving an update. Last week The Burma Spring, by Rena Pederson,
was in the lead, followed by The Boy with a Bamboo Heart, by Chantal Jauvin
with Dr Amporn Wathanavongs, in second place, but now their positions are
reversed – The Boy with a Bamboo Heart is in the lead. Two self-published titles are vying
for third place, Back Kicks and Broken Promises by Juan Rader Bas, and Tiger
Tail Soup, by Nicki Chen. Let's see if or how things change over the coming
couple of weeks...
Twitter Spot
Each week I make a suggestion of
an interesting Twitter account you may like to follow. This week, @peterfrankopan, from Peter Frankopan, director of the Centre for Byzantine Research, at Oxford University,
and author of The Silk Roads, a readable, interesting and innovative investigation into the history of ancient
trading routes, from an Asian, not a Western perspective. He is one of the
authors appearing at the Jaipur Literary Festival.
