A rojak* of items that caught my
eye this week…
Lahore Literary Festival in New
York
The Lahore Literary Festival in New York is currently taking place at the Asia Society – it’s so successful
today’s events have sold out. See for example Lahore Literary Festival begins in New York on high note from News International, as a good place to start exploring press coverage.
ASEAN Literary Festival in
Jakarta
The ASEAN Literary Festival (ALF) has
also been making waves – partly for the wrong reasons. It provoked protest from
Muslim groups over event programming that
included discussions on homosexuality and the politically-motivated massacres
in Indonesia in 1965, and there was also some discussion of whether the event
even had a license to proceed. The Jakarta Post has had lots of coverage.
Regional winners, Commonwealth Short Story Prize
Regional winners of the
Commonwealth Short Story Prize from Commonwealth Writers have been announced. They include
Asia Regional Winner: Cow
and Company by Parashar Kulkarni (India)
Pacific Regional Winner: Black
Milk by Tina Makereti (New Zealand)
For more information click here.
This week in Asian Review of
Books
See the Asian Review of Books for
ever-interesting discussion. Here are links to its newest reviews, excerpts,
letters, essays, listings, translations, news items, and round ups:
One Child:
The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment by Mei Fong reviewed by Joseph
Ting
Arts in poetry, fiction and theory: Swallows and Waves, poetry by Paula Bohince; Brushstrokes in Time by Sylvia Vetta; The Art of Understanding Art: A New Perspective by Hugh Moss
ARB Quarterly for April 2016
Human Acts by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith reviewed by Rosie Milne
Arts in poetry, fiction and theory: Swallows and Waves, poetry by Paula Bohince; Brushstrokes in Time by Sylvia Vetta; The Art of Understanding Art: A New Perspective by Hugh Moss
ARB Quarterly for April 2016
Human Acts by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith reviewed by Rosie Milne
Lion City lit notes
Asian Books Blog is based in
Singapore. Our regular column Lion City Lit explores in-depth what’s going on
in the City-State, lit-wise. Lion City lit notes provide quick updates between
columns.
The unpublished Singaporean
writer Sharlene Wen-Ning Teo has been selected as the first winner of the
Deborah Rogers writers’ award, a GPB10,000 prize that supports authors as they
finish their first book. Deborah Rogers was a prominent UK-based literary agent
who died in 2014. For more details click here.
Lucia Damacela, Asian Books Blog’s
co-ordinator for Lion City Lit, has won the Wisehouse international Poetry Award 2016,
for her poem Primordial, which will published in August, in the first issue
of a new European poetry journal, Stark.
Singapore’s English language daily, The
Straits Times, today has a supplement devoted to books and reading. Check it
out by clicking here.
Twitter spot
Each week I make a suggestion of
an interesting Twitter account you may like to follow. This week, @rambutanlit, from Rambutan,
a new online journal showcasing Southeast Asian literature and art – they are
seeking submissions for the first issue now.
