This Week in Asian Review of Books

Asian Books Blog is not a review site. If you want reviews, see the Asian Review of Books. Here is a list of its newest reviews, essays, and round ups:

China’s One-Child Policy: an Interview With Xinran byRosie Milne
The First Firangis: Remarkable Stories of Heroes, Healers, Charlatans, Courtesans and Other Foreigners who Became Indian by Jonathan Gil Harris reviewed by John Butler
England’s Yellow Peril: Sinophobia and the Great Warby Anne Witchard reviewed by Jonathan Chatwin

The Sunday Post

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

*A rojak is a Singaporean salad. Like Asian Books Blog on Facebook, or follow it on Twitter: @asianbooksblog

International writers call for justice for bloggers murdered in Bangladesh

More than 150 writers from around the world, including Margaret Atwood, Amitav Ghosh, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Yann Martel, Salman Rushdie and Colm Tóibín have condemned the murders of Ananta Bijoy Das (or Dash), Washiqur Rahman Babu and Avijit Roy, three secular bloggers who have been brutally killed in Bangladesh this year. 

The group includes writers, publishers and lawyers who have joined PEN International and English PEN in calling on Bangladeshi Prime Minister Hasina Wajed and her government to do all in their power to ensure that the tragic events of the last three months are not repeated and to bring the perpetrators to justice.

The letter, signed by PEN members across the globe, states:

We were shocked and horrified by last week’s murder of 32-year-old blogger and editor Ananta Bijoy Das, who was hacked to death on his way to work by a masked gang wielding machetes in the city of Sylhet on 12 May. Prior to his death, Ananta Bijoy Das had reportedly received a number of death threats from Islamist militants, and his name had appeared in two assassination lists published in the Bangladeshi media, alongside those of other secular bloggers described as anti-Islamic and blasphemous.

Less than two months earlier, on 26 February, fellow blogger and close friend of Ananta Bijoy Das, Avijit Roy was similarly brutally killed. Roy and his wife Rafida Ahmed Bonya, were viciously attacked by unknown assailants close to the Dhaka University campus. Roy died soon afterwards whilst Rafida Ahmed Bonya was severely injured. A militant Islamist group has reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack.

A month later, on 29 March, blogger Washiqur Rahman Babu was murdered just 500 yards from his home in Begunbari, Dhaka. Police have claimed that the attackers targeted the 27-year-old blogger because they believed he had defamed Islam through his writings on websites, forums and social media. Two students from a madrassa (an Islamic school) have since been arrested in connection with Rahman’s killing.

At least three other writers have been attacked or murdered in Bangladesh since 2013 and, although there have been several arrests, no one has been held to account for any of these attacks. We are gravely concerned by this escalating pattern of violence against writers and journalists who are peacefully expressing their views. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right under Bangladesh’s constitution as well as one of the rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The authors have called on the Bangladeshi authorities to investigate Ananta Bijoy Das’s death swiftly and impartially as well as the murders of Avijit Roy and Washiqur Rahman Babu, and ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice in accordance with international fair trial standards. They also demand that the authorities do all in their power to provide protection and support to bloggers and other writers at risk in Bangladesh, in accordance with Bangladesh’s obligations under national and international law.

Jo Glanville, Director of English PEN, said:

‘This is a campaign of violence against bloggers and writers who are courageous enough to speak out in a hostile culture for free speech. The government of Bangladesh must urgently address the climate of impunity and be seen to safeguard freedom of expression. These shocking events have united writers throughout the world in an important show of solidarity.’

John Ralston Saul, President of PEN International, said:

‘Since my time in Dhaka late last year, I have seen the situation slip steadily downhill. The government, and the Prime Minister in particular, have the responsibility and the ethical obligation to stop this violence and to ensure that Bangladesh meets acceptable standards of both democracy and the rule of law, which are needed to protect the citizens' right to free expression.’

The winner of the 2015 Ondaatje Prize is...

Justin Marozzi has won the 2015 Ondaatje Prize for a book evoking the spirit of place with Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood (Allen Lane).

For the announcement from the Prize's administrator, The UK-based Royal Society of Literature, click here.


Some reviews, all from UK-based publications:
The Independent
The Telegraph
The Spectator
The Guardian

The winner of the 2015 Man Booker International Prize is...

László Krasznahorkai, the innovative Hungarian author, has just been announced as the winner of this year's Man Booker International Prize.

For the official announcement click here.

This Week in Asian Review of Books

Asian Books Blog is not a review site. If you want reviews, see the Asian Review of Books. Here is a list of its newest reviews and round ups:

This is How it Really Sounds by Stuart Archer Cohen reviewed by Melanie Ho
Outside reading: links to essays and articles on Eileen Chang, Orhan Pamuk, Asian literature selected by Peter Gordon
Review round up: The Tears of the Rajas: Mutiny, Money and Marriage in India 1805-1905 by Ferdinand Mount 
Oriental Traits in Leonardo da Vinci’s Work by Angelo Paratico (excerpt)
The Bamboo Stalk by Saud Alsanousi, translated from Arabic by Jonathan Wright reviewed by Peter Gordon
ARB reviews of Buzzfeed’s "32 Essential Asian-American Writers You Need To Be Reading" 
Chander and Sudha by Dharamvir Bharati, translated by Poonam Saxena reviewed by Jane Wallace

The Sunday Post

A rojak* of items that caught my eye this week…

Flood of Fire

Flood of Fire, by Amitav Ghosh, book 3 in his Ibis trilogy, which explores the opium wars mainly from British and Indian perspectives, has already been getting plenty of coverage, although it is not published until May 28. Click here for a review in the Independent, UK, and here for one from The Financial Times, UK. Amitav Ghosh is on the shortlist for the International Man Booker Prize, 2015. The winner will be announced this Tuesday, May 19. Click here for interviews with all the finalists, from the Guardian, UK

Note from Tokyo Writers
This from John Gribble, of Tokyo Writers: "Here is a small reminding nudge. We have two more weekends to submit proposals for the Japan Writers Conference in Kobe in October. What would you like to talk about?" For guidelines click here.

Sydney Writers Festival
The Sydney Writers Festival starts tomorrow, Monday, May 18.  If anybody is going, and would like to write up events for Asian Books Blog, please get in touch (NB, no payment). Follow the links below for Facebook and Twitter, or e-mail: asianbooksblog@gmail.com. Thanks, and here's hoping!! 

Seen Elsewhere

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: 'Fear of causing offence becomes a fetish', the Guardian, UK

This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War by Samanth Subramanian, reviewed by Amit Chaudhuri: An account of the civil war in Sri Lanka and its aftermath is all the more devastating for withholding judgement, the Guardian, UK

*A rojak is a Singaporean salad. Like Asian Books Blog on Facebook, or follow it on Twitter: @asianbooksblog