Lion City Lit: Exploring South Asian Identity, by Verena Tay

Asian Books Blog is based in Singapore. Lion City Lit explores what’s going on in the City-State, lit-wise. Here, Verena Tay talks about the South Asia Literary Salon, organised by the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. It was chaired by Meira Chand and took place earlier this month.

Authors at Ubud

Ubud Writers & Readers Festival, which runs this year from 28 October until November 1, has announced some of the authors, artists and thinkers who will attend.  More names will follow in August, but for the now, this is the list:

This Week in Asian Review of Books

See the Asian Review of Books for ever-interesting discussion. Here is a list of its newest reviews, excerpts, letters, essays, and round ups:

Dreams of the Hmong Kingdom: The Quest for Legitimation in French Indochina by Mai Na M Lee reviewed by Peter Gordon
The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy by Daniel A Bell reviewed by Kerry Brown
Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition by Nisid Hajari reviewed by Meera Kumar
The King of Shanghai by Ian Hamilton reviewed byTimothy Sifert

Read Paper Republic

Paper Republic is a collective of literary translators, promoting new Chinese fiction in translation. Last month it launched a fantastic year-long initiative, Read Paper Republic, for readers who are unfamiliar with Chinese fiction, but who wonder what new Chinese fiction in English translation has to offer in manageable formats - so no 500 page novels. 

The Sunday Post

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

500 Words From Jame DiBiasio

500 Words From...is a series of guest posts from Asia-based, locally-published authors, in which they talk about their latest books. Here Jame DiBiasio, an American financial journalist and crime writer now living in Hong Kong, discusses Cowgirl X, the second in his series of Val Benson thrillers – Val is a feisty female amateur sleuth, and she made her debut in Gaijin Cowgirl. The series is published by Crime Wave Press, in Hong Kong.

Q & A: Merryn Glover

Merryn Glover’s debut novel A House Called Askival was released in paperback in May.

Set in the hill-station of Mussoorie in north India, A House Called Askival is the story of three generations of American missionaries caught up in the political and personal turmoil of religious conflict.  Spanning Partition to the present day, it looks at India's bigger events through the lens of one family and is, at heart, the story of a father and daughter seeking peace - with each other and with their past.