Man Booker Prize 2015 longlist

I’m never sure what to make of longlists for literary prizes – it’s quite a chasm between being on a list and winning a prize, even when the list is the shortlist. But for what it’s worth the longlist for the GPB 50,000 Man Booker Prize was announced yesterday, in London.

Published Today: New Asia Now

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.

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:

Murder with Bengali Characteristics by Shovon Chowdhury reviewed by Peter Gordon
China’s Forgotten Peoples: Xinjiang, Terror and the Chinese State by Nick Holdstock reviewed by Joshua Bird
A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator’s Rise to Power by Paul Fischer reviewed by Glyn Ford
Picturing Technology in China: From Earliest Times to the Nineteenth Century by Peter J Golas reviewed byJuan José Morales

The Sunday Post

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

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