Shakespeare and Asia by Michael Dobson

April 23^rd this year is Shakespeare’s 400th death anniversary, and throughout 2016 arts organisations in the UK are holding events to celebrate his life and works. Beyond the UK, the British Council has organised Shakespeare Lives, a global programme of events and activities which will reach Asia along with every other continent. Within Asia theatres, libraries and universities are also offering tributes. For example in January Beijing’s Star Theatre presented With Love, William Shakespeare, which reinterpreted favourites such as Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night's Dream in the context of modern China. Against this background, Asian Books Blog is delighted to re-post, from the blog of Oxford University Press, this overview of the on-going discussion between Shakespeare and Asia, by Michael Dobson.

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:

River of Ink by Paul MM Cooper reviewed by Tim Hannigan
Asian writers in the 2016 Man International Prize longlist and our reviews
A Dutch Accountant in Korea: Hendrik Hamel’s Curious Adventures (Part II) by John Butler
A Dutch Accountant in Korea: Hendrik Hamel’s Curious Adventures (Part I) by John Butler
The Great Soul of Siberia: In Search of the Elusive Siberian Tiger by Sooyong Park reviewed by Peter Gordon

The Sunday Post

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

Just quickly...

It's more cookery than literary, but you may enjoy the account I wrote with Elizabeth Roberts of a colonial era cookbook, for the UK Telegraph. Click here.

Monsoon Books opens UK office

Monsoon Books, the Singapore-registered award-winning independent publisher of English-language books and eBooks on Asia, has opened an office in the UK for its editorial and marketing teams. 

Heading up the UK side is founder and publisher, Philip Tatham who will commute between the offices in the UK and Singapore.

Monsoon Books publishes books with Asian themes by authors from both East and West, and both new and established. Its list includes a mix of literary and commercial fiction, and nonfiction - biography and autobiography, true crime, food and drink, history, travelogues and current affairs.

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:

The Hungry Ghosts by Shyam Selvadurai reviewed by Jane Wallace
Quixotica: Poems East of la Mancha: A call for submissions 
Netsuke: 100 Miniature Masterpieces from Japan by Noriko Tsuchiya reviewed by Peter Gordon
Young Babylon by Lu Nei, translated by Poppy Toland reviewed by Agnes Bun
Black Dragon River: A Journey Down the Amur River at the Borderlands of Empires by Dominic Ziegler reviewed by Bill Purves
In brief: The Kite Family by Hon Lai-Chu, translated by Andrea Lingenfelter; While We’re Here: China Stories From a Writers’ Colony, edited by Alec Ash and Tom Pellman reviewed by Peter Gordon

500 words from Sylvia Vetta

500 words from...is a series of guest posts from authors writing about Asia, or published by Asia-based, or Asia-focussed, publishing houses, in which they talk about their latest books. Here UK-based Sylvia Vetta talks about her new novel, Brushstrokes in Time. This is written in the form of a memoir of a fictional Chinese artist, Little Winter, who is writing her life story for her American daughter. Back in the day, Little Winter was part of the Stars, a short-lived avant-garde group of self-taught artists operating in Beijing between 1979 and 1983, staging outdoor exhibitions, street demonstrations and public readings. Her memories of a love affair with a man frustrated by being controlled by the state link her private life to wider hopes for freedom of expression.  Controversially, the novel touches on the massacre in Tiananmen Square, in 1989. 

So: over to Sylvia…