Just quickly...

Click here for Rosie’s review of Imprint 16, edited by Carol Dyer, in Asian Review of Books.

This weekend: literary events in Singapore

Asian Books Blog is based in Singapore – the Lion City. Lucía Damacela keeps an eye on local listings. A sample of literary events taking place in Singapore this weekend

Migrant Poetic Tales

Saturday, 20 May 2017
5pm to 6pm
Booktique
CityLink Mall, #B1-17A, 1 Raffles Link, Singapore 039393
Free Admission (tickets through Peatix)

A dialogue between Singapore poets, migrant workers and the community at large, this event features migrant writers from Bangladesh, The Philippines, India-Tamil, Indonesia and Singapore. The event is co-organized by Amrakajona Zakir, a two-time winner of the Migrant Poetry Competition.

New book: Policing Hong Kong by Patricia O’Sullivan

Policing Hong Kong – An Irish History is part of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Studies Series. It explores the role of Irishmen in the Hong Kong Police Force, from 1864-1950.

In 1918 Hong Kong was a tranquil place compared to war-torn Europe. But on the morning of the 22nd January, a running battle through the streets of a somewhat disreputable district, Wanchai, ended in what came to be known as “the Siege of Gresson Street”. Five policemen lay dead. Local people were so shocked that over half the population turned out to watch the victims' funeral procession.

One of the dead, Inspector Mortimor O’Sullivan, came from Newmarket, a small town deep in rural Ireland. Many of his colleagues were also Irishmen, from Newmarket. 

Patricia O’Sullivan is a writer and researcher on the lesser-known aspects of Hong Kong’s history prior to 1941. Mortimor O’Sullivan was her great-uncle. This book is the result of her stumbling on an article concerning his death. 

Using family records and memories alongside extensive research in Hong Kong, Ireland, and London,  O'Sullivan tells the story of her great-uncle, his colleagues, and the criminals they dealt with. She also gives a rare glimpse into the day-to-day life of working-class Europeans at the time, by exploring the lives of the policemen's wives and children. 

Asian Festival of Children’s Content

The Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) is held annually in Singapore. This year it takes place next week, from Wednesday May 17, to Sunday May 21. The Festival, organised by the National Book Development Council of Singapore, aims to strengthen the creation and promotion of children’s books and other content, with an emphasis on Asia. Lucía Damacela reports.

More than one hundred local and international authors, illustrators, editors, and other professionals from the publishing industry will participate in this year’s AFCC. Countries represented include Australia, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Thailand, the United States and the United Kingdom.

This year, the country of focus is Indonesia. The Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation (SEAMEO) is a regional intergovernmental body promoting cooperation through education, science, and culture. It operates a regional centre for quality improvement of teachers and education personnel in Jakarta, where  Dr. Felicia Utorodewo is the director in language. She will be speaking at AFCC, as will Dr. Murti Bunanta, children’s literature specialist and president of the Indonesia section of the International Board on Books for Young People. Mr. Wandi S. Brata, CEO of Indonesia’s Gramedia Publishing, will also attend, along with a team from Indonesia’s Society for the Advancement of Children’s Literature.

Just quickly...

Click here for my review of Temporary People by Deepak Unnikrishnan in Asian Review of Books.

Asia House Bagri Foundation Literature Festival 2017

The Asia House Bagri Foundation Literature Festival starts in London today, and continues until Friday, May 26.  This is the only UK-based literary festival dedicated to discussing writing about Asia. It takes a pan-Asian approach including books from Turkey in the West, to the Philippines in the East.

Writer, journalist and translator Hande Eagle is the Literature Programme Manager at Asia House. She is responsible for organising the Festival.  Hande is a Turkish national, who has been a long-term resident of the UK.  She only started her job in January, when “half of the Festival had already been organised and I had to absorb everything in the blink of an eye.”  She here answers questions about the upcoming Festival. 

How did you become involved in the Asia House Bagri Foundation Literature Festival? 

After graduating from a UK university, the University of Leicester, with a BA in Sociology, I worked in HR at a multi-national medical company. After some time, I realised that this really wasn’t the career path I wanted to go down. So, I moved back to Istanbul in 2008 and started soul-searching. I had started writing at a young age and I wanted to write. I was interested in literature and art and as part of that, having lived in the UK as a Turkish national for over ten years, I was also interested in translation. So, by taking small steps, I entered the world of publishing. At first I worked as an Assistant Editor at a prestigious art magazine, and later decided to become self-employed and direct my own translation and editorial business. Towards the end of 2009 I was invited to write for the arts and culture pages of Cumhuriyet, a Turkish national daily established in 1924. This was something I had dreamt of since I was a little girl because I am from a progressive family who very much admired Cumhuriyet’s stance towards social life, culture and politics in the 1980s and 1990s. I wrote for Cumhuriyet for five years. Meanwhile, in 2012 I moved back to the UK and continued to work with numerous publishing houses, private art institutions, magazines and newspapers in Turkey and in the UK. Over time, I felt that I needed something more. I wanted to be involved in events organisation and in working on different ideas with a team, to add a new aspect to my career and also be more engaged with people. I had known about Asia House for a couple of years when I applied for the position of Literature Programme Manager at the end of 2016. I was both excited and intrigued by the idea of managing the only pan-Asian literature festival in the UK. 

Q & A: Michael Breen

A long-term resident of Seoul, Michael Breen is a British journalist who first went to Korea as a freelance reporter, contributing to a range of international publications. His wife is Korean, and he speaks the language, although he engages the help of translators and interpreters when necessary. He has just published The New Koreans: The Business, History And People Of South Korea. The book began as an update to an earlier one, The Koreans: Who They Are, What They Want, Where Their Future Lies. This was written in the late 1990s, and Michael found so much had changed that his intended update turned into a new book. 

Who are the South Koreans, and where does their future lie?  The New Koreans explores the nature and the values of the Korean people against the background of a detailed examination of the complex history of the Korean Peninsula, in particular its division, and South Korea’s emergence as an economic power.

Given this is your second book on the subject, are you worried tracking the contemporary history of South Korea will come to dominate your writing life?

I’m not done with Korea, but I’m done with this topic of the general study of it. A quick update to the new book would be manageable, but a major strategic shift on the part of the Koreans – like, say, re-unification – would need another whole new book and I’m not sure I’m up for that.