See you in September

I am closing the blog for August as I am spending the month travelling, and it's too difficult to keep posting from boats, trains, airports, hotel rooms, etc. The blog will resume on Sunday, September 6. In the meantime: happy reading!

Indie Spotlight: Malika Gandhi

Indie Spotlight is our monthly column on self-publishing. This month our indie correspondent Siobhan Daiko talks to Malika Gandhi, who was born in Mumbai, and who writes historical fiction making cross-cultural connections.

Can you tell me something about your debut novel, Freedom of the Monsoon?

The novel is set during the struggle for independence: the British Raj needs to go and the Indians must have their country back. It lets readers re-live the determination of Indians fighting against the British, by following five individuals as they face fear, love, sacrifice and hate.  

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.