A rojak* of items that caught
my eye this week…
Pen Translates
Two forthcoming titles of Asian interest have
been awarded PEN Translates grants. Congratulations to:
Paper Tiger by Xu Zhiyuan, translated from Mandarin by Michelle Deeter and Nicky Harman, published by Head of Zeus, August 2015
Paper Tiger by Xu Zhiyuan, translated from Mandarin by Michelle Deeter and Nicky Harman, published by Head of Zeus, August 2015
Lost Evenings; Lost Lives by Aazhiyaal, Theva
Abira et al, translated from Tamil by Lakshmi Holmström and Sascha
Ebeling, published by Arc Publications, October 2015.
Shortlisted: Elizabeth Pisani’s Indonesia Etc.
The Stanford Dolman Travel Book Prize
promotes travel writing of literary merit that instills a sense of place,
excitement and wonder. Indonesia Etc.,
Elizabeth Pisani’s revelatory account of her travels in Indonesia, is on the 2015
shortlist. Tony Maher, Managing Director of Stanfords, the world-famous map and
travel bookshop in London, praised it as offering readers in the West a glimpse
the realities of life in a country remarkably unknown to them.
About the book: Indonesia Etc. tells of an entertaining
and fascinating journey through one of the world's largest, most dynamic and
most contradictory countries. Elizabeth Pisani travelled over 13,000 miles, to
investigate Indonesia’s enduring attraction, and to find the links which bind
together this disparate nation. Her writing is fearless, funny, and sharply
perceptive; she has drawn a compelling and deeply informed portrait of a
captivating nation.
About the author: Elizabeth Pisani was Indonesia correspondent for
Reuters and the Economist from 1988
to 1991. She worked with Indonesia's Ministry of Health from 2001 to 2005 as an
epidemiologist, and spent 2011 travelling the archipelago. Pisani speaks Indonesian.
Quick Notice: Peking Picnic by Ann Bridge
Daunt Books has reissued in
paperback a title that was much praised when it was first published in 1932.
About the book: Peking Picnic
concerns a privileged Western woman forced to confront the realities of life in
the East. Laura Leroy, wife of a British attaché, leads a divided existence, torn
between her beloved home in England and diplomatic society in Peking – perhaps
slightly exoticised in the novel as an ancient city of exquisite allure. When
Laura joins a group of expats on an expedition to the great monastery at Chieh
T’ai Ssu, they become intoxicated by the mysterious beauty of the Chinese
landscape in spring, and by one another. But far from the comforting whirl of
cocktails and picnic parties, they soon encounter a shocking clash that
threatens the security of their newfound bond. The novel captures the
unfamiliar thrill of a new city, the excitement of secret love, and the
everlasting tension between the old and the new.
About the author: Ann Bridge was the wife of a diplomat who was
posted around the world. Peking Picnic,
her first novel, was an immediate success and won the Atlantic Monthly Prize.
She went on to have a distinguished and prolific writing career, and continued
to travel the world. She died in 1974.
Amazon’s New Payment Policy (Again.)
As reported last week, Amazon has
decided to pay self-published authors of kindle edition eBooks by number of
pages read – while still charging the full download price, and pocketing the extra
income. Now it has been revealed the company
may pay some authors as little as $0.006 per page. This has caused yet more
outrage. Click here for an interesting
discussion of the issues by Alex Hern for the UK Guardian newspaper.
Blog Spot
Do you run a blog you think may
be of interest to readers of Asian Books Blog?
If so, get in touch, preferably via e-mail - asianbooksblog@gmail.com -
because I want to include a weekly blog spot on Sundays. The idea is to invite
administrators of relevant and interesting-sounding blogs to write a paragraph
about their blog, to be posted in the blog spot.
*A rojak is a Singaporean
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@asianbooksblog
