Sunday 8 May 2016

The Sunday Post

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

Lahore Literary Festival in New York
The Lahore Literary Festival in New York is currently taking place at the Asia Society – it’s so successful today’s events have sold out. See for example Lahore Literary Festival begins in New York on high note from News International, as a good place to start exploring press coverage.

ASEAN Literary Festival in Jakarta
The ASEAN Literary Festival (ALF) has also been making waves – partly for the wrong reasons. It provoked protest from Muslim groups over event programming that included discussions on homosexuality and the politically-motivated massacres in Indonesia in 1965, and there was also some discussion of whether the event even had a license to proceed. The Jakarta Post has had lots of coverage. The paper yesterday included this account of how ALF went ahead with controversial events despite protests – it’s a good place to start exploring press coverage.

Regional winners, Commonwealth Short Story Prize
Regional winners of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize from Commonwealth Writers have been announced. They include
Asia Regional Winner: Cow and Company by Parashar Kulkarni (India)
Pacific Regional Winner: Black Milk by Tina Makereti (New Zealand)
For more information click here.

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:

Lion City lit notes
Asian Books Blog is based in Singapore. Our regular column Lion City Lit explores in-depth what’s going on in the City-State, lit-wise. Lion City lit notes provide quick updates between columns.

The unpublished Singaporean writer Sharlene Wen-Ning Teo has been selected as the first winner of the Deborah Rogers writers’ award, a GPB10,000 prize that supports authors as they finish their first book. Deborah Rogers was a prominent UK-based literary agent who died in 2014. For more details click here.

Lucia Damacela, Asian Books Blog’s co-ordinator for Lion City Lit, has won the Wisehouse international Poetry Award 2016, for her poem Primordial, which will published in August, in the first  issue of  a new European poetry journal, Stark.

Singapore’s English language daily, The Straits Times, today has a supplement devoted to books and reading. Check it out by clicking here.

Twitter spot 
Each week I make a suggestion of an interesting Twitter account you may like to follow.  This week, @rambutanlit, from Rambutan, a new online journal showcasing Southeast Asian literature and art – they are seeking submissions for the first issue now.


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