Karachi Literature Festival travels to London

To celebrate 70 years of Pakistan’s creation, Pakistan’s biggest literary event, the Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) produced by Oxford University Press (OUP), will be launched in London on 20 May 2017 at the Southbank Centre, as part of their annual Alchemy festival. KLF London promises to be a vibrant celebration of Pakistani literature and arts, providing a fantastic opportunity for Londoners to gain an insight into the country’s complex history and culture.

500 words from Graham Sage

500 words from...is a series of guest posts from authors writing about Asia, or published by Asia-based, or Asia-focused, publishing houses, in which they talk about their latest books. Polyglot Graham Sage divides his time between London, China and France. His previous books include an English-language primer for use in China, and the French-language novel Les tribulations de J. Alfred Prufrock au pays des moas géants. In November, he will publish The Phoenix and the Crow, his first novel in English.

The Phoenix and the Crow is a tale of morality and corruption in present-day small-town China. Wang Bin a young teacher and ornithologist from Beijing travels to Pingyang, a small town nestled in the mountains between Sichuan and Hunan. His aim is to photograph the mountain phoenix, a rare bird with a blaze of rich colours that has never before been captured on film.

Wang Bin soon crosses paths with Pingyang’s, chief of police, a cruel man who rules with an iron fist. The chief of police tries to drive Wang Bin permanently out of town. But Wang Bin is falling in love with Xiao Zhou, a pretty receptionist at the seedy hotel where he’s been staying. Wang Bin, Xiao Zhou and other townsfolk concoct a plan to rid Pingyang of its dreadful chief of police – a plan so far-fetched all agree it might just work.

So, Over to Graham…

Social Sunday

Sundays used to be for lounging with the papers, now they are just as likely for lounging with iPads. So if you're lazily clicking around looking for something to read, here are a few suggestions, focussing on what's going on lit-wise in Asia.

International Translation Day

Sept 30 is International Translation Day. Read a book translated from an Asian language this week!

Indie spotlight: J. W. Durrah

Indie Spotlight is Siobhan Daiko’s monthly column on self-publishing. This month Siobhan talks to indie author J. W. Durrah 

J. W. Durrah published his first short story, Something to Remember, in Essence magazine in 1972. An American, he has travelled widely in Asia, and he drew on his experiences when writing his debut novel Jacob The Jew Vs. The Chinese Blood, which was published in July, through CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. A detective thriller, it is the first in a planned series featuring NYPD detective Jacob Jennings.

When Jennings signs on for a three-year tour with the US Army’s Military Intelligence unit, he expects to be deployed to Vietnam like his father before him. Instead, he finds himself in Hong Kong, working a complex undercover sting in cooperation with the Chinese police. Along the way he encounters Jerry Baofung, a much-feared sorcerer, with links to the trade in illegal drugs.

Social Sunday

Sundays used to be for lounging with the papers, now they are just as likely for lounging with iPads. So if you're lazily clicking around looking for something to read, here are a few suggestions, focussing on what's going on lit-wise in Asia.

500 words from Arthur Meursault

500 words from…is an occasional series in which authors discuss their newly published books. Here Arthur Meursault, a long-term Asia expat, talks about Party Members, which satirises the contemporary Chinese attitude that to get rich is glorious, no matter who gets hurt in the process.

Deep within the heart of China, far from the glamour of Shanghai and Beijing, lies the every-city of Huaishi. This worker’s paradise of smog and concrete is home to Party Member Yang Wei, a mediocre man in a mediocre job. His life of bureaucratic monotony is shattered by an encounter with the advanced consumer goods he has long been deprived of. Aided by the cynical and malicious advice of an unlikely mentor, Yang Wei embarks on a journey of greed, corruption, and murder that takes him to the diseased underbelly of Chinese society. 

So, over to Arthur…

Lion City Lit This Is Not a Safety Barrier / Lucía Damacela

Asian Books Blog is based in Singapore. Lion City Lit explores what is going on in the City-State lit-wise. Here Lucía Damacela attends the launch of This Is Not a Safety Barrier, a collection of 113 Singapore-inspired poems and photos from 69 contributors. This Is Not a Safety Barrier, edited by Marc Nair and Yen Phang, offers commentary that questions and challenges the physical and symbolic barriers erected in Singapore, a place constantly under construction. It is published by  Ethos Books.

Lion City Lit: Uncle Rajah’s Flying Carpet Show

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. Here Raelee Chapman talks to Dr Chris Mooney-Singh an Australian writer, poet, musician and performance artist who has lived and worked in Singapore for a number of years, and who has made his mark on the City-State as an all-round arts entrepreneur.

Man Booker shortlist and housekeeping.

Man Booker have announced their shortlist for the 2016 prize. Click here. Do Not Say We have Nothing, by Madeleine Thien, published by Granta, has made the cut.

In Canada in 1991, ten-year-old Marie and her mother invite a guest into their home: a young woman called Ai-Ming, who has fled China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests. 

Ai-Ming tells Marie the story of her family in Revolutionary China - from the crowded teahouses in the first days of Chairman Mao’s ascent to the Shanghai Conservatory in the 1960s and the events leading to the Beijing demonstrations of 1989.  It is a story of revolutionary idealism, music, and silence, in which three musicians - the shy and brilliant composer Sparrow, the violin prodigy Zhuli, and the enigmatic pianist Kai - struggle during China’s relentless Cultural Revolution to remain loyal to one another and to the music they have devoted their lives to.  Forced to re-imagine their artistic and private selves, their fates reverberate through the years, with deep and lasting consequences for Ai-Ming – and for Marie.

Less loftily, I will now post the main weekly post on Fridays, not Thursdays...

Buy a Book, Give a Book / Jennie Orchard

As promised yesterday, here is a post on promoting literacy in Asia, to tie in with UNESCO's International Literacy Day. It's from Jennie Orchard, of the Hong Kong chapter of Room to Read, the US-based non-profit organisation for improving literacy and gender equality in education in low-income countries. 

Returning from summer....

The sharp-eyed / sharp-memoried / keen amongst you may have noticed the blog is reopening after the summer break a day later than I said it would - that's because I was flying yesterday. So I missed the 50th edition of UNESCO's International Literacy Day. Apologies. Over the coming week, I hope to have a couple of posts on promoting literacy in Asia.