Best of
Asia

2022

Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win


Peter Schweizer - 2022
    From the Biden family to the Bush family, this book explores material that will astonish (or distress) the American reader.

Peach Blossom Spring


Melissa Fu - 2022
    But with the Japanese army approaching, Meilin and her four year old son, Renshu, are forced to flee their home. Relying on little but their wits and a beautifully illustrated hand scroll, filled with ancient fables that offer solace and wisdom, they must travel through a ravaged country, seeking refuge.Years later, Renshu has settled in America as Henry Dao. Though his daughter is desperate to understand her heritage, he refuses to talk about his childhood. How can he keep his family safe in this new land when the weight of his history threatens to drag them down? Yet how can Lily learn who she is if she can never know her family’s story?Spanning continents and generations, Peach Blossom Spring is a bold and moving look at the history of modern China, told through the story of one family. It’s about the power of our past, the hope for a better future, and the haunting question: What would it mean to finally be home?

East Side Voices


Helena Lee - 2022
    Essays celebrating East and Southeast Asian identity in Britain.A strong, compelling, and quietly beautiful collection of stories that have gone untold for too long, from voices that have too often been sidelined from the artistic mainstream.' Jonathan LiewIn this bold, first-of-its kind collection, East Side Voices invites us to explore a dazzling spectrum of experience from the East and Southeast Asian diaspora living in Britain today.Showcasing original essays and poetry from well-known celebrities, prize-winning literary stars and exciting new writers, East Side Voices takes us many places: from the frontlines of the NHS in the midst of the Covid pandemic, to the set of a Harry Potter film, from a bustling London

One Piece Box Set, Vol. 4


Eiichiro Oda - 2022
    Luffy and his swashbuckling crew in their search for the “One Piece,” the greatest treasure in the world.As a child, Monkey D. Luffy dreamed of becoming King of the Pirates. But his life changed when he accidentally gained the power to stretch like rubber…at the cost of never being able to swim again! Years, later, Luffy sets off in search of the "One Piece," said to be the greatest treasure in the world...The fourth One Piece Box Set contains volumes 71–90, which make up the Dressrosa, Zou, Whole Cake Island, and Reverie arcs. Along with these thrilling, action-packed stories, the box set also includes an exclusive premium booklet and double-sided color poster.

Bandoola: The Great Elephant Rescue


William Grill - 2022
    Working together on a teak plantation, the two develop a rare friendship, which even today set standards around elephant care and conservation.But when another war forces them to leave their home in the Burmese jungle, the two undertake a journey that will test their friendship, taking trust, understanding, and bravery to the very limit. Together, they lead a group of refugees and over 70 elephants to safety, scaling 5000 ft mountains as they cross the border from Burma into northern India.

The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir


Karen Cheung - 2022
    But in a place that never allowed you to write your own history, even remembrance can be a radical act. Hong Kong has long been known as a city of extremes: a former colony of the United Kingdom that today exists at the margins of an authoritarian, ascendant China; a city rocked by mass protests, where residents once rallied against threats to their democracy and freedoms. But it is also misunderstood and often romanticized, its history and politics simplified for Western headlines. Drawing richly from her own experience, as well as interviews with musicians, protesters, and writers who have made Hong Kong their home, journalist Karen Cheung gives us an insider’s view of this remarkable city at a critical moment in history—both for Hong Kong and democracies around the world. Coming of age in the wake of Hong Kong’s reunification with China in 1997, Cheung traverses the multifold identities available to her in childhood and beyond, whether that was her experience at an English-speaking international school where her classmates would grow up to be “global citizens” struggling to fit in with the rest of Hong Kong, or within her deeply traditional, multilingual family. Along the way, Cheung gives a personal account of what it’s like to seek out affordable housing and mental healthcare in one of the world’s most expensive cities. She also takes us deep into Hong Kong’s vibrant indie music and literary scenes–youth-driven spaces of creative resistance. Inevitably, Cheung brings us with her to the protests, where her understanding of what it means to belong to Hong Kong finally crystallized. Weaving together memoir, cultural criticism, and reportage, The Impossible City transcends borders to chart the parallel journeys of both a young woman and a city as they navigate the various, sometimes contradictory, paths of coming into one’s own.

When I'm Gone, Look for Me in the East


Quan Barry - 2022
    Harking back to her vivid and magical first novel set in Vietnam, Quan Barry carries us across a landscape as unforgiving as it is beautiful and culturally varied, from the stark Gobi Desert to the ancient capital of Chinggis Khan. As their country stretches before them, questions of the immortal soul, along with more earthly matters of love, sex, and brotherhood, haunt the twins, who can hear each other's thoughts. Are our lives our own, or do we belong to something larger? When I'm Gone is a stunningly far-flung examination of our individual struggle to retain faith and discover meaning in a fast-changing world, and a paean to Buddhist acceptance of what simply is.

Dark Moon: The Blood Altar


HYBE - 2022
    When a mysterious new student, Sooha, transfers to Riverfield, the rivals find themselves inexplicably drawn to her. As horrible incidents start to shake the town, the boys’ forgotten pasts slowly start to unravel… and their world turns upside down. DARK MOON: THE BLOOD ALTAR with ENHYPHEN

Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern


Jing Tsu - 2022
    Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened to leave them behind. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu argues that China's most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: the century-long fight to make the formidable Chinese language accessible to the modern world of global trade and digital technology.Kingdom of Characters follows the bold innovators who adapted the Chinese language to a world designed for the Roman alphabet and requiring standardization, from an exiled reformer who risked a death sentence to advocate for Mandarin as a national language to the imprisoned computer engineer who devised input codes for Chinese characters on the lid of a teacup. Without their advances, China might never have become the dominating force we know today.With larger-than-life characters and an unexpected perspective on the major events of China's tumultuous twentieth century, Tsu reveals how language is both a technology to be perfected and a subtle, yet potent, power to be exercised and expanded.

Kanazawa


David Joiner - 2022
    Disappointed, he’s surprised to discover Mirai’s subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo, a city he dislikes. Harmony is further disrupted when Emmitt’s search for a more meaningful life in Japan leads him to quit an unsatisfying job at a local university. In the fallout, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa’s most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English.While continually resisting Mirai’s efforts to move to Tokyo, Emmitt becomes drawn into the mysterious death thirty years prior of a mutual friend of Mirai’s parents. It is only when he and his father-in-law climb the mountain where the man died that he learns the somber truth, and in turn discovers what the future holds for him and his wife.Packed with subtle literary allusion and closely observed nuance, with an intimacy of emotion inexorably tied both to the cityscape and Japan’s mountainous terrain, Kanazawa reflects the mood of Japanese fiction in a fresh, modern incarnation.

White Faced Lies


Eric Flanagan - 2022
    Cons such as these, known as "face jobs", are instances in which Chinese companies hire foreigners to pose as professionals to lend credibility during meetings, press conferences, and other events where "face" is paramount.When veteran "face-jobber" Stanley hires a new assistant who thinks Stanley is his long-lost father, Stanley attempts to pull off the con of a lifetime by pretending to be his assistant's dad. A darkly humorous critique of the post-truth world that explores questions of race, systemic fraud and personal greed, "White Faced Lies" is ultimately about how easily lies become truth.

THE STAR SEEKERS Novel


HYBE - 2022
    The age of magic.A world where magic idols prevail.In these extraordinary times, Star One is one of the last non-magic idol groups left standing.When they feel as though they've reached their limit, miraculous magic emerges.And with it appears an unforeseen enemy, the Dragon Slayer Clan.Suddenly, Star One must face these challenges to discover the truth.Can they change their predestined fate?THE STAR SEEKERS with TOMORROW X TOGETHER

The Cats We Meet Along the Way


Nadia Mikail - 2022
    And now that a calamity is about to end the world in nine months' time, she and her mother decide that it's time to track her down and mend the hurts of the past. Along with Aisha's boyfriend, Walter and his parents (and Fleabag the stray cat), the group take a roadtrip through Malaysia in a wildly decorated campervan - to put the past to rest, to come to terms with the present, and to hope for the future.

Burning my Roti: Breaking Barriers as a Queer Indian Woman


Sharan Dhaliwal - 2022
    Part memoir, part guide, Burning My Roti is essential reading for a new generation of South Asian women.With chapters covering sexual and cultural identity, body hair, colourism and mental health, and a particular focus on the suffocating beauty standards South Asian women are expected to adhere to, Sharan Dhaliwal speaks openly about her journey towards loving herself, offering advice, support and comfort to people that are encountering the same issues.This provocative book celebrates the strides South Asian women have made, whilst also providing powerful advice through personal stories by Sharan and other South Asian women from all over the world.

Lion City: Singapore and the Invention of Modern Asia


Jeevan Vasagar - 2022
    Now it has outstripped Japan. After the Second World War and a sudden rupture with newly formed Malaysia, Singapore found itself independent - and facing a crisis. It took the bloody-minded determination and vision of Lee Kuan Yew, its founding premier, to take a small island of diverse ethnic groups with a fragile economy and hostile neighbours and meld it into Asia's first globalised city. Lion City examines the different faces of Singaporean life - from education and health to art, politics and demographic challenges - and reveals how in just half a century, Lee forged a country with a buoyant economy and distinctive identity. It explores the darker side of how this was achieved too; through authoritarian control that led to it being dubbed 'Disneyland with the death penalty'. Jeevan Vasagar, former Singapore correspondent for the Financial Times, masterfully takes us through the intricate history, present and future of this unique diamond-shaped island one degree north of the equator, where new and old have remained connected. Lion City is a personal, insightful and definitive guide to the city, and how its extraordinary rise is shaping East Asia and the rest of the world.

Border Less


Namrata Poddar - 2022
    Magazine's most anticipated books for 2022; BROWN GIRL BOOKSHELF'S "22 BOOKS TO READ IN 2022"; BUZZFEED NEWS'S "16 Upcoming Books from Indie Presses You’ll Love” and many other lists**Dia Mittal is an airline call center agent in Mumbai searching for an easier life. As her search takes her to the United States, Dia’s checkered relationship with the American Dream dialogues with the experiences and perspectives of a global South Asian community across the class spectrum--call center agents, travel agents, immigrant maids, fashion designers, blue- and white-collar workers in the hospitality industry, junior and senior artists in Bollywood, hustling single mothers, academics, tourists in the Third World, refugees displaced by military superpowers, Marwari merchants and trade caravans of the Silk Road, among others. What connects the novel’s web of brown border-crossing characters is their quest for belonging and negotiation of power struggles, mediated by race, class, gender, nationality, age, or place. With its fragmented form, staccato rhythm, repetition, and play with English language, Border Less questions the “mainstream” Western novel and its assumptions of good storytelling.Border Less was a finalist for The Feminist Press’s Louise Meriwether First Book Prize. Chapters from the novel won the Short Story Contest organized by 14th International Conference on the Short Story in English, judged by Bharati Mukherjee and Clark Blaise; the New Asian Writing Prize; and appeared in The Best Asian Short Stories anthology. The opening chapter, in a slightly different form, was published in The Kenyon Review.**ADVANCE PRAISE**“Not only does this resonant feminist debut challenge normative narratives of immigrant life, it also disrupts the notion of the Western novel in form and function.” —KARLA J. STRAND, Ms. Magazine“Border Less is a novel that invites the reader into the twists, turns, and corkscrews of immigrant life. From call centers in India to affluent eateries in Orange County, CA, these characters are irreverent, sometimes raunchy, anxiety-ridden, but most of all, explorative. Poddar has a sensitive touch to moving between time, space, and generations to present a continuous portrait of adventures and hardships in a racialized, Brown body.” --MORGAN JERKINS, New York Times Bestselling Author of This Will Be My Undoing“Namrata Poddar is a fierce storyteller, and Border Less has a lively, singular cast of characters that burn in the memory." —ANGIE CRUZ, Author of Dominicana, and Editor-in-chief of Aster(ix)“Namrata Poddar's Border Less is a dazzling debut! ... Pieces of the novel's puzzle gradually come together in the plot, which stretches from India through Mauritius to California. Characters are thrown up in a narrative that mirrors their intractability or tedium: a Nepali maid cooped up in a glass kitchen with the hopes of paying for her father's surgery; Dia who wants to be more Indian in her heart than in her habits; cousins whose separate lives across continents allow no reconciliation except in the rhythm of a childhood dance unforgotten by their bodies; immigrant parents and their American children negotiating family, home, love, and that elusive Dream. With a light hand but profound insight, sympathy, and humor, Poddar explores the new versions of gender and hierarchies that play out for different generations and different versions of "Indians" in the U.S. With this auspicious inception, she experiments with hybrid literary genealogies, giving us a novel of poetic form and sensibility.” — ANJALI PRABHU, Director of Comparative Literary Studies, Wellesley College, and Author of Hybridity: Limits, Transformations, Prospects"Namrata Poddar...has created an engaging debut by bringing us into the lives of those who leave and those who stay. If she is tilling familiar ground, she is also giving us a new set of characters. That the individual stories in Border Less can stand on their own is testament to her literary dexterity." —Martha Anne Toll, NPR"Namrata Poddar's "Border Less" attempts to advance that evolution for a new generation of immigrants and their children, for whom South Asia and the United States aren't diametrically opposed but rather interconnected through mutual exchange... In its tangle of "Roots" and "Routes" — its complementary halves — Poddar's debut sheds light on the inextricable networks that make up cosmopolitan India, its California spinoffs and the cyclical, multigenerational journey from there to here and back again." -- THE LOS ANGELES TIMES "Nuanced shades of brownness burst into life in the pages of Namrata Poddar's Border Less, a literary exploration of migration that brings together characters as endearing as they are complex: the Nepali housemaid who finds subtle ways of rebelling against her employer, the Californian surgeon who tries to educate his mother about sexism while remaining oblivious to his own blind spots, and the young émigré who cannot, despite all her efforts, reconnect with the cousins who remained on the motherland. As it roves across cities and deserts, lingering on the centuries-old frescoes that immortalize the stories of the Thar Desert, Border Less is itself nothing less than a lustrous and colorful tapestry of migration in an imperfectly globalized world." —Nikhita Obeegadoo, CATAPULT“Border Less challenges the traditional form and aesthetic of the western novel with a narrative of interconnected stories as layered as the human experience itself. Each of the novel’s carefully drawn chapters explores questions of belonging and identity, complicated by geographic, racial, gender and class distinctions, to name a few. Poddar is an ambitious and important new voice in the tapestry of global literature.” --ALINE OHANESIAN, Author of Orhan’s Inheritance, Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize“The insights of Indian American diasporic experiences — where the borders of internalized colonialism and patriarchy are crossed and reinforced both ways — gives Poddar’s literary effort its strength.” — Gabriel San Román, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES (Times OC)“Border Less is an intricate, dazzling tapestry that pulls threads from past and present—from Mumbai to California—crossing and blending stories and lives. Dia Mittal forges her way, inspired by and respectful of the generational dances, while also discovering her own path as she seeks that “ethereal family reunion.” In this novel, Namrata Poddar keeps her eye on the individual heart while painting the most expansive orbit; she is a masterful writer, bringing time and place to life with vivid story and color and memorable wisdom.” --JILL MCCORKLE, New York Times Bestselling Author of Hieroglyphics“Pitch perfect and beautifully written, this debut novel of dislocation, belonging and return captures with acuity and a light touch our shared transnational present and complex human ties.” --FRANÇOISE LIONNET, Literature Professor at Harvard University, and Author of Postcolonial Representations: Women, Literature, Identity“Namrata Poddar delves with heart-breaking delicacy and precision into the solitary struggles of her characters, whether in the teeming, sweat-drenched Mumbai metropolis or on sunny Californian shores: through the tiny, yet deep epiphanies that close each chapter of their lives, she shows us how every woman is borderless, with minds reaching out well beyond their shores and bodies enclosed within rigid confines. We are all migrants as soon as we are born, reflects one of her characters. But women are even more so as they try to hold on to their center, to their core, while being pulled in different directions by the dictates of family, society, lovers, husbands, children. Until one day—one hopes—the ferociously unique kundalini awakens and takes her due.” --ANANDA DEVI, Author of Eve Out of Her Ruins, Winner of the Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie“Border Less is a serious transnational, feminist and a postcolonial novel. It is a deeply moving narrative of a migrant’s journey from Mumbai to Southern California and her displacements over multiple spaces and her moments of self-discovery. This is a novel that finally gives voice to the complexity of being brown and a woman juggling the intersections of class, race, gender, nationality and place.” --RESHMI DUTT-BALLERSTADT, Literature Professor at Linfield University, and Author of The Postcolonial Citizen"Border Less...spans the relationships of families, romances, friendships. It spans physical distances, across deserts and coasts and the globe. It spans generations, cultures, class, religion, gender, all creating that broad tapestry of interconnected experience." —Winslow Schmelling, HAYDEN'S FERRY REVIEW“Illuminating debut...connecting the fragmented narrative with sharp prose. The range of perspectives harnessed announces Poddar as an exciting new voice in immigrant fiction.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY“Story that is made whole through its fragmentation. A thoughtful exploration of what it means to belong.” —Wendy J. Fox, BUZZFEED NEWS"Questions mainstream modes of storytelling. Her style, which seems to draw on oral traditions, emphasizes repetition, rhythm and reinvention." --KHABAR“A multi-vocal exploration of a South Asian community stretching from Mumbai to Mauritius to California, and the ways in which these places and voices are depicted is a real highlight of the book.” —Rashi Rohatgi, BROWN GIRL MAGAZINE“Story by story, Poddar links the characters together, widening the circle until it encompasses the entire world and much of womanhood. … The stories lash out at the patriarchy, particularly the last one, Kundalini which evokes the anger of the goddess. Yet, in this expanse of alienation and frustration, there are moments of tenderness and grace. Through it all, women compromise, bide their time and build a life, longing for the day when they and the goddess will rise. But first, their stories must be told. Border Less does that with distinction.” —Raji Pillai, INDIA CURRENTS

Old Breed General: How Marine Corps General William H. Rupertus Broke the Back of the Japanese in World War II from Guadalcanal to Peleliu


Amy Rupertus Peacock - 2022
    Rupertus is best known today for writing the Corps' Rifleman's Creed, which begins, "This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine"--which has been made famous by films such as Full Metal Jacket and Jarhead. Rupertus was one of the outstanding Marines of the twentieth century, standing alongside men such as Smedley Butler, Chesty Puller, and Arthur Vandegrift, but he died in 1945, so his story has never been told. Rupertus "made his bones" in the USMC's "savage wars of peace" before World War II: Haiti for three years after World War I, China in 1929 (where he lost his wife and children to the scarlet fever epidemic) and again in 1937 (where he witnessed the beginning of Japan's war against China that turned into the Pacific War of World War II). In World War II, Rupertus commanded during four important battles: Tulagi and Henderson Field during the Guadalcanal campaign; the Battle of Cape Gloucester; and Peleliu. It was a series of blistering battles--and ultimately victories--that helped break the back of the Japanese and pave the way for American victory. In the course of these battles, Rupertus became the Patton of the Pacific--ruthless in war, always on the attack, merciless against the enemy, undefeated in battles--even as he proved himself very much like Eisenhower, suavely diplomatic and able to balance war with politics. These skills allowed Rupertus to crush the enemy in the malaria-infested jungles of the Pacific and personally escort Eleanor Roosevelt on her tour of the Pacific. Old Breed General is the biography of Rupertus and the story of the Marines at war in the Pacific. This is an American story of love, loss, shock, horror, tragedy, and triumph that focuses on Rupertus and the 1st Marine Division in World War II, but which resonates through the 1st, to Chosin in Korea and James Mattis's command in Iraq.

The Secret Listener: An Ingenue in Mao's Court


Yuan-Tsung Chen - 2022
    The history of China in the twentieth century is comprised of a long series of shocks: the 1911 revolution, the civil war between the communists and the nationalists, the Japanese invasion, the revolution, the various catastrophic campaigns initiated by Chairman Mao between 1949 and 1976, its greatopening to the world under Deng, and the Tiananmen Square Massacre.Yuan-tsung Chen, who is now 90, lived through most of it, and at certain points in close proximity to the seat of communist power. Born in Shanghai in 1929, she came to know Zhou En-Lai-second only to Mao in importance--as a young girl while living in Chongqing, where Chiang Kai--Shek's governmenthad relocated to, during the war against Japan. That connection to Zhou helped her save her husband's life in Cultural Revolution. After the communists took power, she obtained a job in one of the culture ministries. While there, she frequently engaged with the upper echelon of the party and was afirst-hand witness to some of the purges that the regime regularly initiated. Eventually, the commissar she worked under was denounced in 1957, and she barely escaped being purged herself. Later, during Cultural Revolution, she and her husband were purged and sent to live in a rough, poor area. Sheand her husband finally moved to Hong Kong, with Zhou's special permission, in 1971.A first-hand account of what life was like in the period before the revolution and in Mao's China, The Secret Listener gives a unique perspective on the era, and Chen's vantage point provides us with a new perspective on the Maoist regime-one of the most radical political experiments in modernhistory and a force that genuinely changed the world.