We are now making plans for publishing reviews on Cha: An Asian Literary Journal‘s Cha Review of Books and Films in 2021-2025. If you would like to review one (or more) of the following titles, please send an email to either Tammy Lai-Ming Ho (t@asiancha.com) to discuss more. If you have a book you’d like us to review, please write to either Tammy or Eddie Tay eddie@asiancha.com. We welcome suggestions for books to review in the journal. Please read our recent reviews HERE.
NOTE: Cha is an Asia-focused literary publication.
The list below is constantly updated. The new titles will be added to the top, while books that have been ‘taken’ will be moved to the second part of the list and remain there until a review of it is published.
THE LIST OF BOOKS
Available for review
Last updated on Thursday 22 July 2021
▣ The Organization of Distance: Poetry, Translation, Chineseness
By Lucas Klein
▣ Translational Politics in Southeast Asian Literatures: Contesting Race, Gender, and Sexuality
Edited by Grace V. S. Chin
▣ Karma
By Yin Lichuan, translated from the Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain
▣ Chinese Science Fiction during the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw
By Hua Li
▣ Tower
By Bae Myung-hoon, translated from the Korean by Sung Ryu
▣ Besiege me
By Nicholas Wong
▣ Reflections on Tsuda Umeko: Pioneer of Women’s Education in Japan
By Ōba Minako, translated by Tani Yū
▣ Reflections on Tsuda Umeko: Pioneer of Women’s Education in Japan
By Ōba Minako, translated by Tani Yū
▣ Japanese Art in Perspective: East-West Encounters
By Takashina Shūji, translated by Matt Treyvaud
▣ Well-Versed: Exploring Modern Japanese Haiku
By Ozawa Minoru, translated by Janine Beichman, with photography by Maeda Shinzō & Akira
▣ Paths of Justice
By Johannes M. M. Chan
▣ Yingelishi: Jonathan Stalling’s Interlanguage Art
Edited by Jonathan Stalling
▣ Painting Myanmar’s Transition
Edited by Ian Holliday and Aung Kaung Myat
▣ Faraway
By Lo Yi-Chin, translated by Jeremy Tiang
▣ The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation
By JaHyun Kim Haboush, edited by William J. Haboush and Jisoo M. Kim
▣ Lockdown Lovers
By Michael O’Sullivan
▣ The Last Embassy: The Dutch Mission of 1795 and the Forgotten History of Western Encounters with China
By Tonio Andrade
▣ The Party and the People: Chinese Politics in the 21st Century
By Bruce Dickson
▣ In the Shelter of the Pine: A Memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and Tokugawa Japan
By Ōgimachi Machiko, translated by G. G. Rowley
▣ Central Asia: A New History from the Imperial Conquests to the Present
By Adeeb Khalid
▣ Yoga in Modern India: The Body between Science and Philosophy
By Joseph S. Alter
▣ Speak Not: Empire, Identity and the Politics of Language
By James Griffiths
▣ To the Warm Horizon
By Choi Jin-young, translated from the Korean by Soje
▣ A Face Drawn in Sand: Humanistic Inquiry and Foucault in the Present
By Rey Chow
▣ Endless Blue Sky
By Lee Hyoseok, translated from the Korean by Steven D. Capener
▣ Hunter School
By Sakinu Ahronglong, translated from the Chinese by Darryl Sterk
▣ The Four Colors
By Ankur
▣ Writing Poetry, Surviving War: The Works of Refugee Scholar-Official Chen Yuyi (1090–1139)
By Yugen Wang
▣ Put Your Hand in Mine
By Elaine Woo
▣ Not Written Words
By Xi Xi, translated from Chinese by Jennifer Feeley
▣ Contesting the Myths of Samurai Baseball Cultural Representations of Japan’s National Pastime
By Christopher T. Keaveney
▣ Oceanic Archives, Indigenous Epistemologies, and Transpacific American Studies
Edited by Yuan Shu, Otto Heim, and Kendall Johnson
▣ Southern Identity and Southern Estrangement in Medieval Chinese Poetry
Edited by Ping Wang and Nicholas Morrow Williams
▣ The Cosmopolitan Dream Transnational Chinese Masculinities in a Global Age
Edited by Derek Hird and Geng Song
▣ Translating Chinese Art and Modern Literature
Edited by Yifeng Sun and Chris Song
▣ A Flutter in the Colony
By Sandeep Ray
▣ The Indispensable History of the New Territories
By Patrick H. Hase
▣ Violence and Emancipation in Colonial Ideology
By Rohan B. E. Price
▣ Minjian: The Rise of China’s Grassroots Intellectuals
By Sebastian Veg
▣ The Appearing Demos: Hong Kong During and After the Umbrella Movement
By Pang Lai-kwan
▣ Chinese Poetry and Translation: Rights and Wrongs
Edited by Maghiel van Crevel and Lucas Klein
▣ Remapping the Sinophone: The Cultural Production of Chinese-Language Cinema in Singapore and Malaya before and during the Cold War
By Wai-Siam Hee
▣ Emperor Qianlong’s Hidden Treasures Reconsidering the Collection of the Qing Imperial Household
By Nicole T. C. Chiang
▣ Queer Chinese Cultures and Mobilities: Kinship, Migration, and Middle Classes
By John Wei
▣ American Evangelists and Tuberculosis in Modern Japan
By Elisheva A. Perelman
▣ The Politics of Higher Education The Imperial University in Northern Song China
By Chu Ming-kin
▣ A Sensational Encounter with High Socialist China
By Paul G. Pickowicz
▣ The Japanese Discovery of Chinese Fiction: The Water Margin and the Making of a National Canon
By William C. Hedberg
▣ The Original Meaning of the Yijing: Commentary on the Scripture of Change
By Zhu Xi, translated and edited by Joseph A. Adler
By Khairani Barokka
By Harshana Rambukwella
▣ Professor Su Jing’an in His Later Years
By Dong Jun, translated from Chinese by Sid Gulinck
▣ The Road Home
By Ai Wei, translated from Chinese by Alice Xin Liu
▣ Fleeing Xinhe Street
By Zhe Gui, translated from Chinese by Ana Padilla Fornieles
▣ The Debt Collector
By Wang Shou, translated from Chinese by John Frederick Franz
By Paul Letters [LINK: http://bit.ly/2kj1vxz%5D
.
▣ Great Leaps: Finding home in a changing China
By Colin Thomas Flahive [LINK: http://bit.ly/2kiQqfP%5D
▣ Forty Nights
By Chris Thrall
▣ Flash Cards (便条集)
By Yu Jian, translated from Chinese by Wang Ping and Ron Padgett [LINK: http://bit.ly/2Gj7VUX]
▣ I Can Almost See the Clouds of Dust (我幾乎看到滾滾塵埃)
By Yu Xiang, translated from Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain [LINK: http://bit.ly/2Gj7VUX]
▣ Double Shadow (重影)
By Ouyang Jianghe, translated from Chinese by Austin Woerner [LINK: http://bit.ly/2Gj7VUX]
▣ Wind Says (風在說)
By Bai Hua, translated from Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain
▣ A Phone Call from Dalian (来自大连的电话)
By Han Dong, translated from Chinese by Nicky Harman, Maghiel van Crevel, Yu Yan Chen, Naikan Tao, Tony Prince & Michael Day
▣ Something Crosses My Mind (有甚么在我心里一过)
By Wang Xiaoni, translated from Chinese by Eleanor Goodman
▣ The History of the Adventures of Vivi and Vera
By Dung Kai-cheung, translated into English by Yau Wai-ping
▣ The Assassin Hou Hsiao-hsien’s World of Tang China (刺客聶隱娘：侯孝賢的大唐中國)
Edited by Peng Hsiao-yen
▣ Tharlo: Short Story and Film Script
By Pema Tseden, translated into English by Jessica Yeung, also with a critical introduction by Jessica Yeung and Wai-ping Yau.
▣ The Tale of Cho Ung: A Classic of Vengeance, Loyalty, and Romance
Translated by Sookja Cho
One of the most widely read and beloved stories of Chosŏn Korea, offering a glimpse into the vernacular and popular literature of the late Chosŏn period, exemplifying the types of stories and heroes that were favoured by its reading public. [LINK: http://bit.ly/2CJBafl]
▣ Raising China’s Revolutionaries: Modernizing Childhood for Cosmopolitan Nationalists and Liberated Comrades, 1920s-1950s
By Margaret Mih Tillman [LINK: http://bit.ly/2JGeWU8]
▣ Art Critique: Selected Writings of K. B. Goel
Edited by Shruti Parthasarathy. Foreword by Geeta Kapur [Link: http://bit.ly/2SbD2WG]
▣ The Cultural Economy of Land: Rural Bengal, Circa 1860–1940
By Suhita Sinha Roy. Edited by Mallarika Sinha Roy [Link: http://bit.ly/2rNwvWG]
▣ Common Life: Drawings and Poems
Ho Chee Lick (artist) and Anne Lee Tzu Pheng (poet) [LINK: http://bit.ly/2K1QN7A%5D
▣ Indelible City
By Chew Yi Wei [LINK: http://bit.ly/2Ob5P04%5D
▣ Rain Tree
By Mahita Vas [LINK: http://bit.ly/2GojXwF%5D
▣ China Sketchbook
By Chip Dameron [LINK: http://bit.ly/2Lzwxxa%5D
▣ Non Sequitur Syndrome
By Goro Takano [LINK: http://bit.ly/2M4iLlr%5D
NO LONGER AVAILABLE
(a partial list)
◉ [Reviewer: Bram Overbeeke] The Authorship of Place: A Cultural Geography of the New Chinese Cinemas by Dennis Lo (to be published in October 2020)
◉ [Reviewer: Jason S Polley] The Hangover after the Handover: Places, Things and Cultural Icons in Hong Kong by Helen Wu
◉ [Reviewer: Tiffany Ren] 17A Keong Saik Road by Charmaine Leung
◉ [Reviewer: Joshua Bird] In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire: Imperial Violence, State Destruction, and the Reordering of Modern East Asia, edited by Barak Kushner and Andrew Levidis
◉ [Reviewer: Ilaria Maria Sala] Ocean of Milk, Ocean of Blood: A Mongolian Monk in the Ruins of the Qing Empire by Matthew W. King
◉ [Reviewer: Ruth Hsu] Challenging Beijing’s Mandate of Heaven: Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement by Ming-sho Ho
◉ [Reviewer: Aoife Cantrill] Manchukuo Perspectives Transnational Approaches to Literary Production edited by Annika A. Culver and Norman Smith
◉ [Reviewer: Paul Fox] A Couple of Soles: A Comic Play from Seventeenth-Century China by Li Yu, translated from the Chinese by Jing Shen and Robert E. Hegel
◉ [Reviewer: Simon Cartledge] A City Mismanaged: Hong Kong’s Struggle for Survival by Leo F. Goodstadt
◉ [Reviewer: Axel Dessein] We Have Been Harmonised: Life in China’s Surveillance State by Kai Strittmatter
◉ [Reviewer: Sascha Brooksbank] Stories of the Sahara by Sanmao, translated from the Chinese by Mike Fu
◉ [Reviewer: Sam Sherwood-Hale] China Eastern Railway by Han Bo, translated from the Chinese by David Perry
◉ [Reviewer: Oliver Farry] The Making of Macau’s Fusion Cuisine From Family Table to World Stage by Annabel Jackson
◉ [Reviewer: Jennifer Wong] The Great Firewall of China: How to Build and Control an Alternative Version of the Internet by James Griffiths
◉ [Reviewer: Jonathan Chatwin] Chinese Grammatology: Script Revolution and Literary Modernity, 1916–1958 by Yurou Zhong
◉ [Reviewer: Jonathan Chatwin] Utopia and Utopianism in the Contemporary Chinese Context: Texts, Ideas, Spaces, edited by David Der-wei Wang, Angela Ki Che Leung, and Zhang Yinde
◉ [Reviewer: Angela Qian] Beauty in the Age of Empire: Japan, Egypt, and the Global History of Aesthetic Education by Raja Adal
◉ [Reviewer: Jennifer Anne Eagleton] Invisibility Cloak by Ge Fei, translated into English by Canaan Morse
◉ [Reviewer: Ilaria Maria Sala] The Unworthy Scholar from Pingjiang: Republican-Era Martial Arts Fiction by John Christopher Hamm
◉ [Reviewer: Ilaria Maria Sala] Languages, Scripts, and Chinese Texts in East Asia by Peter Francis Kornicki
◉ [Reviewer: Zeny May D. Recidoro] A History of Cultic Images in China: The Domestic Statuary of Hunan by Alain Arrault, translated by Lina Verchery
◉ [Reviewer: Angela Elwood] An Empire of Touch: Women’s Political Labor and the Fabrication of East Bengal by Poulomi Saha
◉ [Reviewer: Lydia Kwa] A Genealogy of Devotion: Bhakti, Tantra, Yoga, and Sufism in North India by Patton E. Burchett
◉ [Reviewer: Tiffani Ren] Stranded Nation: White Australia in an Asian Region by David Walker
◉ [Reviewer: Stephanie Studzinski] Common Life: Drawings and Poems by Ho Chee Lick and Anne Lee Tzu Pheng and Put Your Hand in Mine by Elaine Woo
◉ [Multiple reviewers] Xi Jinping: The Backlash by Richard McGregor
◉ [Reviewer: Keerthi Purushothaman] Storey by Clara Chow
IN PROGRESS
.
◉ [Reviewer: Michael Tsang] Well-Versed: Exploring Modern Japanese Haiku by Ozawa Minoru, translated by Janine Beichman, with photography by Maeda Shinzō & Akiraby Choi
◉ [Reviewer: Michael Tsang] To the Warm Horizon by Choi Jin-young, translated from the Korean by Soje
◉ [Reviewer: Sarah Koeksal] Suncranes and Other Stories, translated by Simon Wickhamsmith
◉ [Reviewer: Tim Murphy] The Original Meaning of the Yijing by Zhu Xi, translated and edited by Joseph A. Adler
◉ [Reviewer: Liam Blackford] Besiege me by Nicholas Wong
◉ [Reviewer: James Au] Japanese Art in Perspective: East-West Encounters by Takashina Shūji, translated by Matt Treyvaud
◉ [Reviewer: Luisa ] The Global White Snake by Liang Luo
◉ [Reviewer: Noah Arthur Weber] The Global White Snake by Liang Luo
◉ [Reviewer: Canaan Morse] The Global White Snake by Liang Luo
◉ [Reviewer: Thao Nguyen] On the Ho Chi Minh Trail by Sherry Buchanan
◉ [Reviewer: Thao Nguyen] On the Ho Chi Minh Trail by Sherry Buchanan
◉ [Reviewer: Grace Chia] Gao Xingjian: Painter of the Soul by Daniel Bergez
◉ [Reviewer: Suyin Haynes] Home Remedies by Xuan Juliana Wang
◉ [Reviewer: Jacqueline Leung] Words as Grain by Duo Duo, translated by Lucas Klein
◉ [Reviewer: Liang Luo] Words as Grain by Duo Duo, translated by Lucas Klein
◉ [Reviewer: Joanna Krenz] Words as Grain by Duo Duo, translated by Lucas Klein
◉ [Reviewer: Matt Turner] Words as Grain by Duo Duo, translated by Lucas Klein
◉ [Reviewer: Wong Wang] B-sides and Backslides by Felix Cheong
◉ [Reviewer: Wong Wang] Right of the Soil by Yong Shu Hoong
◉ [Reviewer: Eric Stinton] The Underground Village by Kang Kyeong-ae, translated by Anton Hur
◉ [Reviewer: Maks Sipowicz] Astral Season, Beastly Season by Tahi Saihate, translated by Kalau Almony
◉ [Reviewer: Jonathan Chatwin] Champion’s Day: The End of Old Shanghai by James Carter
◉ [Reviewer: Andrew Benton] Lens on China: Intermediate and Advanced Readings on Film for Learning Chinese by Jing Wang and Xi Tian
◉ [Reviewer: Andrew Benton] The Classical Gardens of Shanghai by Shelly Bryant
◉ [Reviewer: David Harrison Horton] October Dedications by Mang Ke, translated from the Chinese by Lucas Klein
◉ [Reviewer: Wisnu Adihartono] Oral Histories of Older Gay Men in Hong Kong by Travis S. K. Kong
◉ [Reviewer: Yu Müller] Manchukuo Perspectives: Transnational Approaches to Literary Production edited by Annika A. Culver and Norman Smith
◉ [Reviewer: Akin Jeje] Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri, translated by Morgan Giles
◉ [Reviewer: James Au Kin-Pong] Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri, translated by Morgan Giles
◉ [Reviewer: Thomas Monaghan] Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri, translated by Morgan Giles
◉ [Reviewer: Jean-François Dupré] Settlement, Life, and Politics: Understanding the Traditional New Territories by Patrick Hase
◉ [Reviewer: Grace Wong] The Best Asian Travel Writing 2020
◉ [Reviewer: Luke Frostick] The Book of Tokyo, Comma Press
◉ [Reviewer: Cyril Camus] Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge, translated into English by Jeremy Tiang
◉ [Reviewer: Kyle Muntz] Youth Economy, Crisis, and Reinvention in Twenty-First-Century China by Hui Faye Xiao
◉ [Reviewer: Johanna Costigan] No Poetry by Che Qianzi, translated into English by Yunte Huang
◉ [Reviewer: Fathima M] Nine Dragon Island by Eleanor Goodman
◉ [Reviewer: Fathima M] The Postman by Bi Yu, translated from Chinese by Jesse Field
◉ [Reviewer: Ash Dean] Premodern Korean Literary Prose: An Anthology, edited by Michael J. Pettid, Gregory N. Evon, and Chan Park
◉ [Reviewer: Jo Lusby] Strangers on the Praia: A Tale of Refugees and Resistance in Wartime Macao by Paul French
◉ [Reviewer: Carrisa Ma] The Evergreen Tea House by David Wong
◉ [Reviewer: Oliver Farry] Whampoa and the Canton Trade: Life and Death in a Chinese Port, 1700–1842 by Paul A. Van Dyke
◉ [Reviewer: Oliver Farry] A Stormy Petrel: The Life and Times of John Pope Hennessy by P. Kevin MacKeown
◉ [Reviewer: Thomas Mazanec] Reading Du Fu: Nine Views (九家讀杜) edited by Xiaofei Tian
◉ [Reviewer: Lucas Klein] Reading Du Fu: Nine Views (九家讀杜) edited by Xiaofei Tian
◉ [Reviewer: Lucas Klein] Collages by Matt Turner
◉ [Reviewer: Winnie Yee] The Hong Kong Modernism of Leung Ping-Kwan by Au Chung To
◉ [Reviewer: Michael O’Sullivan] The Hong Kong Modernism of Leung Ping-Kwan by Au Chung To
◉ [Reviewer: Danielle Karanjeet J. de Feo-Giet] Weeds by Lu Xun, translated by Matt Turner
◉ [Reviewer: Matthew Wu] Expat Taxes by David Perry
◉ [Reviewer: Huiwen Shu] The Changing Room by Zhai Yongming, translated from Chinese by Andrea Lingenfelter
◉ [Reviewer: Guo Ting] Eileen Chang: Romancing Languages, Cultures and Genres by Kam Louie
◉ [Reviewer: Chris Song] A Plan in Case of Morning by Phill Provance
◉ [Reviewer: Elizabeth Briel] Hong Kong Without Us
◉ [Reviewer: Lucas Klein] Hong Kong Without Us
◉ [Reviewer: Collier Nogues] Hong Kong Without Us
◉ Re [Reviewer: Daniel Garrett] Negative Exposures: Knowing What Not to Know in Contemporary China by Margaret Hillenbrand
◉ Re [Reviewer: Andrea Lingenfelter] Fu Ping by Wong Anyi, translated from Chinese by Howard Goldblatt
◉ Re [Reviewer: Andrea Lingenfelter] Without: Stories of Lack and Longing by Michele Koh Morollo
◉ Re [Reviewer: Andrea Lingenfelter] Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside by Quincy Carroll
◉ Re [Reviewer: Andrea Lingenfelter] Negative Exposures: Knowing What Not to Know in Contemporary China by Margaret Hillenbrand
◉ Re [Reviewer: Ronald Torrance] Negative Exposures: Knowing What Not to Know in Contemporary China by Margaret Hillenbrand
◉ Re [Reviewer: Roland Torrance] The Lives Between Us by Juliet Conlin
◉ Re [Reviewer: Mike Cormack] The Flock of Ba-Hui and Other Stories by Oobmab and translated by Arthur Meursault and Akira
◉ Re [Reviewer: Kate Rogers] China Dream by Ma Jian
◉ Re [Reviewer: Dasom Yang] A Misunderstood Friendship: Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, and Sino–North Korean Relations, 1949–1976 by Zhihua Shen and Yafeng Xia
◉ Re [Reviewer: Quenntis Ashby] This Side of Heaven by Cyril Wong
◉ Re [Reviewer: Quenntis Ashby] Ancient Enmity—An anthology and a poetry chapbook boxset from the International Poetry Nights in Hong Kong 2017
◉ Re [Reviewer: David Perry] Translation as Citation: Zhuangzi Inside Out by Haun Saussy
◉ Re [Reviewer: David Perry] Notes on the Mosquito: Selected Poems of Xi Chuan by Xi Chuan, translated from Chinese by Lucas Klein
LATER
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◉ [Reviewer: Jordan Smith] Away With Words by Henrik Hoeg
◉ [Reviewer: Lucas Klein] Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China by Leta Hong Fincher
