Cha Review of Books & Films

πŸ“ Click HERE toΒ see a list of available books to review.
.
πŸ“ Click HERE for reviews published on Cha Review of Books and Films after March 2020.Β 
.

divider0


from
Issue 45 (January/February 2020)

  • Nashua Gallagher reviews Marc Nair’s Vital Possessions {Read}
  • Phoebe Tsang reviews Tiffany Tsao’s The Majesties {Read}
  • Simon Cartledge reviews Richard McGregor’s Xi Jinping: The Backlash {Read}
  • Susan Blumberg-Kason reviews Jeff Wasserstrom’s Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink {Read}
  • Akin Jeje reviews Bei Dao’s Blue House, translated by Ted Huters and Feng-ying Ming {Read}
  • Danielle Karanjeet J. de Feo-Giet reviews Song Lin’s Sunday Sparrows, translated by Jami Proctor Xu {Read}
  • Reid Mitchell reviews Wai-Lim Yip’s Arrivals and Departures: Poems, Memoir, and Chronology {Read}
  • Raphael Chim reviews Sreedhevi Iyer’s Jungle without Water and Other Stories {Read}
  • Kate Rogers reviews Xu Xi’s This Fish Is Fowl {Read}
  • Isabelle Lim reviews Hamid Roslan’s parsetreeforestfire {Read}
  • Joshua Bird reviews David Walker’sΒ Stranded Nation: White Australia in an Asian RegionΒ {Read}
  • Marsha McDonald reviews Eddie Tay’sΒ Anything You Can Get Away With: Creative PracticesΒ {Read}
  • Wei Ting Jen reviews isΒ Teo You Yenn’sΒ This is What Inequality Looks LikeΒ {Read}
  • Dragoş Ilca reviews Matt Tuner’sΒ Not MovingΒ {Read}
  • Susan Blumberg-KasonΒ reviews Lindsay Varty’s Sunset Survivors: Meet the People Keeping Hong Kong’s Traditional Industries Alive (with photographs by Gary Jones) {Read}
  • Grace Chia reviews Maria Cheng, Tang Wai Hung and Eric Choy’s Essential Terms of Chinese PaintingΒ {Read}
  • Perry Bayer reviews Vaughan Rapatahana’s NovelΒ {Read}
  • Susan Blumberg-Kason reviews Mary Lynn Bracht’s White ChrysanthemumΒ {Read}
  • AlanaΒ LeilaniΒ Teves Cabrera-Narciso reviews Eileen R. Tabios’sΒ Amnesia: Somebody’s MemoirΒ andΒ Lawrence Lacambra Ypil’sΒ The Experiment of the TropicsΒ {Read}
  • David Wayne Landrum reviews Wawa’s Anna and Anna {Read}

from Issue 44 (June/July 2019)

  • May Huang reviews Mi Jialu’sΒ Deep Breaths: Collected Poems of Mi JIalu 1981-2018, translated by Jennifer Feeley, Matt Turner, Haiying Weng, Lucas Klein, Michael Day, and Feng Yi {Read}
  • Isabelle Lim reviewsΒ Hook and Eye: Stories from the Margins, edited by Philip Holden {Read}
  • Sumit Ray reviews Sumana Roy’s Out of Syllabus: Poem {Read}
  • Cameron White reviews the “City Issue: Hong Kong” in World Literature Today, Volume 93 No. 2 {Read}
  • Tom Marling reviewsΒ Anna Wang’sΒ Inconvenient Memories: A Personal Account of the Tiananmen Square Incident and the China Before and AfterΒ {Read}
  • Kathy Yanbin Cai reviews The Reincarnated Giant: Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction, edited by Mingwei Song and Theodore Huters {Read}
  • Emma Zhang reviews Kai-Fu Lee’sΒ AI Super-Powers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World OrderΒ {Read}
  • Henrik Hoeg reviews Joshua Ip’s footnotes on falling {Read}
  • Susan Blumberg-Kason reviews Frank Langfitt’s The Shanghai Free Taxi: Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New ChinaΒ {Read}
  • David Wayne Landrum reviews Mao Xiang’s The Romance of a Literatus and his Concubine in Seventeenth-Century China, translated by Jan Fang and Lifang He {Read}
  • Marsha McDonald reviews Leanne Dunic’sΒ To Love the Coming EndΒ {Read}
  • Andrew Barker reviews Henrik Hoeg’s Away with Words: Poetry and TranslationsΒ {Read}
  • Emma Zhang reviews Zak Dychtwald’sΒ Young China: How the Restless Generation Will Change Their Country and the WorldΒ {Read}
  • Aakriti Kuntal reviews Kiriti Sengupta’s Rituals {Read}
  • Lindsay Shen reviews Jason Wee’s An Epic of Durable DeparturesΒ {Read}
  • David Haysom reviews Can Xue’s Love in the New MillenniumΒ (translator: Annelise Finegan Wasmoen) {Read}
  • Susan Blumberg-Kason reviews Stephen Davies’sΒ Strong to Save: Maritime Mission in Hong Kong, from Whampoa Reach to the Mariners’ Club {Read}

.

from Issue 43β€””Writing Macau” (April 2019)β€”Macau & General Reviews

  • Michael Ka-chi Cheuk reviews Gao Xingjian’s Wandering Mind and Metaphysical Thoughts, translated by Gilbert C. F. Fong {Read}
  • Pinky Lui Chung-Man reviews Marshall Moore’s Inhospitable {Read}
  • Aurelio Asiain reviews Gergana Ivanova’sΒ Unbinding The Pillow Book: The Many Lives of a Japanese ClassicΒ {Read}
  • Dragoş Ilca reviews Sheng Keyi’s Wild Fruit, translated by Shelly Bryant {Read}
  • Michael Tsang reviews Xu Xi’s InsignificanceΒ {Read}
  • Stephanie Studzinski reviews Greg Santos’sΒ Blackbirds, Anuradha Vijayakrishnan’sΒ The Who-Am-I Bird, Vaughan Rapatahana’sΒ Ternion,Β andΒ Dan Disney’sΒ Either, OrpheusΒ {Read}
  • Kate Rogers reviews Konstandinos Mahoney’s Tutti Frutti {Read}
  • Claire Cuccio reviews Makoto Ōoka’s Beneath the Sleepless Tossing of the Planets: Selected Poems, translated by Janine Beichman {Read}
  • Carolyn Lau reviews Huang Lihai’s feed birds rainbows, translated by Kit Kelen and Chris Song; Yao Feng’s Great Wall Capriccio and Other Poems, translated by Kit Kelen, Karen Kun and Penny Fang Xia; and BΓ©atrice Machet’s For Unity {Read}
  • Akin Jeje reviews Hong Kong Noir, edited by Jason Y. Ng and Susan Blumberg-Kason {Read}
  • Mario Rustan reviews Patrick H. Hase’sΒ Forgotten Heroes: San On County and its Magistrates in the Late Ming and Early QingΒ {Read}
  • Susan Blumberg-Kason reviews Ivy Ngeow’s Heart of Glass {Read}
  • Emma Zhang reviews Ha Jin’s The Banished Immortal: A Life of Li Bai {Read}
  • Wong Wen Pu reviews Kirsten Han’s The Silhouette of Oppression, Alfian Sa’at’sΒ A Manifesto for Arts Funding, Kuik Shiao-Yin’s The Power of a People, andΒ Bilahari Kausikan’s China is Messing with Your Mind {Read}
  • Ophelia Tung Ho Yiu reviews Kit Kelen’s As to the ladders of whichwayΒ and Roger Palmer and Tim Simpson’s macao macau {Read}
  • Ilaria Maria Sala reviews Quelling the Demons’ Revolt: A Novel from Ming ChinaΒ by Luo Guanzhong (attributed author), translated by Patrick Hanan {Read}
  • Jason S Polley reviews Yi T’aejun’sΒ Dust and Other Stories, translated by Janet PooleΒ  {Read}
  • Gabrielle Flores reviewsΒ Gina Apostol’sΒ InsurrectoΒ {Read}
  • Jennifer Mackenzie reviews Brian Castro and John Young’sΒ Macau DaysΒ {Read}
  • Susan Blumberg-Kason reviews Nigel Collett’sΒ A Death in Hong Kong: The MacLennan Case of 1980 and the Suppression of a ScandalΒ {Read}

.

from Issue 42β€”Eleventh Anniversary Issue (January 2019)

  • Ilaria Maria Sala reviews Christina Yi’sΒ Colonizing Language: Cultural Production and Language Politics in Modern Japan and KoreaΒ {Read}
  • Chloe Leung reviews Cheryl Pallant’sΒ Ginseng TangoΒ {Read}
  • AlanaΒ LeilaniΒ Teves Cabrera-Narciso reviews Cindy Rinne’sΒ Quiet Lantern: A Novel in Verse, Khairani Barokka’sΒ RopeΒ and Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta’sΒ Hush HarborΒ {Read}
  • AlanaΒ LeilaniΒ Teves Cabrera-Narciso reviewsΒ Sarge Lacuesta’sΒ A Waiting Room CompanionΒ {Read}
  • Michael Tsang reviews Wendy Chen’sΒ UnearthingsΒ {Read}
  • Michael Tsang reviews Tarō Naka’s Music: Selected Poems, translated by Andrew Houwen and Chikako Nihei {Read}
  • Artemis Lin reviewsΒ KailiΒ BluesΒ (Lu bian ye can),Β directed by Bi Gan {Read}
  • Joyce Lau reviews Joshua Samuel Brown and Stephanie Huffman’s Formosa Moon {Read}
  • Zeny May Dy Recidoro reviews Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds: A Collection of Short Medieval Japanese Tales, edited by Keller Kimbrough and Haruo Shirane {Read}
  • Swathi Parasuraman reviews Mohsin Hamid’sΒ Exit WestΒ {Read}
  • Daryl Lim Wei Jie reviews Yang Mu’s Hawk of the Mind: Collected Poems, edited by Michelle Yeh {Read}
  • Angela Qian reviews John Nathan’sΒ Sōseki: Modern Japan’s Greatest NovelistΒ {Read}
  • James Au Kin-Pong reviews Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’sΒ In Black and White, translated by Phyllis I. Lyons {Read}
  • Susan Blumberg-Kason responds to Jane Weizhen PanΒ andΒ Martin Merz’s response to her review of Eileen Chang’sΒ Little Reunions, translated by Jane Weizhen Pan and Martin Merz {Read}
  • Jane Weizhen PanΒ andΒ Martin Merz respond to Susan Blumberg-Kason’s review ofΒ  Eileen Chang’sΒ Little Reunions, translated by Jane Weizhen Pan and Martin Merz {Read}
  • Kate Rogers reviews Rochelle Potkar’s Paper AsylumΒ and Four Degrees of SeparationΒ {Read}
  • Paoi Wilmer reviews Chi Pang-yuan’s The Great Flowing River: A Memoir of China, from Manchuria to Taiwan, translated by John Balcom {Read}
  • Nina Powles reviews Nashua Gallagher’sΒ All the Words a StageΒ {Read}
  • John W. Steele reviews Jenna Le’sΒ A History of the Cetacean American DiasporaΒ {Read}
  • Maialen Marin-Lacarta reviewsΒ Contemporary Chinese Short-Short Stories: A Parallel Text, edited and translated by Aili Mu, with Mike Smith {Read}
  • Susan Blumberg-Kason reviews Eileen Chang’sΒ Little Reunions, translated by Jane Weizhen Pan and Martin Merz {Read}
  • Ronald Torrance reviews Su Tong’sΒ Petulia’sΒ Rouge Tin, translated by Jane Weizhen Pan and Martin Merz {Read}
  • Jason S Polley reviews Kawika Guillermo’sΒ Stamped: An Anti-travel NovelΒ {Read}
    .

.from Issue 41β€””Writing Singapore” (October 2018)

  • Michael Tsang reviews Crazy Rich Asians (novel and film) {Read}
  • Sandro Lau reviewsΒ Victor Fernando R. Ocampo’sΒ The Infinite Library and Other StoriesΒ andΒ This is How You Walk on the Moon, edited byΒ Patricia Karunungan, Samuel Caleb Wee and Wong Wen Pu {Read}
  • Anna Onni reviewsΒ Shubigi Rao’sΒ Pulp: A Short Biography of the Banished Book Volume I of V {Read}
  • Kate Rogers reviews Toh Hsien Min’s Dans Quel Sens Tombent Les Feuilles, translated by Jacques Rancourt and From Walden to Woodlands: An Anthology of Nature Poems, edited by Ow Yeong Wai KitΒ and Muzakkir Samat {Read}
  • Joshua Ip reviews Rachel Heng’s Suicide Club {Read}
  • Jerome Lim reviews Alvin Pang’s What Happened: Poems 1997–2017 {Read}
  • Pow Jun Kai reviewsΒ In Transit: An Anthology from Singapore on Airports and Air Travel, edited by Zhang Ruihe and Yu-Mei Balasingamchow {Read}
  • Stephanie Studzinski reviews Audrey Chin’sΒ Nine Cuts and Desmond Kon Zhicheng-MingdΓ©’sΒ Babel Via NegativaΒ {Read}
  • Mandy Chi Man Lo reviewsΒ Jeremy Tiang’sΒ State of EmergencyΒ andΒ Living with Myths in Singapore, edited by Loh Kah Seng, Thum Ping Tjin and Jack Meng-Tat ChiaΒ {Read}
  • Al Lim reviewsΒ Daryl Lim Wei Jie’sΒ A Book of Changes {Read}
  • Chloe Leung reviews Grace Chia’sΒ The WanderlustersΒ {Read}
  • Samantha Toh reviews Cheryl Julia Lee’sΒ We Were Always Eating Expired ThingsΒ {Read}
  • Angus Whitehead reviews Jennifer Anne Champion’sΒ CaterwaulΒ {Read}
  • Paul JerusalemΒ reviewsΒ Ng Yi-Sheng’s A Book of HimsΒ {Read}
  • Ann Ang reviews Sharlene Teo’s Ponti {Read}
  • Theophilus Kwek reviews Kirstin Chen’sΒ Bury What We Cannot TakeΒ and Suchen Christine Lim’sΒ The Man Who Wore His Wife’s Sarong: Stories of the Unsung, Unsaid and Uncelebrated in SingaporeΒ {Read}
  • Ng Yi-Sheng review Kevin Martens Wong’sΒ Altered StraitsΒ andΒ JY Yang’sΒ Tensorate Series {Read}
  • Angus Whitehead reviews Samuel Lee’sΒ A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore {Read}
  • Patrick Jiang reviewsΒ Gwee Li Sui’sΒ Spiaking Singlish: A Companion to How Singaporeans CommunicateΒ {Read}
  • Nina Powles reviews Grace Chia’s Mother of All Questions {Read}
    .

from Issue 40β€””Writing the Philippines” (July 2018)

  • Carolyn Lau reviews Alma Cruz Miclat’sΒ Soul Searchers and Dreamers: Artists’ ProfilesΒ {Read}
  • Janice Tsang reviewsΒ Bending Without Breaking: Thirteen Women’s Stories of Migration and Resilience, edited by Monette Bichsel, Lenny Kaye Bugayong and Lily C. Fen {Read}
  • Karlo Antonio Galay David reviewsΒ Mindanao Harvest 3: An Anthology of Retold Tales of Mindanao, edited by Christine Godinez-Ortega {Read}
  • Chloe Leung reviews Marguerite Alcazaren de Leon’sΒ People in PanicΒ {Read}
  • Goh Cheng Fai Zach reviews Johanna Michelle Lim’sΒ What Distance Tells Us: Travel Essays about the PhilippinesΒ {Read}
  • Natalia Delazari reviewsΒ Angelo R. Lacuesta’sΒ Coral Cove and Other Stories, {Read}
  • Alfred A. Yuson reviewsΒ Francis C. Macansantos’sΒ Snail Fever {Read}
  • Sandro Lau reviewsΒ David R. Brubaker’sΒ Liberace’s Filipino Cousin {Read}
  • Christian Benitez reviews Charlie Samuya Veric’sΒ HistoriesΒ {Read}
  • Jennifer Mackenzie reviewsΒ Tim Tomlinson’sΒ Yolanda: An Oral History in VerseΒ {Read}
  • Jason G. Coe reviews Christopher B. Patterson’sΒ Transitive Cultures: Anglophone Literature of the TranspacificΒ {Read}
    .

from Issue 39 (April 2018)

  • Kate Rogers reviews Stephanie Han’s Swimming in Hong KongΒ {Read}
  • Goh Cheng Fai Zach reviewsΒ Malachi Edwin Vethamani’sΒ Complicated Lives andΒ Malchin Testament: Malaysian Poems, edited byΒ Malachi Edwin Vethamani {Read}
  • Michael Tsang reviewsΒ Wesley Leon Aroozoo’s I Want to Go Home (translator: Miki Hawkinson) {Read}
  • Kevin Tan Kwan Wei reviewsΒ Warran Kalasegaran’sΒ Lieutenant Kurosawa’s Errand Boy {Read}
  • Grace Chia reviews Jang Hoon’sΒ A Taxi Driver (Taeksi Woonjunsa) {Read}
  • Matt Turner reviews Paul French’s Bloody Saturday: Shanghai’s Darkest Day {Read}
  • Vivian Tang reviews Chung Man Yee’sΒ And I Hate You So (Siu chan chan) {Read}
  • Wong Wen Pu reviewsΒ Boey Kim Cheng’s Gull Between Heaven and Earth {Read}
  • Brian Haman reviewsΒ Mohamed Latiff Mohamed’sΒ Lost NostalgiaΒ (translated byΒ Nazry Bahrawi) {Read}
  • Ilaria Maria Sala reviewsΒ Wu He’sΒ Remains of LifeΒ (translated by Michael Berry) {Read}
  • Rochelle Potkar reviews Kate Rogers’sΒ Out of Place {Read}
  • Matt Turner reviewsΒ Kaitlin Solimine’s Empire of Glass {Read}
  • Maja Milatovic reviewsΒ Lachlan Brown’sΒ Lunar Inheritance {Read}
  • Jason S Polley reviews Henry Wei Leung’sΒ Goddess of Democracy: An Occupy Lyric {Read}
  • Mark Stevenson reviewsΒ Poems of LΓͺ VΔƒn TΓ i, Nguyα»…n TΓ΄n Hiệt & Phan Quα»³nh TrΓ’m, edited by Nguyα»…n HΖ°ng Quα»‘c and NhΓ£ ThuyΓͺn {Read}
  • Eleanor Goodman reviewsΒ Richard Berengarten’sΒ ChangingΒ {Read}
  • Amanda CattelΒ reviews Ang Lee’sΒ Eat Drink Man WomanΒ {Read}
    .

.fromΒ Issue 38β€””Writing Hong Kong” (December 2017)

  • Nicholas Chan reviewsΒ Guy Sanderson Shirra’sΒ The Accidental Prawn: β€œInteresting Times”—Policing 20th Century Hong Kong and Other Stories {Read}
  • Janice Tsang reviews Liu Waitong’sΒ Wandering Hong Kong with Spirits, translated by Enoch Yee-lok Tam, Desmond Sham, Audrey Heijins, Chan Lai-kuen and Cao ShuyingΒ {Read}
  • Liz Wan reviews Viki Holmes’sΒ Girls’ Adventure Stories of Long AgoΒ {Read}
  • Natalie Liu reviewsΒ Michael Kaan’sΒ The Water Beetles {Read}
  • Michael Tsang reviewsΒ Antony Dapiran’sΒ City of Protest: A Recent History of Dissent in Hong Kong {Read}
  • Abraham Overbeeke reviewsΒ Karen Fang’sΒ Arresting Cinema: Surveillance in Hong Kong Film {Read}
  • Joyce Lau reviewsΒ Robert Gottlieb and Simon Ng’sΒ Global Cities: Urban Environments in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and ChinaΒ {Read}
  • W.F. Lantry reviews Magnus Renfrew’sΒ Uncharted Territory:Β Culture and Commerce in Hong Kong’s Art WorldΒ {Read}
  • Vivian Tang reviewsΒ Dung Kai-Cheung’s Cantonese Love Stories, translated by Bonnie S. McDougall and Anders Hansson {Read}
  • Susan Blumberg-KasonΒ reviews Chan Chi-fat’sΒ Weeds on Fire (Dian wu bu)Β {Read}
  • Michael Tsang reviews PEN Hong Kong’s Hong Kong 20/20: Reflections on a Borrowed Place {Read}
  • Jason Y. Ng reviews Ben Bland’sΒ Generation HK: Seeking Identity in China’s ShadowΒ {Read}
  • Ray Hecht reviewsΒ John Saeki’sΒ The Tiger Hunters of Tai OΒ {Read}
  • Mike Ingham reviews Xu Xi’s Dear Hong Kong: An Elegy For A City {Read}
  • Jason S Polley reviews Christopher DeWolf’sΒ Borrowed Spaces: Life Between the Cracks of Modern Hong KongΒ {Read}
  • Susan Blumberg-KasonΒ reviewsΒ Joe Piscatella’sΒ Joshua: Teenager vs. SuperpowerΒ {Read}
  • Karen Fang reviews Ann Hui’s Our Time Will Come and Christopher Nolan’s DunkirkΒ {Read}
  • Douglas Kerr reviews Chan Ho-Kei’s The Borrowed {Read}
  • Matt Turner reviews SimonΒ Cartledge’s A System Apart {Read}