Books

17 December 2025
Author Thant Myint U bemoans the fact that his grandfather, former U.N. Secretary-General U Thant, has been largely forgotten or mentioned in a negative light since his death in 1974 -- a neglect his book seeks to redress. 
Visitors at the Frankfurt Book Fair attend an Oct. 18 panel discussion on how Filipino writers confront political violence in their work. (Photo by Marc Jacquemin, courtesy of Frankfurter Buchmesse)
Arts

Frankfurt Book Fair highlights Philippines literacy crisis

Social media impact on reading and freedom of speech condemned

10 November 2025
Authors Bradley Jardine and Edward Lemon examine, among other themes, how local resistance challenges China’s growing influence in Central Asia. The photo on the right shows an anti-China protest in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in 2019. (Source photos by Hurst, Reuters) 
Books

Books: Central Asia as a test case for China's new world order

'Backlash' explores how Beijing's Belt and Road ambitions face opportunity and opposition across the steppe

7 November 2025
The Garden for Appreciating Clouds at Kozenji Temple in Nagano prefecture. In "The Modern Japanese Garden," author Stephen Mansfield brings deep knowledge and infectious enthusiasm to the subject, making it accessible even to newcomers. (All photos by Stephen Mansfield)
Books

Books: How Japan got its unique gardening culture

Stephen Mansfield's 'The Modern Japanese Garden' celebrates the deceleration of time

2 October 2025
A woman holds cutouts of maps of China and Taiwan during a protest in Taipei denouncing China's military exercises in the waters surrounding Taiwan ahead of the island's first direct presidential elections in March 1996.
Books

Books: Delving into decades of doublethink on Taiwan

Chris Horton's 'Ghost Nation' untangles the island state's struggle to survive

23 July 2025
Belgian novelist Amelie Nothomb has found rich subject matter in drawing on her experiences in Japan, where she spent her early childhood and returned later as an adult. (Courtesy of Albin Michel)
Books

Books: Belgian writer's 'impossible' love affair with Japan

Amelie Nothomb's latest novel coincides with a successful film adaptation

16 July 2025
Annie Zhang Jieping opened the Nowhere Bookstore in the cozy Tokyo neighborhood of Koenji. She says the name expresses hope for those who have been forced to disperse, and also represents a place of safety. (Photo by Kenji Kawase)
Hong Kong security law

Chinese publishing thrives in Tokyo as Hong Kong freedom narrows

Security law imposed 5 years ago undermines former colony's uncensored book scene

30 June 2025
Translator Deepa Bhasthi, left, and writer Banu Mushtaq pose with their trophies after winning the International Booker Prize for the short story collection "Heart Lamp," on May 20 in London. (© David Parry for the Booker Prize Foundation)
Books

Books: Kannada Booker triumph 'to boost Indian regional writing'

Prizewinning translator Deepa Bhasthi celebrates international award

26 June 2025
Deepa Bhasthi's English translation of "Heart Lamp" is the first work by an Indian translator to make the shortlist for the International Booker Prize. (All photos courtesy of Penguin India)
Books

Indian translator makes history with International Booker shortlist

Deepa Bhasthi's rendering of Banu Mushtaq's 'Heart Lamp' 'speaks truth to power'

16 May 2025
The lectures collected in Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen’s new book, "To Save and Destroy," are structured around intimate insights drawn from Nguyen’s unique biography.
Books

Books: Viet Thanh Nguyen writes from the in-between

Celebrated in the West, Pulitzer Prize winner remains unpublished in Vietnam

1 May 2025
Though "China Running Dog" is a work of fiction, British author Mark Kitto drew heavily on his experiences as an expat in turn-of-the-millennium Shanghai. "I've written two memoirs, but I often joke, this is the real story," says Kitto. (Source photos courtesy of Plum Rain Press, Thomas Bird)
Books

Books: Karaoke, concubines and chaos in Shanghai

Mark Kitto's 'China Running Dog' revisits the wild times of the 'roaring 2000s'

10 April 2025
Stacks of copies of "Butter" by Asako Yuzuki in a book store in London. (Photo by Kohei Onishi)
Media & Entertainment

Japanese novels take British book scene by storm

UK sales of Asako Yuzuki's 'Butter' exceed those in Japan

30 March 2025
The most revealing insight of "House of Huawei" is how the company has merged the organizing principles of its Silicon Valley peers and the Chinese Communist Party and used both to achieve global success. 
Books

Books: Huawei's origin story probed, but no smoking gun

Portrait of Chinese telecoms group distinguishes it from the Chinese state

27 March 2025
Yuval Zohar, author of "Towards a Nude Architecture," relaxes in Tengunoyu, one of the baths at Kita Onsen hot spring in Tochigi prefecture, north of Tokyo. (All photos and images courtesy of Yuval Zohar and nai010)
Books

Books: The naked truth about Japan's bathhouses

Yuval Zohar's exploration of the culture of natural springs is an eye-opener

22 March 2025
Japanese writer Yukio Mishima poses for a photo in his living room in 1970. A new collection of his translated short stories showcases the prodigious range of his talent.
Books

Books: Mishima beyond his centenary, still surprises -- and disturbs

Recently translated collection challenges conventional view of controversial Japanese writer

27 February 2025
Polly Barton worked under a tight deadline to complete "Butter," her largest literary translation so far. (Source photos by Fourth Estate, Zoe Frechin-Pollard)
Books

How a Japanese cult novel became an international bestseller

Translator Polly Barton notes the appeal of feminism, food and yellow covers

20 February 2025
Urban planner Walter Koditek's richly illustrated book documents the city's modernist architecture built between the 1950s and 1970s. (All photos courtesy of Walter Koditek)
Books

Books: 'Bangkok Modern' tells the story of a 20th-century city

Groundbreaking work focuses on Thai capital's disappearing postwar buildings

13 February 2025
As authoritarianism spreads around the world, Mark Clifford's biography of defiant Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai is more relevant than ever. (Source photos by Simon & Schuster, Getty Images)
Books

Books: Billionaire dissident Jimmy Lai's story mirrors Hong Kong's troubled trajectory

"The Troublemaker" offers an intimate portrait of the democratic activist

23 January 2025
Then-Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping toast during a state banquet in Manila in 2018. The authors of "Unrequited Love" argue that Duterte's foreign policy shift toward Beijing was disastrous.  
Books

Books: Inside Duterte's China gamble

Authors examine how ex-Philippine leader sought distance from US and pursued personal grievances

9 January 2025
An aerial view of the M+ museum and the West Kowloon Cultural District arts development. (Photo by Rudmer Hoekstra, © Rudmer.space)
Books

Books: Where art meets national security in Hong Kong

Flourishing gallery and museum scene paints sobering portrait of constrained success

26 December 2024
Ezra Vogel in 2019. That year, he delivered his last lecture in Japan at Aichi University, which has now inherited a collection of his books and documents. (Photo by Maho Obata)
Life

Ezra Vogel Library to open at university known as Japan-China bridge

Nagoya's Aichi University inherits American scholar's collection of books, documents

21 December 2024
Long a cult figure in Japan, writer Izumi Suzuki's popularity has blossomed posthumously after her works were translated into English. (Photo by Nobuyoshi Araki)
Books

Late 'wild girl' writer's dark look at 1970s Tokyo underground

Japanese cult sci-fi writer and actor Izumi Suzuki details her own edgy life in newly translated novel

19 December 2024
In "Kaleidoscope Japan," author Richard Nathan delivers a playful mix of the innovative and the erudite. (Source photo Circle Editions; illustration by Kayoko Akiyama, © Red Circle Authors Limited)
Books

Books: Japan through a literary kaleidoscope

Richard Nathan's study is as much about the country as its writing

28 November 2024
The artist Keiichi Tanaami left behind a huge body of work before passing away at the age of 88 on Aug. 9, just two days after his Tokyo retrospective opened. 
Books

Pop modernist Keiichi Tanaami shares his technicolor memories

Tokyo exhibition and book secure late Japanese artist's place in the canon

17 November 2024
In "Gambling Man: The Wild Ride of Japan’s Masayoshi Son," author Lionel Barber has produced a definitive biography of a fascinating figure who seems to be everywhere yet is somehow strangely elusive.
Books

Books: Rise, fall and rise of Masayoshi Son mirrors extraordinary era

Lionel Barber charts compelling life story of outsider entrepreneur

14 November 2024
Beijing-born Yiyun Li's journey from a military trainee to a renowned writer reflects the complex narratives she weaves into her stories. (Tom Pilston/Booker Prize Foundation)
Books

Yiyun Li blurs lines between fiction and reality in search for insight

Acclaimed Chinese-American author values the act of writing over the final product

9 November 2024
Soldiers stand guard in Bangkok during the May 2014 coup that brought Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha to power. U.S. author Paul Chambers' courageous book is a reminder that the triumph of the generals has come at a heavy price paid by the Thai public.
Books

Books: Inside Thailand's 'praetorian' military

New book examines how kingdom's armed forces have influenced politics for nine decades

24 October 2024
Clare Hammond's debut book excavates often troubling facets of Myanmar's history that have gone unrecorded. (Source photos Penguin, Libby Burke Wilde)
Books

Books: A train journey through Myanmar's violent history

Railways highlight colonial origins and emergence of forced labor and military brutality

10 October 2024
Haiku poet Sanki Saito's memoir has been praised as a masterpiece. The recently published English-language edition opens the book up to a wider audience. (Isobar Press)
Books

Books: In wartime Japan, illicit jazz played on at Kobe Hotel

Translation of haiku master Sanki's memoir brilliantly captures vibrant demimonde

26 September 2024
Peter Hessler intended to tell a different story when he set out to write his engaging memoir, but his carefully laid plans were hijacked by an unexpected series of events. (Source photos Penguin Press, Peter Hessler) 
Books

Author Hessler charts extraordinary scenes in China's COVID-19 debacle

Virus forces pivot in five-year plan to focus on generational change

14 September 2024