From our catbird seat here at WoWasis, it’s pretty clear that novelist Randall Peffer, in his Bangkok Dragons, Cape Cod Tears (2009, ISBN 978-1-60648-038-0), knows a few disparate worlds. The transgender world features prominently here, both in Bangkok and Cape Cod, as does the Portuguese fishing community of the Cape. Melding these worlds with police […]
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WoWasis Vietnam book review: Nelson DeMille’s ‘Word of Honor’
If you’re a U.S. citizen, when you visit Vietnam, you may be pleasantly surprised at the lack of animosity. After all, the Yanks tore up the country and killed a lot of people. Just how badly things go haywire under combat conditions in Vietnam is a story that sets the table for Nelson DeMille’s epic […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘The Terra Cotta Army’ by John Man
The discovery in 1974 of some 7,000 Chinese terra cotta warriors and horses from the First Emperor’s reign circa 200 BCE is one of the outstanding archaeological finds on th twentieth century. Several of these statutes have been on tour of U.S. museums, most recently at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum. John Man’s landmark book, […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘Myanmar Buddha: The Image and Its History’ by Somkiart Lopetcharat
This very fine and comprehensive book on Burmese Buddha images is generally available only in Southeast Asia, so we here at WoWasis would advise putting it on your shopping list for your next trip. Somkiart Lopetcharat’s Myanmar Buddha: The Image and Its History (2007, ISBN 978-974-09-6065-2) carries a suggested retail price of $85 USD, and […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis banned book review: ‘Thailand Unhinged: the Death of Thai-Style Democracy’ by Federico Ferrara
This book has been banned in Thailand, and it’s easy to see why. It takes on the ruling class, the monarchy, and to a certain extent, denigrates the Thai people as well. With his Thailand Unhinged: the Death of Thai-Style Democracy (2011, ISBN 978-979-3780-84-9), author Federico Ferrara notes in his foreword that he’d self-censored his […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘A Golden Age’: Bangladeshi fiction from Tahmina Anam
The Bangladeshi War of Independence of 1971 forms the backdrop of a plethora of novels from that country, and Tahmina Anam’s A Golden Age (2007, ISBN 978-0-06-14787-1) is no exception. The book won a Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best First Book. It’s a coming of age tale, involving the evolution of a mother from a […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis banned book review: ‘Lajja (Shame)’: Bangladeshi fiction from Taslima Nasrin
Given that the nation of Bangladesh changed from a secular state to an Islamic country via a constitutional amendment, it’s easy to see why this book has been banned. Taslima Nasrin’s Lajja (Shame) (1993, ISBN 978-014-024-0511) is a strong indictment of the Islamic movement that made pariahs of its Hindu population. This is historical novel […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘Galpa: Short Stories by Women from Bangladesh’
Bangladesh can boast a number of exceptional women writers, and Galpa: Short Stories by Women from Bangladesh (2012, ISBN 984-32-2931-2), edited by Firdous Azim and Niaz Zaman, contains short stories written by 27 of them. As with any collection of this size (273 pages), the work can sometimes be spotty, but the editors noted the […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘Killing the Water,’ Bangladeshi stories by Mahmud Rahman
Bangladeshi writer Mahmud Rahman knows his Boston. And Providence and Oakland as well. He’s lived in all three places, got a writing degree from Oakland’s Mills College, and in his book Killing the Water (2010, ISBN 978-014-306-5036), he explores the somewhat murky, yet romantic and fascinating world of a Bangladeshi trying to make his way […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘New Age Short Stories,’ Bangladeshi fiction edited by Niaz Zaman
Niaz Zaman is a formidable editor. In her collection New Age Short Stories (2006, ISBN 984-8715-02-9), she’s compiled twenty-seven stories over 237 pages. Nearly all of them are top-notch, and they all are compelling. These aren’t ‘New Age’ in the western sense: New Age is the name of the Bangladeshi newspaper that originally printed these […]
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