RaveThe Asian Review of Books... a large book teeming with larger-than-life characters ... Craske keeps the music itself very much in focus ... This book abounds with amusing (and telling anecdotes), but Craske never loses sight of what he is doing—there is plenty of serious analysis along with the anecdotes, and it is always accessible to a general reader ... Craske makes sure that readers have a properly rounded-out portrait of Ravi Shankar, perhaps for the first time. There are detailed chapters on Shankar’s career before he became a star in the West, and this story needed to be told ... Craske also gives us a detailed and sympathetic portrait Shankar the man, a complex and sometimes puzzling person ... Ravi Shankar is fortunate to have had such a biographer as Oliver Craske, a candid but judicious friend and no hero-worshipper—Indian Sun is likely to be the definitive biography of Ravi Shankar for many years to come.
Pico Iyer
MixedAsian Review of Books... Autumn Light is not a travel-book as such, although it may be read as a mental or psychological journey in which he comes to learn about impermanence, something we paradoxically need to experience before we can somehow retain what is no longer there ... In Autumn Light the theme of death is all-encompassing, but not in a morbid or depressing way ... There may be too much Zen in this book for some readers!
Kim Man-jung Trans. by Heinz Insu Fenkl
RaveThe Asian Review of Books\"Fenkl has produced a fluent, lively and indeed elegant translation of this work, which does its author justice and skillfully navigates between avoiding self-conscious archaism (this is a 17th-century work, after all) in the tone of the book whilst at the same time using language which has not been made to sound anachronistic or too \'modern\' ... Kim Man-jung does not simply write a book extolling or privileging the virtues of Buddhism. He was, after all, the head of the Confucian Academy, and although Buddhism does come out as the prevailing philosophy, Kim includes Confucian and Taoist elements in the book ... the structure of the novel is complicated, and to fully understand what Kim Man-jung is doing with it requires reading Fenkl’s introduction, which is learned but very accessible, and adds depth for readers who might simply read this book as a good adventure-story which, fortunately, it is, but to leave it at that would not explain why the book is a \'classic\'.\
Ha Jin
PositiveAsian Review of Books\"Ha Jin takes an wide-ranging approach to literary biography. He uses every available source, both historical and literary, and essentially comes up with an adventure story where the poems form part of the subject’s development and admirably flesh out the biographer’s text ... Ha Jin wisely gives readers a very liberal sprinkling of Li Bai’s poetry during the course of the biography ... Ha Jin has written a moving, compassionate and comprehensive, yet measured biography of a major Chinese poet who needs to be better-known in the West; the warm accessibility of the writing and the first-class research behind the book make it essential reading for anyone interested in Chinese culture.\
Sookja Cho
RaveAsian Review of BooksAll...is delivered to us in a fluent, engaging translation by Sookja Cho, who teaches Korean at Arizona State University. She also supplies a fascinating introduction which fills in everything a Western reader needs, as well as quite copious end-notes which will satisfy scholars ... [Cho] has skilfully navigated the difficulties posed by a work that mixes didacticism and moralising with elements of poetry (there is quite a lot of this in the book) and the colloquial tone of an orally-transmitted story. It’s probably the latter which helps persuade readers that Cho Ung is a flesh-and-blood human being as well as a military hero and moral exemplar ... The Tale of Cho Ung is splendid entertainment, bildungsroman and a serious commentary on human morality all rolled into one, which makes it a book for all kinds of readers.
Hiro Arikawa, Trans. by Philip Gabriel
PositiveAsian Review of Books\"The book may be written in a simple and plain style, but don’t let that fool you; Arikawa may be disingenuous sometimes, but she does have some serious things to say in this book, and they are worth saying ... Arikawa’s double narrative works very well ... The success of Arikawa’s novel is her knack for making cats believable.\
May-Lee Chai
RaveAsian Review of BooksBefore I read this wonderfully quirky book of stories, I had never given much thought to such things as trainer bras or lucky dry fruit ... Chai’s use of these simple and even mundane items is just one of many effective devices in this book, and part of her refreshingly oblique approach to the immigrant experience ... Chai takes these well-worn tropes and engages with them in new and interesting ways, interlacing the familiar with the unexpected ... The world Chai depicts in this collection is both familiar and unfamiliar to Western readers, as in reality it would be to her characters, were they flesh-and-blood people. Her stories are well-crafted and the characters engaging ... Chai does not need long explanations from an omniscient narrator to make her point.
John Zubrzycki
RaveAsian Review of BooksIf any reader has ever thought about Indian magic, those thoughts would likely conjure up (pun intended) images of snake-charmers, levitation, rope tricks, jugglers and people taking afternoon naps on beds of nails ... But Indian magic isn’t just these old standards, and it goes way beyond Western feats of prestidigitation or producing rabbits from hats; it’s illusion taken to its highest art form, it’s been around for a very long time, and it survives (barely, and sometimes in the face of police regulations and the necessity for bribes) still on the streets of some Indian cities, as Zubrzycki’s interviews with contemporary performers attest ... Zubrzycki’s consummate scholarship ranges easily over this material and much more, weaving, with his own magical touch (this book is never dull or heavy) an utterly fascinating history of a wonderful cultural tradition which has received little scholarly attention from Western writers and which, curiously enough, could serve almost as a modern companion to Frazer’s immense work of erudition ... A reading of this book goes a long way to making us feel that wonder and hope that one day, like Emperor Jahangir and so many others, we will be struck with it.
