Asian literatures

Oppression and control of writers and literature has been a standard measure of social and cultural life in Cambodia for a thousand years at least, but since the last elections in 2013 there has been the appearance of change.

‘Perhaps the question that Ubud should prompt Indonesians and those who follow Indonesian affairs to ask is not “How can such censorship be happening?”, but rather, “Why are we shocked anew whenever censorship like this happens?” The answer to this new question may lie in the bifurcated narrative many of us rely on when thinking about recent Indonesian history.’ Tiffany Tsao on freedom of literary expression in Indonesia

‘The world of work I was to enter in the early 1980s saw an Australia at a tipping point, steeped in a kind of clanking, mechanical/electrical Fordist modernity, but on the cusp of radical change. This was the world I was entering, and it was the world I wanted to engage with as a writer. But how could I do this in the form of the novel? I wanted to capture the shift as it was lived and felt, to give a sense of the momentum building, to bear witness to the fact that we were entering a new epoch.’ Anthony Macris on making sense of the world

In the last decade, the forces of resurgent fundamentalism and divisive communalism have made life increasingly difficult for many Indian writers, especially those working in regional languages. A growing cohort of writers are returning their awards to the prestigious Sahitya Akademy, the National Academy of Letters, in the face of its silence on sustained assaults on freedom of literary expression. Mridula Nath Chakraborty on culture wars in India.

‘I don’t understand the West and the Western reader’s reading tastes. What I write, is what makes my blood bubble and boil. As the years advance and one’s exposure to readers increases, a writer’s vision and consideration inevitably undergo changes. I came to the world, but not to pander to the world. I write, but not to pander to the reader.’

The 48-year-old Tamil language writer from India, Perumal Murugan, could never have imagined that he would have to draw an end to his literary career with a public announcement to the effect that the writer in him had died… Murugan wrote six novels, four collections of short stories, and four of poetry, before abruptly declaring himself dead as a writer.

China and Australia are roughly the same size, but with nearly 100 times our population, distribution of books in China is made easier by the simple fact of greater population density. In poor and rural areas, there can be difficulty reaching customers, but on the whole the transport systems seem much better integrated than in Australia. Around 410 000 new titles are published each year, so attracting attention is a difficult task.

Analects are gleanings, crumbs under the table, fragments of old text that, in the case of Confucius, have coalesced into a classic. Simon Leys, his latest translator and annotator, seldom misses an opportunity to remind us just how ragged and loopy this little book is — a mere one hundred pages in this edition (requiring another hundred pages of irresistible notes). The Analects consists of brief passages of partially recorded or remembered conversations between the Master and a set of often unidentified interlocuters.

Some people pursue new trends, some people seek to preserve the past, but we all find it very difficult to shake off the influence of tradition. Tradition, like air, is everywhere.