Books
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Jai Verma obituary
My friend Jai Verma, who has died aged 75, was a poet, a writer and cross-cultural organiser who served as a b…
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Holiday bookings to Japan are down – could a 90s manga comic’s earthquake prediction be to blame?
The Future I Saw, a Japanese graphic novel by Ryo Tatsuki, declared a major disaster would occur on 5 July 202…
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Mao Zedong’s first Little Red Book had blue cover and less propaganda
Rare early editions of book by communist party chairman, who shunned the idea of wealth, set to fetch £1m at a…
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‘I focus on the person, not the disability’: the photographer on a mission to make India inclusive
After spending four years meeting people all over the country, Vicky Roy’s new book, Everyone is Good at Somet…
- Best bookshops, Books, Culture, Delhi, Global development, India, South and Central Asia, World news
‘It shatters my heart’: the slow death of India’s once-famous Urdu book bazaar
For over a century, poets, publishers and printers filled this Delhi district’s narrow lanes. But as profits p…
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Rushdie’s Satanic Verses returns to Indian bookshops after 36 years
Book banned since 1988 is ‘selling out’ after import bar was overturned due to missing paperworkSalman Rushdie…
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‘A sense of freedom’: China’s small bookshops relocate across the world
As stores that were spaces for open discussion have been forced to close, new ventures spring up overseasOn 24…
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Indian import ban on Rushdie’s Satanic Verses to end as no official order found
Government unable to produce ‘untraceable’ notification against 1988 novel when citizen brought matter to cour…
- Astronomy, Books, Buddhism, Colonialism, Culture, Hinduism, History books, India, Religion, Science, South and Central Asia, World news
‘In Britain, we are still astonishingly ignorant’: the hidden story of how ancient India shaped the west
The flow of knowledge to Europe on maths, astronomy and much more has gone unacknowledged by historians. In AD…
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The good hacker: can Taiwanese activist turned politician Audrey Tang detoxify the internet?
As the ‘civic hacker’ who became Taiwan’s first transgender cabinet minister, she is used to breaking boundari…
- Arundhati Roy, Books, Civil liberties - international, Culture, Freedom of speech, India, Law, Narendra Modi, South and Central Asia, World news
Open letter in India calls for withdrawal of go-ahead to prosecute Arundhati Roy
Over 200 signatories urge government to reverse decision enabling action against writer under anti-terrorism l…
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India: author Arundhati Roy to be prosecuted over 2010 Kashmir remarks
Official from ruling BJP party allows action against Booker winner under controversial anti-terrorism lawIndia…
- Afghanistan, Books, Culture, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Politics, Politics books, South and Central Asia, Taliban
Kabul: Final Call by Laurie Bristow; The Afghans by Åsne Seierstad reviews – how the west abandoned Afghanistan… and what happened next
An ex-UK envoy’s compelling account of the chaotic military withdrawal from the country is full of telling det…
- Afghanistan, Books, Culture, Fiction, Islamic State, Press freedom, South and Central Asia, Taliban, World news
‘It is worse now’: The Bookseller of Kabul author Åsne Seierstad on returning to Afghanistan 20 years on
The Norwegian writer on meeting the Taliban, her fears for girls’ education, and the legal battle that ensued …
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Two poems, four years in detention: the Chinese dissident who smuggled his writing out of prison
My poems were written in anger after Tiananmen Square. But what motivates most prison writing is a fear of for…