Song of a Reformed Headhunter

The Tempest (Norton Critical Edition, Second Edition). The play that makes me feel closest to Shakespeare. This superb critical edition provides very useful sources, criticism, and creative responses to the play. An essential tool for teaching the play. Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman .  Caliban speaks and shows that he can do more with the English language than to curse. The Norton Critical Edition has a terrific essay by Kwane Anthony Appiah about the disingenuousness of Soyinka's claim that the play is not about a clash of cultures.  Roberto Bolaño's The Spirit of Science Fiction .  An entertainment. When we were young and heroes to ourselves, if to no one else. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man .  Brutally hilarious. The run-in with the Communists is a powerful warning never to allow oneself to become a System man.

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . We are living in a new Age of Authoritarianism, and it is incumbent on all of us to fight its oppressive spirit wherever we find it, even when it is within us. Technology has created new tools for state surveillance, mass disinformation, and capitalist exploitation, but it has also given us new means to highlight injustice, organize resistance, and express solidarity. The Civil Disobedience Movement in Myanmar does not concern just the Burmese, but all of us. One year after the military coup against a democratically elected government, if we permit the Burmese dictatorship to legitimize itself, we reinforce the powers of totalitarianism and weaken the forces of liberty everywhere. We need to heed the voices of resistance in this vital anthology,  Picking Off New Shoots Will Not Stop the Spring: Witness poems and essays from Burma/Myanmar 1998 – 2021 . The voices are many and various, but they all say,...

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . After much deliberation, our team has landed on a name for our new journal of writing, and you're the first to know. SUSPECT, as in "we suspect this work has qualities of greatness." As in looking from the ground up, and not top down. As in "incredulity towards metanarratives" (Lyotard) in favor of microhistories, subversive perspectives, and marginalized identities. We SUSPECT that a SUSPECT like you has something SUSPECT to say. Say it. SUSPECT will be launched in February 2022. We're so excited to share the new writings with you. And art too, as the writings will be beautifully accompanied by images of work by Asian artists. We invite all SUSPECT writers out there to submit work. We seek poetry, literary fiction, essays, and any kind of writings that do not fall into these categories, written or translated into English by authors who identify as Asian. We also publish reviews of b...