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The history of walls – as a way to keep people in or out – is also the history of people managing to get around, over and under them. From the Berlin Wall and the Mexico–US border, to the barbed wire fences of Bangladesh’s refugee camps, the short stories in this anthology explore the barriers that have sought to divide communities and nations, and their traumatic effects on people’s lives and histories. At a time when more walls are being built than are being brought down, All Walls Collapse brings together writing from across national, ethnic and linguistic borders, challenging the political impulse to separate and segregate, and celebrating the role of literature in traversing division.
Uyghur Identity and Culture brings together the work of scholars, activists, and native Uyghurs to explore the history and growing challenges that the Uyghur diaspora face across the globe in response to shifting government policies forbidding many forms of cultural expression in their homeland. The collection examines how and why the Uyghur diaspora, dispersed from their homeland to communities across Australia, Central Asia, Europe, Japan, Türkiye, and North America, now has the responsibility to preserve their language and cultural traditions so that these can be shared with future generations. The book critically investigates the government censorship of Uyghur literatures and Western m...
A slighted wife escapes her wealthy family for the evening and stumbles into the city's red-light district... The head of security at Barcelona's container port searches for a figure that only he has seen sneak in... An elderly woman brings home a machine that will turn her body into atoms, so she can leave behind a city that is no longer recognisable... Historically, Barcelona is a city of resistance and independence; a focal point for Catalan identity, as well as the capital of Spanish republicanism. Nestled between the Mediterranean coast and mountains, this burgeoning city has also been home to some of the greatest names in modern art and architecture, and attracts visitors and migrants from all over the world. As a result, the city is a melting-pot of cultures, and the stories gathered here offer a miscellany of form and genre, fittingly reminiscent of one of Gaudi's mosaics. From the boy-giant outgrowing his cramped flat on the city's outskirts, to the love affair that begins in a launderette, we meet characters who are reclaiming the independence of their city by challenging common misconceptions and telling its myriad truths.
A revelatory account of what is really happening to China's Uyghurs 'Intimate, sombre, and damning... compelling.' Financial Times 'Chilling... Horrifying.' Spectator 'Invaluable.' Telegraph In China's vast northwestern region, more than a million and a half Muslims have vanished into internment camps and associated factories. Based on hours of interviews with camp survivors and workers, thousands of government documents, and over a decade of research, Darren Byler, one of the leading experts on Uyghur society uncovers their plight. Revealing a sprawling network of surveillance technology supplied by firms in both China and the West, Byler shows how the country has created an unprecedented system of Orwellian control. A definitive account of one of the world's gravest human rights violations, In the Camps is also a potent warning against the misuse of technology and big data.
A coffee seller waits all day for one of his customers to ask him how he is, until eventually he just tells the city itself... A teenager is ordered off a bus at a checkpoint and told he must kiss a complete stranger if he wants the bus to be let through... A woman pilgrimages to the Cave of the Prophets, to pray for rain for her tiny patch of land, knowing it will take more than water to save it... Unlike most other Palestinian cities, Ramallah is a relatively new town, a de facto capital of the West Bank allowed to thrive after the Oslo Peace Accords, but just as quickly hemmed in and suffocated by the Occupation as the Accords have failed. Perched along the top of a mountainous ridge, it ...
Winner, 2024 Patrick D. Hanan Prize for Translation, Association for Asian Studies In the first half of the eighteenth century, rival dynasties of Naqshbandi Sufi shaykhs vied for influence in the Tarim Basin, part of present-day Xinjiang. In the 1750s, the collapse of the Junghar Mongol state gave one branch of this family an opportunity to assert their independence in the oasis cities of Kashgar and Yarkand. Others sided with the armies of the Qing dynasty, which were massing on the frontiers to invade. The ensuing conflict saw the region incorporated into the expanding Qing imperium. Three decades afterward, Muḥammad Ṣadiq Kashghari was commissioned to write an account of these Naqshb...
A satirical poem about the rivalry of various fruits becomes a point of departure for investigations of tolerance and identity in a pluralistic world. The Contest of the Fruits takes a nineteenth-century Uyghur satirical poem as a departure point for investigations of language, politics, religion, humor, resilience, and resistance in a pluralistic world. Composed at the crossroads of multiple civilizations and empires and born of the Uyghurs' liminal position at the edges of Islam and the frontiers of China, "The Contest of the Fruits" captures a world in which borders are gateways rather than dividing lines. The poem, highly performative, embellished with verbal flourishes, and featuring th...
“A love story between friends. It is so well written. [Kyung-sook Shin] has this use of language that is just beautiful and poetic. It’s a great book if you’re looking to escape.” —Chelsea Handler, #1 New York Times bestselling author How friendship, European literature, and a charismatic professor defy war, oppression, and the absurd Set in 1980s South Korea amid the tremors of political revolution, I’ll Be Right There follows Jung Yoon, a highly literate, twenty-something woman, as she recounts her tragic personal history as well as those of her three intimate college friends. When Yoon receives a distressing phone call from her ex-boyfriend after eight years of separation, mem...
There is in the short story, at its most characteristic, something we do not often find in the novel, Frank O’Connor wrote, ‘an intense awareness of human loneliness.’ The stories shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award with BookTrust 2017 all feature characters that are disconnected, willingly or unwillingly, from those around them: a mysterious out-of-towner is shunned by her new colleagues; a grieving husband retreats into his old compulsion for hoarding; a promising academic risks his career for a casual liaison with a younger man. And whether we follow the characters’ need to be alone – like the fisherman drifting dangerously far from shore – or trace it back to i...