Maximillian Mørch


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Asian Review of Books •

“Moonlight Saga” by Arupa Patangia Kalita

Set in the tea gardens of colonial Assam, Moonlight Saga follows the communities who built and maintain these delicate ecosystems on the frontiers of India, and the tensions and pressures of plantation life. Originally published in Assamese in 2022 and recently translated into English, this family saga set on the Atharighat Tea Estate in Assam, just below the Bhutan border, portrays life from both the perspective of Western planters and the Adivasi, India’s indigenous population, the labourers w...
Asian Review of Books •

“In the Margins of Empires: A History of the Chicken’s Neck” by Akhilesh Upadhyay

The “Chicken’s Neck”, or Siliguri Corridor, was created in the aftermath of Partition. Just 22 kilometres wide at its narrowest point and roughly 60 kilometres long, it connects India’s northeast to the rest of the country. Bordering Bangladesh and Bhutan and with China in close proximity, security theorists have long worried that this strategically vital region, could be severed and India’s northeast rendered landlocked in the event of conflict. In some sectors, Indian and Chinese troops are st...
Asian Review of Books •

“Echoes from the Sino-Burmese Borderlands” by Wen-Chin Chang

The Myanmar-China border stretches for over 2,000 kilometres between China’s Yunnan Province and Myanmar’s Kachin and Shan States. The border has long been a site of migration, trade and cultural exchange, and became a particularly significant area of escape during periods of political and economic hardship. The impact of this border on individual lives is the focus of Wen-Chin Chang’s new book, Echoes from the Sino-Burmese Borderlands: Untold Stories of Overland Chinese Migrants during the Cold...
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “River Traveller: Journeys on the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra from Tibet to the Bay of Bengal” by Sanjoy Hazarika

The Ganges may be more famous, but the Brahmaputra is arguably a far more geopolitically important river. By the time it reaches Bengal, it forms the largest delta in the world, having crossed through Tibet, India and Bangladesh. This river, and the people who live along its banks, are the subject of River Traveller, the new book by Sanjoy Hazarika. Hazarika has spent decades writing about India’s Northeast. A journalist, researcher, and filmmaker, he wrote Strangers of the Mist back in 1994, a...
Asian Review of Books •

“Waterways of Bangkok: Memory, Landscape and Twilight” by Michael Hurley

The Chao Phraya river, which runs through Bangkok, is the subject of Michael Hurley’s Waterways of Bangkok: Memories, Landscape and Twilights. An ethnographical study of the river, the book portrays not just the river itself, but Bangkok’s relationship with it. Split into five chapters—origins, loss, erasure, belonging and trajectory—the book argues that the Chao Phraya is not just a river, but rather the “binding thread of the Thai heartland, the realm of a traditional way of life, and also ens...
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “One More Story About Climbing a Hill: Stories from Assam” by Devabrata Das

One More Story About Climbing a Hill: Stories from Assam is the latest book by renowned Assamese writer Devabrata Das. This collection of eighteen short stories, translated from the Assamese original, offers a unique and varied portrait of contemporary Assam. Remarkably, despite being translated by several individuals, including the author himself, the prose maintains a cohesive and consistent style throughout. Several stories deal with both Assam’s historical, and contemporary political challen...
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review - “Enchanted Modernities: Ancestral Vitalizations in the Upper Mekong” by Micah F Morton

Akha Ghanr, is a, for Akha communities a “highly pragmatic system of customary law encompassing an entire way of life”, or it could be better described as “Ancestral ways”, acknowledging the role and leadership of their ancestors, something that is central to Akha identity and culture. How it has changed over time is the subject of Micah F Morton’s new book, Enchanted Modernities which explores the evolving role of Akha Ghanr within Akha societies across China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietn...
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review - “In Praise of Floods” by James C Scott

In Praise of Floods is the final book by James C Scott, a renowned anthropologist and political scientist, published posthumously after he died in 2024. Much of Scott’s earlier work has focused on agrarian politics and acts of political resistance, this is a rather different book, focusing instead on the life history of a river, the Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy). Scott makes a strong argument as to why an anthropologist would look at rivers. Rivers are alive, he argues, “they are born; they change; th...
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “A Dream of Annapurna” by Igor Zavilinsky

Originally written in Russian by Ukrainian novelist, Igor Zavilinsky’s new book, A Dream of Annapurna spans Nepal, Italy and the US. The book has an equally broad time frame, ranging from the 1950s  to 2015. The crux of the book focuses on two young Italian boys, who following a chance encounter with the French mountaineer Maurice Herzog who made the world’s first ascent of Annapurna in 1950, develop a joint dream to climb and hike in the Nepali Himalaya. Yet life got in their way and t...
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “Other Everests: one mountain, many worlds”

Released in late 2024, 100 years after the most infamous mountaineering event in history, Other Everests: one mountain, many worlds is not a retelling of the Mallory expedition, but rather an attempt to widen the framing of Everest beyond western mountaineering exploits. Everest has often been seen through the eyes of western explorers and been limited to tales of heroic exploration. This book is a direct attempt to change that and bring “together new perspectives on the historical and cultural...
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “InterAsian Intimacies across Race, Religion, and Colonialism” by Chie Ikeya

Chie Ikeya’s InterAsian intimacies across race, religion and colonialism focuses on inter-Asian marriage in colonial Burma. Ikeya argues that over time these marriages  became “the subject of political agitation, legislative activism and collective violence”. Colonial Burma was an attractive destination for migrants, traders, professionals from all over Asia and the Middle East. The economy was booming and Rangoon was one of the world’s popular destinations for immigrants. Most of this migration...
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review - “The Golden Land Ablaze” by Bertil Lintner

In Myanmar today, resistance against the 2021 coup and the military regime, has spread across the entire country, and fighting has engulfed the state, displacing millions and leaving the country in a state of turmoil. To explain how we got to this point, and what is the future for both the resistance movement and the Myanmar military, veteran journalist Bertil Lintner provides in The Golden Land Ablaze a detailed background of Myanmar’s political development since Independence in 1948. Over six...
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “Island” by Sujit Saraf

Sujit Saraf has set his new novel in the Andaman islands, located in the Indian Ocean, far from the Indian mainland, geographically but also culturally. Island’s protagonist, Nirmal Chandra Mattoo is a middle-aged man, working in a shop in the capital, Port Blair,  selling counterfeit tribal artwork to tourists.  A Kashmiri originally from Delhi, Mattoo arrived on the Andamans decades ago, as a young and promising anthropologist. Working for the Anthropological Survey of India as an eager 22-yea...
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “India’s Near East: A New History” by Avinash Paliwal

India’s western frontier with Pakistan may generate more headlines but India’s eastern border flanking both Myanmar and Bangladesh is arguably more complex. Both neighbors have long been unstable and have both at points in their history found their territory being used by rebels waging war against New Delhi. It is not just neighboring countries that pose a challenge: internal borders too are at play. The Indian government for decades has had a complex, often tumultuous relationship with its nort...
Asian Review of Books •

“On the Shadow Tracks: A Journey Through Occupied Myanmar” by Clare Hammond

Railways are major public infrastructural projects; one would therefore think it should therefore be easy to find out which rail lines exist and at what times trains are running. Not in Myanmar. Aside from the well-known main lines, Clare Hammond a myriad of smaller branch lines in remote parts of the country, with little information as to when the trains will run or if the lines are even operational. Many of these train tracks are not part of a public service, rather they were built for use by
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “Leech and other stories” by Ranjan Adiga

Ranjan Adiga’s debut collection Leech and other stories comprises 10 short stories based around the experiences of Nepalis adapting to new worlds, lands and experiences. The majority relate to migration, both internal, with migrants from rural Nepal traveling to try make it in the capital, or abroad, in search of their dream life in America. It is unsurprising that a nation shaped should produce a writer who tackles the subject with such nuance and tenderness. The individuals from all walks of
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “Never Never Land” by Namita Gokhale

“Sometimes we have to retreat to return.” So says Iti, who is living in Gurgaon but is far from happy. A freelance editor, struggling to make it as an author, her life is a mess. Feeling lost and unsuccessful, particularly compared to her more successful classmates, who are rich and married while she lives alone consumed by a “pointless bitter anger, this bile that inhabits me.” As Iti spends each day looking at the WhatsApp chats of her former classmates, showing off their trappings of success,
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “Maharajas, Emperors, Viceroys, Borders: Nepal’s relations North and South” by Sam Cowan

Sir Sam Cowan worked with Gurkha soldiers for many years in Nepal but also in Malaya, Singapore and Borneo, eventually becoming Colonel Commandment of the Brigade of Gurkhas and the Chairman of the Gurkha Welfare Trust. In this capacity he interacted with several of Nepal’s key players, including King Birendra and King Gyanendra. After retirement from the army, Cowan started researching and writing articles on Nepali history. This new book brings together a selection of his more popular and impo
Asian Review of Books •

Book Review “The Crossroads: Kashmir-India’s bridge to Xinjiang” by Kulbhushan Warikoo

Kashmir has always been the point of connection between South Asia, Central Asia and Xinjiang. Winding their way through the mighty Himalaya, Pamir and Karakoram Mountain ranges, traders, travelers and officials created a series of close historic economic, cultural and political ties that have bound the region together. Prof Kulbhushan Warikoo’s new book The Crossroads: Kashmir-India’s bridge to Xinjiang is a new history of Kashmir, focusing on its role in linking the Indian-subcontinent to Xin
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