From the author of the award-winning novel Shadow Without a Name, comes Antipodes, the first collection of his short fiction to be translated into English. This lively, eclectic, and highly imaginative volume spans time, place, and culture as the narratives move from the scorching heat of the Gobi desert to the glacial heights of Mount Everest.Here, among others, are the stories of a great Scottish engineer, left to die in the middle of the desert, who is rescued b...

In the late 1980s, New York Times bestselling author Simon Winchester set out on foot to discover the Republic of Korea - from its southern tip to the North Korean border - in order to set the record straight about this enigmatic and elusive land.Fascinating for its vivid presentation of historical and geographic detail, Korea is that rare travel memoir that actually defines a nation and its people. Winchester's gift for capturing engaging characters in true, compelling st...

After her epic journey from Ireland to India by bicycle in 1963, Dervla Murphy immersed herself in the life of the sub-continent, working for six months in an orphanage for Tibetan children in Northern India. She fell in love with the 'Tiblets' - the cheerful, uncomplaining, independent and affectionate children of the new Tibet-in-exile - but she also managed to explore India's Tibetan frontier, leaving the reader panting in her wake. Alongside her enchantment, Dervla became a perceptive ...

Korea: A Walk through the Land of Miracles is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand a nation that is shaping the modern world.In the 1980s South Korea was still an enigma. Simon Winchester was sent there as a young journalist to report on a Hyundai shipyard – and what he saw made him determined to return, to take a proper look at how an economic miracle was shaped.In a bookshop in Seoul he came across the story of a Dutch ship, the Spa...

A ground-breaking collection of stories, poems and articles about Nepal covering the length and breadth of this enchanting nation and its people.'If you want a book in English that tells you about Nepalese thinking, and gives a taste of the country's contemporary literature, you could hardly do better than House of Snow' Daily Telegraph'One of the finest books I have read this year' Nudge Books'A well-curated sliver...

Despite communist incursions and tribal insurrection, Norman Lewis describes a land of breathtaking natural beauty peopled by the gentle Burmese. This is a country where Buddhist belief spares even the rats, where the Director of Prisons quotes Chaucer and where three-day theatrical shows are staged to celebrate a monk taking orders. Hitching lifts with the army and travelling merchants, Lewis is treated to hospitality wherever he stops in this war-torn land, and reveals a country where 't...

One of the best travel writers now at work in the English language brings back the sights and sounds from a dozen different frontiers. A cryptic encounter in the perfumed darkness of Bali; a tour of a Bolivian prison, conducted by an enterprising inmate; a nightmarish taxi ride across southern Yemen, where the men with guns may be customs inspectors or revolutionaries–these are just three of the stops on Pico Iyer’s latest itinerary.But the true subject of Sun After Dark

Suzuki Harunobu was a celebrated 18th century Japanese ukiyo-e artist who produced thousands of exquisite woodblock prints illustrating aspects of life and society in old Edo - today's Tokyo.His subjects extended from Kabuki actors and courtesans to landscapes, explicit eroticism and street scenes. Yet the subject at which he most excelled was bijin-ga or paintings of beautiful women.This book examines Harunobu's life and times and artistic achievements, as well as...

Pira Sudham's 1988 classic Monsoon CountryNEW 2022 EDITIONIt is hard to overstate the impact that Pira's Monsoon Country had on the outside world when it was first published in 1988. Regarded as a classic by many, yet is was classic in a genre of just one novel.Pira Sudham and Monsoon Country are close to unique in so many ways. He wrote in the English and never published novels or short stories in his native Thai language. A justifiable comparison could be made to J...

This book is the remarkable story of his experiences in the prison camp, but it is also a meditation on the morality of the Bomb, a compassionate and moving contemplation of human violence.

Written in eight days, in December 1905, and published in the January 1906 issue of the magazine Teikoku Bungaku (Imperial Literature), Shumi no iden (The Heredity of Taste) is Soseki Natsume's only anti-war work. Chronicling the mourning process of a narrator haunted by his friend's death, the story reveals Soseki's attitude to the atrocity of war, specifically to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, and to the personal tragedies and loss of individuality of young men like his hero ...

During the Second World War, many of the Indians settled in Burma were killed following the bombing of Rangoon by the Japanese Air Force. Thousands more were forced to give up everything—their homes, their businesses and shops, even their families—and flee to India to escape the invasion. The lucky ones flew home. Others followed by ship, crossing the Bay of Bengal under constant threat of aerial and submarine bombardment. But most walked all the way, to Manipur and then Assam, braving hun...