Asia in general

"In Asia" by Tiziano Terzani (No English version available)
Review by Leonardo Sabato
…We said it several times; Terzani was a reporter keen about Asia, where he spent almost 35 years of his life. The reporter’s curiosity added with the passion for this “turbulent” continent created “In Asia”, a collection of letters to the wife and articles, written for “Der Spiegel”, about the most tormented continent of the ‘70s. You’ll find the Cambodia of the Marshal Lon Nol (do you remember him?) as the Laos as well, officially not involved in the Vietnam War, but regularly bombed by the B52s… You’ll find, also, the “Sararymen” of the Japanese fast-growing economy that, exhausted after a long working day, were sleeping in the subway trains going home. …Home where spend few hours resting, ready to commute, once more time, in the morning…

"A Fortune Teller Told Me" by Tiziano Terzani
Review by Leonardo Sabato
A war reporter, as Terzani has been, witness of the final phase of the Vietnam war, that went close to be shoot by the “Red Khmers” and that visited the most faraway and dangerous places of Asia, in 1976 went to a fortune teller in Hong Kong, where Terzani was living with the family. The old Chinese seer aware him about the mortal risk to fly in 1993. Time went by, many interesting things happen in the Terzani’s life, but, with the coming 1993, he reminded the words of the fortune teller and decided to travel as the great explorers did in the past. …Then cars, trains, ships, bicycles and other means of transport but plains and helicopters. An exciting book was born, slow, deep and considered about Asia that, on the contrary, today is faster and superficial than ever…

Afganistan

"A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
Review by Leonardo Sabato
The relation with the father, in the reality perceived by Mariam, born as illegitimate child and identified as “harami” , is truly idyllic, even if relegated to the Wednesday afternoons…the advices of Nana, the mother, will be useless. The following disappointing will be just the beginning of a series of catastrophic events that will change not only the Mariam life but the entire Afghanistan. The arrival of Laila and the birth of Aziza will give back sense and equilibrium to a disappointed and, maybe, wasted life with the background of Kabul that, from trauma to trauma, will be not anymore the same. This is the story of the adventure of two women, extremely different among them, that will share a tragic fate among coups d’etat, dictatorships, wars and criminal coercions.

China

"The painted Veil" by W. Somerset Maugham
Review by Leonardo Sabato
Kitty is young, beautiful, charming…
It looks like she will really give to her mother the satisfaction that she missed when got married with Kitty’s father.
But Kitty is also inconstant and changeable, always unsatisfied by her lovers…she’s waiting for something better…
When Walter Fane, a dull bacteriologist, appears, she’s already 25...
Doris, her definitely non-charming younger sister, has already announced her marriage…and her mother cannot stand anymore this “impasse”…
After the honey moon, spent in Italy, they leave heading to Hong Kong, where Walter has an assignment.
There, Kitty will meet Charlie Townsend and everything will, dramatically, change…

"The Painter from Shanghai" by Jennifer Cody Epstein
Review by Leonardo Sabato
The session has finished, the model is dressing again, Yuliang pours some wine in her glass and the mind goes…from Paris, 1957, to Zhenjiang, 1913…
Yuliang has a different name, at that time.
Her name was Xiuqing and she was just 14 when sold to a brothel by her uncle…
The painful life of the brothel will mould her character, taking her out from this shameful condition heading to the Academy of Beaux-arts in Shanghai, first, and to Paris, later.
Her Pygmalion will be a young official of the Sun Yat Tse republic, Pan Zanhua, that will pay back her debts with the “House” and that will marry her as “Second Wife”.
After an incredible life, spent among Shanghai, Nanjing, Rome and Paris, you can visit her at Montparnasse cemetery, where you should leave some flowers, a tribute in memory of this outstanding woman.

"Everything under the sky" by Matilde Asensi
Review by Leonardo Sabato
The long sailing done aboard of the steamship, that brought Elvira from France to Shanghai to bury her husband, it’s just the beginning of a longer, exciting journey done in the company of an antiquarian, a journalist, two monks, a young, clever servant and Fernanda, her niece.
All together, for different reasons, looking for the mausoleum of Shi Huang Di, the first emperor of China.
A winning historical novel set in the ‘20s in the Shanghai of the French and International  Concessions and in the China at the time of the republic of Dr. Sun Yat Sen.

"When the red is black" by Qiu Xiao Long
Review by Leonardo Sabato
…it would be better to avoid taking leave, if you are a Chief Inspector of the Shanghai Police…
Officer Yu, just informed about a thorny murder case, is more worry about the fact related to the house just lost, after being assigned to him because of his seniority…
The Secretary Li, by his side, is really worried about the homicide…he would like to avoid this becoming a political issue affecting his career within the cadres of the Party…
Mr. Gu needs urgently an English translation of his marketing strategic plan about a new shopping area to be realized, then ask for support to the English language knowledge of Chief Inspector Chen Cao.
Chen Cao, young and brilliant cadre of the Party and, obviously, Chief Inspector of the Shanghai Police, well known to be a scholar in classical Chinese culture and to be an expert in English, accept the commitment to translate from the Mandarin the Mr. Gu marketing plan…for an interesting amount of US Dollars, of course; for that reason he’ll be taking leave from his job…
In the mean time, Yin Lige, a controversial writer, former Red Guard, is murdered at her small, dreary flat…
…welcome to Shanghai, once “the Whore of Asia”, where old, dull habits are back, surfing the waves of the motto “To get rich is Glorious!!”…

"The chess master" by Ah Cheng
Review by Leonardo Sabato
Once again the Cultural Revolution…
Once again young torn from their towns, families, university, to be sent in the rural areas for “being re-educated from the masses” and subordinated to the debilitating manual labors, which they were not been born for and not even prepared.
In this tragedy, posed to be the allegory of the return to the fundamental needs of the Chinese people, Acheng inserts the allegory of chess.
A game, the chess, with clear, shared and tough rules, opposing the one of the politics and the propaganda, where the rules are blurred, imposed and even tougher.
Actually, the old ragman says:
“Even if there are always new Dazibao we cannot understand the truth, because all “chessmen” are not on the chessboard, it’s a game impossible to play”

"Explosions and Other Stories" by Mo Yan
Review by Leonardo Sabato
Hard how much can be the life in the rural areas in China? How much can be cruel the passions in that atmosphere? And how much, all this, can affect the children?
In this short novels collection, Mo Yan generates a world without compassion, where mistakes are bitterly paid, without reductions in price.
In this world there are children who are confronted with logical that penalize and punish them without mercy.
Logical out of their understanding, because belonging to the world of adults…world that, in reality `, sadly discover they haven’t.

"Behind the Forbidden Door" by Tiziano Terzani
Review by Leonardo Sabato
Terzani, in 1980, finally realizes his dream and move to China. Terzani prepares his life in China years in advance, studying Mandarin during his stay in New York. He moved to Singapore, because impossible for a foreigner to live in China during the ‘70s, in order to study, closely, the culture. He chose Singapore, the so called “third China”, because a stay in Taiwan, the “second”, could close definitely the doors of the “first”. The dream, anyway really not quiet, lasts 4 years and becomes a nightmare in 1984, when Terzani went arrested, interrogated, “re-educated” and, after months, expelled from the country (even the President of the Italian Republic, at the time Mr.Pertini, intervened to solve the case). Afterward, Terzani, writes: “I didn’t write this book because expelled, I’ve been expelled because I’ve written this book”. The close observation of a passion that becomes upsetting but still fascinating.

"The Good Women of China" by Xinran
Review by Leonardo Sabato
Starting from 1989, and in the following 8 years, Nanjing Radio broadcasted a radio programme, lead by a young radio reporter, based on the women experiences in China.
The programme was named “Words in the evening wind” and the reporter was Xinran.
A programme that could be confused with something similar with “The reader’s letters” became something incredible in the China just came out from the time of the Cultural Revolution.Chinese women, the “good women” of the original title of the book, finally were talking, to the radio, about unrepeatable secrets …it’s not a case if the writer, Xinran, mentions, about this, an old Chinese saying:“in any house there’s a book that nobody should read”… On the contrary, we would like to warmly suggest you to read this one.

"Sky Burial" by Xinran
Review by Leonardo Sabato
Once more China, once more women… Moving from her experience as radio reporter, Xinran describes the dramatic power of the life of a Chinese woman, physician of the Chinese Liberation Army in mission in Tibet during the years between the ‘50s and the ‘80s. The search of the husband, declared dead in 1958, the discovering of the Tibetan culture, with a fantastic woman as Zhouma acting as “cultural mediatress”, the assimilation to the Tibetan culture as a refuge for the hope… The journey of a life, starting from Suzhou, in the Shanghai province, arriving to Lhasa and coming back, as a round trip, to Suzhou after 30 years, so different from Tibet as from it self as well after so much time.

"Red Sorghum" by Mo Yan
Review by Leonardo Sabato
An outlook on the Chinese History, from the point of view of a young countrymen, going from the ‘20s up to the ‘70s. The ups and downs of the family life are tightly connected with the ones of the country, from the Japanese invasion to the civil war, from the victory of the Communist Party to the “big leap”… An exciting book that gives back the truth about the Chinese history of those years and that becomes more interesting if we consider that Mo Yan is not a dissident and not a Taiwanese nationalist. Mo Yan served for many years in the Chinese Popular Liberation Army as officer of the Department of Cultural Affairs. In 1988 director Zhang Yimou won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Cinema Festival with a movie based on the novel of Mo Yan.

“Iron and Silk ” by Mark Salzman
Review by Leonardo Sabato
A young and good-looking American, blond, tall, with blue eyes and a passion for the Mandarin and the Kung Fu, is going to discover China, the metropolitan one and the rural as well, in the first half of the ‘80s. The scenario is about a China dying out, if not already disappeared, in trouble about the items left open after the “Cultural Revolution” and the other one of the “Gang of the Four”, giving us, in the mean time, touching human portraits, as the one of the old “Calligraphy Master”, the one of the rocklike “Iron Fist”, the venerable and feared “Wushu Master”, and the most affecting of the lady doctor suspended from her duties from the new Hospital Authority. But the book gifts us also some kind of humour, as the description of the episode of the martial arts demonstration given by Salzman, at the train station of a small village, to avoid that a zealous policeman seize his equipment because sure they are “antiques taken away from the People”.

India

"A good Indian wife" by Anne Cherian
Review by Leonardo Sabato
Nell is a doctor, an anaesthetist, living is a residential neighbourhood of San Francisco, California.
But Suneel is Indian and the family wants him back because the Grandfather is dying.
The two souls are crashing hard.
Neel struggles to prevail on Suneel with his culture, is social position, the carrier and his American, white, blonde lover…
But Suneel is victim of his culture and got trapped in an arranged marriage, as soon as he comes back home.
Leila, the non really anymore young Suneel’s promised bride, will have to learn with the other soul of her husband, that Neel that wanted, rather than her, an white, blonde, American wife.

"Water" by Bapsi Sidwha
Review by Leonardo Sabato
In many Asian customs, when a woman get married, she doesn’t belong to her family anymore and, in many cases, she stops to belong even to herself…
Chuyia is still a child when get married and become, suddenly, widow.
The doors of the Ashram of the widows get opened for her, because this is the only place where she can stay, by now…
Here, in an only widow’s environment, bounded to absurd life style regulated by archaic religious beliefs, she’ll get aware about malignity, friendship and compassion.
She’ll meet Madhumati, the leader of the Ashram, Gulabi, the eunuch pimp, Shakuntala, sustained, by now, only by her faith, and Kalyani, the beautiful Kalyani…
About all of these personages she’ll share joys and misfortunes without, perhaps, never really understand why…until a train, one day, will get her out for ever…
One longing novel of love mediated by the unprepared sight of a child, obliged, in regard of ancient rules, living in an absurd world…

Iran

"Reading Lolita in Tehran” by Azar Nafisi
Review by Leonardo Sabato
..can you imagine how much “subversive” could be read a 1955 book, written by a naturalized American Russian, in the last days of the ‘70s in the Islamic Republic of Iran?...or, simply, read about of “Madame Bovary” or, at last, the Mark Twain’s “The adventure of Huckleberry Finn”? No, believe me, you can’t…
That’s why we would like to suggest you to read this autobiographic book of Mrs.Azar Nafisi, Professor of English Literature at the Teheran University.
Professor Nafisi, in 1995, has been expelled from the Teheran University because of “counter-revolutionary” opinions shown during her lessons.
To give you a hint, about the meaning of “counter-revolutionary” opinions of Professor Nafisi, let’s say that one of those were the one regarding the imposition of the Chador for the Iranian women, not anymore free, in this way, to choose it as manifestation of their deep religious sentiment but obliged to wear it as “revolutionary” conformism.

Japan

"Japanese Tales" by Royall Tyler
Review by Leonardo Sabato
This collection of Japanese fairy tales gather stories written in a timeframe of 250 years describing events happened in a period of time that goes from the 800 to the 1050 DC.
The social environment reported is strictly related to the rigid system of classes, with well defined casts and the difficult relationships among them.
If you consider this scenario, while reading these stories, some of the could appear transgressive where not outrageous, giving you a clear feedback regarding the Japanese society of that time.
A relaxing reading of educative and edifying stories.

"The wind-up bird chronicle" by Haruki Murakami
Review by Leonardo Sabato
A young legal firm employee has just quitted his job to have to think over what to do when “he’ll be grown-up”.
In a, apparently, normal life routine of a couple where, however, the roles have been inverted (she’s employed while he’s a house husband), a small incident happens, their cat escapes.
“Catalyzed” by this insignificant event, their lives are overwhelmed by a whirl of characters that will change anything…for ever.
Murakami, the Master of the dreamlike, is back.

"The Book of the Samurai" by Stephen R.Turnbull
Review by Leonardo Sabato
“Samurai” is a good historic book describing the “Japanese Samurai Age”, since the beginning up to the dramatic end in the ‘70s of the 19th Century because of the forbidden use of the sword by law if not in force of the new Imperial Army.The book, 192 pages full of original pictures, is rich of historical, economical, social and cultural data. Not really a “new” publication but “Samurai” in a clear historical and detailed picture of an age too often treated with emphasis and emotion.

“Dance, dance, dance” by Haruki Murakami
Review by Leonardo Sabato
A Japanese writer, with a “non sense” life after get divorced from the former wife, get into a “dream like” experience with something magic, “noir” and fascinating. A Sapporo hotel receptionist gives him new hope even if the new life of the writer will pass through new kind of ordeals, touching his soul in the deep. Murakami, a mature worldwide acclaimed Japanese writer, drives the “dance” getting involved all the players of the novel, the “real” characters (the receptionist, the movie star, both the cops) as the oneiric ones (the “Goat Man”, the Hawaiian prostitute) giving to the reader the point of view of a disenchanted man, independently if looking at murderers or having “emotional movements” of the hart.

Pakistan

"Three cups of tea" by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
Review by Leonardo Sabato
Pakistan, 1993, K2…
The failure in climbing the second tallest mountain of the world becomes an adventure that will change the life of Greg Mortenson, young Californian male trained nurse, and the one of thousands of children living in the villages scattered at the slopes of Karakorum.
When the thought becomes word, word becomes action, action becomes hope of future for who had not any future…

Russia

"Goodnight, Mister Lenin: journey through the end of the Soviet Empire” by Tiziano Terzani
Review by Leonardo Sabato
After visiting the peninsula of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, Terzani goes to Siberia searching, once again, the “wasted lives”, the failure of the “socialist dream”.
But during the cruise along the Amur river, natural border between Soviet Union and Popular Republic of China, the morning of August 19th, 1989, Moscow Radio announces the coup d'état that deposes Gorbacev.
Terzani tries anything to arrive to Moscow in order to assist to the fall of the” socialist empire”.
During the journey, he will see how the extreme periphery of the system experiences the changing that will affect the world-wide equilibrium, testifying the end of the Soviet Union.

Thailand

“The birds of Bangkok” by Manuel Vazquez Montalban
Review by Leonardo Sabato
The keen on cooking, Catalan detective, Pepe Carvalho is looking for a friend; a young lady disappeared while travelling Thailand…maybe because of the sentimental relation with a diamonds smuggler. Not reliable policemen and gangsters of the Chinese Triads are the “actors” of the play acted on the stage of an “impossible to live” town, due to its noise, its traffic and its pollution, but, at the same time, unforgettable for its charm, its beauty and its exoticism… Everything is under the threatening presence of countless swallows, the “birds of Bangkok”, owners of the sky of the so called “Town of the Angels”…migrated, in the mean time, we don’t know were…

Turkey

"My name is Red" by Orhan Pamuk
Review by Leonardo Sabato
The conflict among innovators and conservatives, moderates and fundamentalists, enlighteneds and obscurantists, in the Islamic world, come from the deep past. The vision of this conflict, given by Pamuk, Turkish writer rewarded with the Literature Nobel Prize in 2006, is absolutely original. An illuminator is murdered, a secret book is on going to be completed, a calligraphist in love come back home from a long journey, in the space as in the time as well, looking for the lost love… Apparently, all of these hints seem not to be related to the story of a conflict about “parallel worlds” that threaten each other and, sometime, dramatically clash. Who’s murdered Red? Why? what are the preacher’s from Erzurum disciples looking for? Sekure loves Black? Read this book and you’ll understand that what’s going to happen today in the Middle East is the final result of a long journey, marked by lofty intellectual confrontations and worrying massacres…to which, the “west”, has not always been able to give a proper interpretation…

Vietnam

"The Lover" by Marguerite Duras
Review by Leonardo Sabato
Saigon…the Mekong…the teenage…the passion…
“The Lover” tells of the troublesome life of a fifteen years old French girl in Saigon, during the French protectorate in the early ‘30s, among difficulties and love…a very passionate and difficult love, of course...
Her lover is a Chinese young man, older than her, son of an extremely rich merchant of Cholon.
In the dark and stinking shop-houses of Cholon, she will get adult very fast...maybe too fast.
As the book begins, Marguerite Duras writes “In my life, late came very early, when I was eighteen it was already too late”

"Giai Phong The Fall and Liberation of Saigon" by Tiziano Terzani
Review by Leonardo Sabato
For anyone like me, older than 40, the Vietnam War it’s something about we heard a lot, maybe too much, but, too often, we don’t know enough. “Giai phong!” is an outstanding reportage written by an outstanding reporter, as Tiziano Terzani was. The Italian title of the book, that means “Leopard skin”, coming from a definition of the Vietnam map were the areas controlled by “Charlie”, the code name given to the Vietcong partisans, where reported, designing “Leopard like” dots into the area managed by the South Vietnam Army. The “History”, the big one, written in the way of the newspaper articles with the capability to be incredibly topical, even after thirty years.