Vignettes of the World
Seeing the world through literature.
By Nic Dunlop Tuol Svay Prey, the district in Phnom Penh where the prison is located, roughly translates as “The Hill of the Poison Fruit Tree” Tuol means hillock. Sleng is also the name of a tree with extremely poisonous fruit.[i] In this …
By Martin Booth In this delightful memoir, Martin Booth shares about his childhood exploring Hong Kong in the post WWII period as the son of a British civil servant stationed in Hong Kong. This was the time when Hong Kong was blossoming from a sleepy …
By Kyung-sook Shin The last time that I was aware of the idea of a “Korean farmer” was in 2005, when hordes of them came to Hong Kong to protest against the WTO meeting held here. The Korean farmers organized more than a thousand members …
By Andrea Hirata Laskar Pelangi, meaning the Rainbow Troops in Indonesian, is a title that conveys hope. In this autobiographical novel, Andrea Hirata tells readers about a childhood in the struggling village school of Muhammadiyah Elementary in Beilitong, an island province in Indonesia that had …