Asia Literary Agency Frankfurt Rights List 2014

Rights List

www.asialiteraryagency.org

Rights List !!

For all enquiries, please contact:! !

Kelly Falconer! !

Asia Literary Agency!

Hong Kong!

!

E/ kelly@asialiteraryagency.org! @AsiaLitAgency!

!

/AsiaLitAgency

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

ASIA LITERARY AGENCY Fiction

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Tew Bunnag

Curtain of Rain The Time of the Lotus

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Tim Fitts

Sea Bean: Short Stories

The Soju Club: A Novel

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Han Yujoo !

Ayesha Heble !

Esther Kofod !

Ming Liu !

Leza Lowitz !

Rosie Milne

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Impossible Fairytale Third Person Singular The Libyan Our Man in China Up from the Sea Olivia and Sophia: The Life of Sir Thomas Stamford Raes through the Eyes of His Two Wives

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

TEW BUNNAG Rights Sold:

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- Metropoli d’Asia, Italian

- River Books, English

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

Curtain of Rain

World Rights Available (ex. Italian and English) Two lives, fatefully interlinked; two sets of memories, in danger of being lost. !

!Clare Stone’s past has

suddenly caught up with her. When a longsuppressed memory comes vividly alive, she finds herself being pulled back to the place of its origin: Bangkok.

There, she meets Tarrin Wandee, the writer whose book has unsettled her.

But have they met before, all those years ago, when she was young, idealistic and dangerously naïve?

All our lives are linked; it’s just a question of how.

!Atmospheric and

moody, Curtain of Rain is a story of politics, power and greed, and the search for meaning, and And so their stories unfold, redemption. in a steady rhythm between the past and the present, fiction and reality, in relief against the pulsating backdrop of Bangkok itself.

About the author

Also available

Tew Bunnag comes from a prominent Thai family, graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in Chinese and Economics, works in the Bangkok slums with Father Joe, and divides his time between Thailand and Spain. He is a Buddhist, a T'ai Chi and Meditation Master and a grief counsellor who provides palliative care for the families of terminally ill children.!

- Fragile Days - Collection of short stories!

- The Naga’s Journey!

- After the Wave - Collection of short stories!

- Time of the Lotus - An MBS bestseller published in Spanish by Comanegra

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Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

TEW BUNNAG Rights Sold:

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- Comenegra, Spanish

The Time of the Lotus

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

World Rights Available (ex. Spain) Set initially in a one-room shack in the Bangkok slums, this is a fable about the search for nirvana in the modern world, about the meaning of life and death, and how one cannot exist without the other."

moments. And when he feels elated, rather than sad, at her cremation, he decides to bury his feelings deep inside, and focus his energies on his education, and future, promising himself that he will move himself and his mother away from the slums.!

she misses her friends and their simpler way of life, but also because she sees the sadness in her son's eyes, and the emptiness of the way they live now.!

!It is only when Siri unpacks

a box of keepsakes that he begins to contemplate the meaning of his own life, When ten-year-old Siri's The years pass and he come to terms with his elder sister, Pi Nit dies from fulfils his promise: he and emotions, and with the Dengue Fever, he blacks his mother live well, in a death of his sister, and out at the moment of her wonderfully expensive prompts him to reject the death. Unable to cry or modern house in the material world. What did he grieve when he is is suburbs. He has more find amongst the roused, he is befuddled money than he knows what keepsakes? The framed and embarrassed by his to do with, and is drawing of a lotus flower conflicting emotions, and constantly busy with work; his sister had made so by the peace he saw on his however, his mother is many years ago. sister's face during her last unhappy, not only because

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About the author

Also available

Tew Bunnag comes from a prominent Thai family, graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in Chinese and Economics, works in the Bangkok slums with Father Joe, and divides his time between Thailand and Spain. He is a Buddhist, a T'ai Chi and Meditation Master and a grief counsellor who provides palliative care for the families of terminally ill children.!

- Fragile Days - Collection of short stories!

- The Naga’s Journey!

- After the Wave - Collection of short stories!

- Curtain of Rain - To be published in Italian by Metropoli d’Asia and in English by River Books in 2014

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

TIM FITTS

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

Sea Bean: Short Stories World Rights Available An excerpt of Sea Bean, published by Granta:!

‘I like the snow,’ Arlene said, as if this matter had been bugging her for years, and ‘The roofs are going to give,’ she had finally come to Fred said. ‘You’ve got two terms with this issue. feet of snow up there.

Harrison agreed with Arlene Where’s it going to go?’ Fred and said that the only time popped an olive in his mouth people were nice in South and rolled it into his cheek.

Philly was when it snowed.

‘People la-di-da this shit, but He corrected himself and they don’t think about things said that people were like that.’ Fred helped always nice, but when it himself to more wine and snows, they were helpful poured a glass for his wife, nice.!

Arlene, who measured her hand halfway up the glass.!

Harrison and Michelle had lived in the neighbourhood

!

!

for almost five years. This was their first blizzard, and it was the first time anyone from the street had come over for dinner. Harrison looked at Michelle. ‘I guess it’ll melt, right?’ Harrison said.!

!‘Where’s the fucking snow

going to go up there?’ Fred said. ‘The roofs are flat.’!

!Arlene told Fred to watch his mouth.

About the author After receiving a special mention from the Pushcart Prize in 2013, Tim Fitts’ stories are being picked up everywhere - including Granta magazine.

!He has another two short stories to be published,

in New Madrid and Shenandoah, and has gathered a collection of these stories now: Sea Bean (working title).

!! !

Tim has also written Of Missing Ashville - meaty and dark - a novel of two halves, of before and after.

The story of an accidental murder and its consequence, it riffs on John Cage and Steve Reich, on life and fate, on forgiveness and retribution. It is the tale of the nothingness of one boy's life and of small-town American dystopia.

!The other: The Soju Club - a totally entertaining,

mad-cap adventure, inspired by John Fante's cult classic, Brotherhood of the Grape.

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

TIM FITTS

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

The Soju Club: A Novel World Rights Available The Soju Club by Tim Fitts, who in 2013 received a special mention from the Pushcart Prize. "

Part Augusten Burroughs part Woody Allen part Carl Hiaasen and Nick Hornby with a dash of Andrey Kurkov, it’s the story of a Inspired by John middle-aged man who gets Fante's Brotherhood of the roped into going on one Grape, Tim says that ‘by last fishing voyage with his the second or third chapter, the novel took on alcoholic father. Set in South Korea, the a life of its own, and now protagonist, Lee Won-Ho, the similarities between and his father’s drinking the two novels are about the same as Catcher in the buddies head out to the Rye and Huck Finn.’" fertile fishing waters off Dokdo (an island of

!

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disputed territory), where the father and his friends stage an ‘impromptu’ attack on a Japanese fishing boat… and with Molotov a belated addition to the cocktail menu.!

The Soju Club is a hilarious account of dysfunctional family life, lost causes and last-chance saloons. It is laugh-out-loud funny, at times poignant, and always so well observed.

About the author After receiving a special mention from the Pushcart Prize in 2013, Tim Fitts’ stories are being picked up everywhere - including Granta magazine.

!He has another two short stories to be published,

in New Madrid and Shenandoah, and has gathered a collection of these stories now: Sea Bean (working title).

!!

Tim has also written Of Missing Ashville - meaty and dark - a novel of two halves, of before and after.

The story of an accidental murder and its consequences, it riffs on John Cage and Steve Reich, on life and fate, on forgiveness and retribution. It is the tale of the nothingness of one boy's life and of small-town American dystopia.

!

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

HAN YUJOO With the publication of her first novel, Impossible Fairytale, Han has at age thirtyone cemented her reputation as a writer.

Rights Sold:

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- Decrescenzo, France

- Moonji, S. Korea

- Graywolf, World English

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Professor Bruce Fulton Young-Bin Min Chair in Korean Literature and Literary Studies, University of British Columbia

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

Impossible Fairytale

World Rights Available (ex. English, French & Korean) 'You visited me like a dream.'

!The child who stepped out of the story opened the door and came in.

This is either impossible or not impossible.’

Korean fiction in the new millennium is more imaginative than ever before, and no Korean writer is more imaginative than Han Yujoo.

!Impossible Fairytale is !Combining the recursive flow of the Korean oral nothing less than a metafiction masterpiece, from THE Bright Young Thing of Korean Literature, Han Yujoo.

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tradition with glimpses of the evil that threatens to poke through the stiff fabric of centuries of neoConfucian social control, stories such as “Blackand-White Photographer”

and “Ash Wednesday” challenge readers, critics, and writers alike to push the boundaries of an elite literary tradition that risks being swept into desuetude before the wave of Korean popular culture that is washing over the world.

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Prof. Bruce Fulton

About the author Han Yujoo debuted in 2003 with her short story To the Moon, which won Literature and Society's New Writers Award. Impossible Fairytale, has recently been published by Moonji, Korea, which has also published her three collections of short stories: To the Moon, Book of Ice and My Left Hand the King My Right Hand the King's Scribe. !

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Yujoo read German literature at Seoul National University, and has translated the works of Geoff Dyer and Michael Ondaatje into Korean. She won the prestigious Hankook Ilbo Literary Award in 2009 and currently teaches at the Seoul Institute of the Arts. The French translation of Impossible Fairytale will be published by Decrescenzo in 2015.

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

AYESHA HEBLE

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

Third Person Singular World Rights Available Third Person Singular, the most wonderful debut from Ayesha Heble, who was shortlisted for the 2013 Tibor Jones Prize with this novel -- a sublimely perceptive tale of solipsism, selfinvolvement and, eventually, selfawareness and redemption."

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Third Person Singular is a comedy of manners and semantic manipulation set on a fictitious university campus somewhere in Delhi. "

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When an ambitious young reporter misquotes a university professor in an effort to make the headlines, and a name for herself, all hell breaks loose. Her question, only tangentially related to the interview topic – the decline of the Indian publishing industry – draws the professor of sociology into commenting on whether he thinks The Satanic Verses should be banned, or not. Students riot, buses are burned and classes suspended – not only because of the disruption caused by the controversy but also because there aren’t enough qualified teachers available, due to a pending lawsuit brought against the university by an

aggrieved former faculty member.!

!Everyone is caught in

suspended animation – no one moves forward, no one looks back. No one sees the other side of the story.

Instead, they all focus only on their own self-interested agendas.! !

‘Whenever an issue arose with diametrically opposing stands taken, there usually was a third position, if only someone had the courage to express it. Instead, people felt obliged to take sides, you were either for or else you were against, and somewhere in the middle the truth escaped. There was no truth; only positions…’!

About the author Ayesha Heble, herself a university English lecturer, gives us dialogue that is believable but at the same time archly ironic, with narrative interludes worthy of Oscar Wilde and characters who entertain us with their faults and failings.!

Shortlisted for the 2013 Tibor Jones South Asia Prize.

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Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

ESTHER KOFOD

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

The Libyan

World Rights Available A vivid account of the lives and culture of Libya during the early years of Muammar Gaddafi's ruthless dictatorship.

When they begin their married life in Libya, Lina finds herself in a country terrorised by random arrests and public hangings. Driven by his longing for a better Libya, The Libyan, a fictionalised Kamal struggles to memoir, tells the story of survive politically while the tumultuous Lina lives in fear of her relationship of Lina, a husband being beautiful and imprisoned - or killed. sophisticated American, and the enigmatic Kamal, As Gaddafi transforms the a patriotic Libyan, two richest nation in Africa into people from different the most repressed and worlds, bound together by brutalised country in the passion and fate.

Arab world, Kamal battles

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to realise his dream for Libya's future.

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And when he is forced to leave his beloved country to become a hunted dissident, Kamal realises he must choose between the woman he loves, and his love for Libya.

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About the author Esther Kofod was born in Singapore of a Chinese mother and a Swiss father. After completing her studies in Singapore and Switzerland, Esther attended university in the United States. She then returned to Singapore to work for an international advertising agency as a copywriter and creative director.

Esther was married to the Chairman of the Strategic Studies Center who also acted as Foreign Advisor to Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli, Libya. They lived in Libya for five years before being forced to leave for political reasons.

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

MING LIU Ming Liu is one of the most talented young writers !

I've ever had the privilege ! to teach.!

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M J Hyland! author of How the Light Gets In

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

Our Man in China

World Rights Available* Dangerous, dark, dissolute, Our Man in China is the Wall Street meets Bonfire of the Vanities of the twentyfirst century...!

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When American-BornChinese Eric Chen returns to China, he believes he's returning to the motherland. A junior vicepresident at Goldberg Brothers, he's working overtime to make a name for himself... but he soon realises he's in over his head, because being an ABC is a distinct

disadvantage in the new China, where the Chinese are making up the rules, and then discarding them, as they go along. !

Determined to win a takeover deal that sees him shuttle between Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and New York, Eric meets all those others profiting from the world's next superpower: the troubled playboy son of Hong Kong's richest tycoon, a hedonistic, arrogant boss, and Joanna, another ABC desperate to belong. Cultural

assimilation and confusion, temptation and greed and seduction abound in this new China, where it's easy fail, and more difficult to succeed -- especially if you're an outsider.!

What are the barriers and boundaries when you don't even know who you are, or where you came from, or where your place in the world should be?

About the author Ming Liu is a journalist at the Financial Times in London and has contributed to China International Business, V magazine and the Asia Literary Review.

She has also reported for the NBC Today Show.

Born in the United States, she moved to Asia at the age of six, and spent a peripatetic childhood in China, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan, eventually returning to the US to study sociology and

economics at Wellesley College. In 2011, she received her masters in creative writing from the University of Manchester. She divides her time between London and Beijing. !

! !

*NB: Originally self-published in January 2013

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

LEZA LOWITZ Rights Sold:

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- Crown Books for Young Readers/ Random House, World English

Winner of the 2013/14 Asia Pacific American Award for Young Adult Fiction

Up from the Sea

World Rights Available (ex. English)

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

When a 140-foot wave swallows up half your village, how do you manage to stay whole?!

!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!

That’s the question 14-yearold bi-racial Kai Takamoto asks himself after a tsunami sweeps over his sleepy seaside town, killing his mother and grandparents.!

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Setting out to find his father, who’d left years before, Kai decides to leave the village for good. But when his search is a disappointment and a local organiser offers a trip to New York to meet kids who’ve lost family in 9-11, Kai reconsiders. !

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Visiting Ground Zero on its tenth anniversary, Kai realises the only way to make something good come out of the disaster back home is to return there, and help rebuild his town.!

Rekindling his childhood dream of playing football, he returns to the coast, forms a local team, and collects money for a brand-new pitch. Word spreads of the town’s efforts and Kai’s father, who belatedly learns of the news, travels to Japan to reconnect with his son.!

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Drawing loosely on the Japanese poetic form of haibun, Up from the Sea is a novel in verse for young adults in the tradition of Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust and Jame Richards’s Three Rivers Rising.

About the author Leza Lowitz lives in Tokyo with her husband, Shogo Oketani, and their eight-year-old son.!

been translated into four languages and is one of Amazon’s top-selling poetry books. !

decade, and travels around Japan and Asia to teach yoga, and write. Her debut YA novel, Jet Black and the Ninja Wind (first in a trilogy) has recently won the APALA award for YA. She is also a translator and a bestselling poet. Yoga Poems: Lines to Unfold By, has

in Japan, will be published by Stone Bridge Press in 2015.!

!She has been running her own yoga studio there for a

!Here Comes the Sun: A Memoir of Yoga and Adoption !

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

ROSIE MILNE

Olivia and Sophia:

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

The Life of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles through the Eyes of His Two Wives World Rights Available Set in London, Java, Sumatra and Singapore, against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars – this story takes the form of two diaries, first Olivia’s and then Sophia’s.! !

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Raffles' two wives were both extraordinary women: Olivia was a raffish beauty who was ten years older than him; Sophia was the first white woman to venture into the Sumatran interior. !

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Raffles’ life reads like fiction.

He was born into the London respectable poor, but rose to count royals amongst his friends. He was at constant odds with his superiors in The East India Company, yet on their behalf he founded Singapore. Three of his and Sophia’s children died in Sumatra. When the grieving parents were sailing home to England, their ship sank, and

they lost all their possessions they barely escaped with their lives. Back in London, Raffles was nearly bankrupted through a combination of The East India Company’s meanness, and the effect on his investments of the financial panic of 1825. Before he died he helped found London Zoo. His statue is in Westminster Abbey.! !

There are obvious comparisons between Raffles’ time and ours. This is a novel about an early period of globalisation and about the forerunners of modern expats – and of expat wives.

About the author Rosie Milne was a book editor in London before she moved to New York and wrote her first novel How to Change Your Life, about an editor of self-help books who tries to follow the advice in a self-help book. !

!She then moved to Hong Kong, where she wrote her

She then moved to her current home, Singapore, where she for a time wrote about the city for the UK Telegraph, and then set up the very popular Asian Books Blog.!

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second novel, Holding the Baby, about the way motherhood turns women’s lives upside down, and where she was a columnist for The South China Morning Post. !

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

ASIA LITERARY AGENCY " Non-Fiction " " " Michael Breen The New Koreans " Michael Buckley Meltdown in Tibet " Kate Coleman 7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership " Charles Lau

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Hyeonseo Lee

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Leza Lowitz

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Ira Trivedi

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Michael Vatikiotis

Hustling for a Living: The 100-Pound Gangster

The Girl in the Red Shoes: A North Korean Defector’s Tale Here Comes the Sun: A Memoir of Yoga and Adoption in Japan India in Love: Marriage and Sexuality in the 21st Century Dust and the Essence of Lemons: A Levantine Family History 1845-1945

" "

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

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MICHAEL BREEN Rights Sold:

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- Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press, English (USA/ Canada)

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

The New Koreans World Rights Available (ex. USA/Canada) The rise of South Korea was one of the most unexpected and inspirational developments of the latter part of the twentieth century. A few decades ago, the Koreans were an impoverished, agricultural people. In one generation they came out of the fields and into Silicon Valley. !

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In 1997, this powerhouse of a nation reeled and almost collapsed as a result of a weak financial system and heavily indebted conglomerates.

Fifteen years later and Korea has been reborn afresh in the world's mind through the rise of K-Pop and PSY's Gangnam Style.!

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How did this divided country rise so dramatically and so successfully to become a key player on the global stage, both economically

and culturally, whilst maintaining a de facto state of war with North Korea?!

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This updated and completely revised version of Michael Breen's hugely popular and groundbreaking, The Koreans, provides an indepth portrait of the country and its people, told by a writer who has lived and worked in the country for over two decades. !

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About the author Michael Breen has lived in South Korea for thirty years. He served for many years as Seoul correspondent for the Guardian and The Washington Times. He now runs his own public relations and consultancy firm in Seoul, and frequently writes essays, commentaries and features for the local media. He is the author of The Koreans and Kim Jong-il: North Korea's Dear Leader. He is currently

working on a biography of the controversial figure, Rev. Moon, founder of the Unification Church.!

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Michael is also the co-author of the forthcoming memoir The Girl in the Red Shoes by North Korean refugee Hyeonseo Lee, due to be published by HarperCollins in 2015.

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

MICHAEL BUCKLEY Rights Sold:

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- Palgrave Macmillan, English

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

Meltdown in Tibet

World Rights Available (ex. English language) !

With a preface by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, this new book, a disaster guide to the environmental crisis looming in Tibet, comes to us from the journalist who co-wrote the first ever guidebook to Tibet in 1986 for Lonely Planet.!

!Meltdown in Tibet totally

blows the lid off what the Chinese have been doing to secure access and control of water throughout most of Asia, including completely defiling the most holy of holy lakes in Tibet. !

Oil? That's yesterday's news.

The repercussions of what Michael unveils are simply shocking.!

Now they are facing ecocide – the reckless destruction of their fragile high-altitude environment.!

destroying holy sites in Tibet just as the Taliban destroyed ancient relics in Afghanistan.

This is all completely under the radar, very few people know about this top-secret campaign that implicates the West, also, as they have been supplying the machinery to make this happen. !

photographs and original detailed maps, Meltdown will show readers the ruthless realities threatening Tibet, the rest of South-East Asia and the world. !

!The Chinese are, in effect, !With never before seen

!Tibetans have

experienced waves of genocide since the 1950s.

! !

“This book should be part of a wake-up call to the international community and to China.”

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

About the author Michael Buckley is a travel writer and photographer who has travelled extensively throughout South-East Asia. !

Himalayan Dream; a guidebook to Indochina titled Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos; Tibet: the Bradt Travel Guide, and Heartlands: Travels in the Tibetan World. !

He is author or co-author of ten books about Asian and Himalayan travel, including Eccentric Explorers, a biography-based book about ten wacky adventurers to the Tibetan plateau; Shangri-La: A Travel Guide to the

Michael has contributed to a wide variety of magazines and newspapers including the Guardian, BBC Wildlife and TIME magazine.!

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

KATE COLEMAN

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership World Rights Available 7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership grew out of the highly popular seven-day courses Kate Coleman organised and presented with Next Leadership, the organisation she cofounded. The book is all about women and leadership with, as Kate says, 'a clear Christian ethos and some biblical content'.!

! ! !

What are the 7 Deadly Sins?!

!1 Limiting self-perceptions -- Adjust how you see yourself!

!2 Failure to draw the line -Establish appropriate boundaries!

!3 Inadequate personal vision -- Develop and maintain a God-inspired vision!

!4 Too little life in the work -- Establish a healthy work-life rhythm!

5 Everybody's friend, nobody's leader -- Defeat the 'disease to please'!

!6 Colluding and not

confronting -- Deal with men and women behaving badly!

!7 Neglect in family matters -- Be intentional with your nearest and dearest!

!This book will enable you

to identify and overcome self-defeating patterns of behaviour, in ways that will radically transform your leadership capabilities.

About the author Rev. Dr. Kate Coleman is Chair of the 60-million strong Evangelical Alliance, and is a popular preacher, teacher, speaker, lecturer and strategic adviser in the UK, Europe and Africa. Kate is recognised as one of the most influential Christian women leaders in the UK. She contributes to Christian and mainstream press, radio and TV. !

Praise for 7 Deadly Sins!

‘This is a "must-read" book for anyone in leadership, including those who wonder how they got there! In her perceptive examination, Kate Coleman uncovers what

so often lies hidden in this area, and places it firmly on the agenda. It's rare to find such careful research, gripping narrative and positive mentoring all in one book. I loved it!' Elaine Storkey, president of Tear Fund!

‘Thank God for 7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership!

I am convinced this book will help equip women in leadership to hone their craft, enabling them to “swim” rather than “sink" as leaders. It is a timely and essential resource for women leaders across all sectors.' Grace Owen, Career Coach and author of The Career Itch.!

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Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

CHARLES LAU* Shocking and often scary – it’s like Gomorrah, but HD.

Rights Sold:

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- Typhoon Media, World English

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

Hustling for a Living: The 100-Pound Gangster World Rights Available (ex. English) 'A good friend will bail you out of jail. A real friend will be in jail next to you saying, “Man, we fucked up.”’

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Charles Lau has spent most of his precocious young life involved with the international criminal underworld. By the age of 14 he was a member of a notorious San Francisco triad with links to Hong Kong and China. And by the age of 18 he had seen, and done, more than most have in a lifetime.

alive, and earn respect from his peers. But when he finds out that his grandfather was Chief of the Chinese secret service, and was one of the five most powerful and well-connected men in China until his death two years ago, Charles discovers that he has descended from a kind of underworld aristocracy.

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After being sent to dubious reform schools in an attempt to rehabilitate him, Charles was eventually Unsure of himself, and incarcerated as a his place in the world, he juvenile, and sentenced fought to keep himself to eight years in one of

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toughest prisons in the USA. It was there that he realised his internal compass had been pointing him in the wrong direction, and through a writing workshop called The Beat Within, he learned to channel his theretofore misplaced energies into writing, slowly reflecting on his demons, and sending him on the road to redemption.

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This is a powerful, and brutally honest tale of the loyalty and loneliness of gang life.

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*not his real name

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HYEONSEO LEE Rights Sold:

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- Rosinante, Danish

- The House of Books, Dutch

- HarperCollins, English

- Otava, Finnish

- Les èditions Stock, French!

- Heyne/Random House, German!

- Libri Kiado, Hungarian!

- Mondadori, Italian

- Daiwa Shobo, Japanese

- Proszynski Media, Polish

- Grupo Planeta, Portuguese [Portugal only]

- Península/Grupo Planeta, Spanish

- Emily Books, Taiwan

- QuangVan, Vietnamese

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

The Girl in the Red Shoes: A North Korean Defector’s Tale

World Rights Available (ex. Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese [Portugal only], Spanish, Taiwan for Traditional Chinese and Vietnamese) When Hyeonseo Lee illicitly leaves North Korea to visit distant relatives in China, little does she know it will be fourteen years until she is reunited with her family. At the time of her departure, she is a naïve seventeen-year-old girl who believes North Korea is the best place in the world to live, and that Kim Il-Sung is her saviour.!

In a land of constant surveillance, her absence is soon noted, and it is her own mother who advises her to stay away, lest her return

incur the punishment of the government authorities – imprisonment, torture, public execution – not only for Hyeonseo, but also for her family.!

This is the story not only of Hyeonseo’s escape – absolutely literally from the darkness into the light – but also of her coming of age, of her ‘re-education’, of her ability to successfully rebuild her life not once but twice – first in China, then in South Korea, which proved to be the more difficult and unsettling of the two.!

Thousands of refugees and escapees pour out of North Korea but thousands also struggle to adapt, and rarely do they thrive as she has.

None are able to tell their story with such eloquence, so thoughtfully and truthfully.

They are still afraid – unlike Hyeonseo, who has become a strong and brave voice of the North Korean refugee community.!

!

Co-written by Michael Breen, author of The New Koreans

About the author Hyeonseo Lee is a North Korean refugee living in Seoul, South Korea. She is a Young Leader at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and in addition to pursuing an undergraduate degree in English and Chinese at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, she spends much of her time speaking about North Korean human rights and refugee issues.!

!

In February 2013 she gave a TED talk that received an overwhelming and positive response, with over 3 million views, and counting.! !

Hyeonseo has written for the Wall Street Journal, the LSE Big Ideas blog, and for the South Korean Ministry of Unification. She aims to start an organization to provide assistance to North Korean refugees.

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

LEZA LOWITZ Rights Sold:

!

- Stone Bridge, English and Japanese

Winner of the 2013/14 Asia Pacific American Award for Young Adult Fiction

Here Comes the Sun:

A Memoir of Yoga and Adoption in Japan

!

RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

!

kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

World Rights Available (ex. English and Japanese) At 30, Californian Leza Lowitz is single and travelling the world, which suits her just fine. Why rush to settle down? Coming of age in Berkeley, California, during the social, feminist and sexual revolutions of the 1960s, she learned that marriage and family could wait. Or could they? !

!

When she moves to Japan and meets the man of her dreams, her heart opens in ways she never thought possible. And when she approaches 40 – the same age as her mother when she had left the family behind to ‘find herself’ – Lowitz yearns for a child. But attempts to

become pregnant fail repeatedly and Lowitz begins to question whether motherhood is really in the cards for her. Are there physical issues, psychological blocks, or both? And just exactly what does it mean to become a mother, after all? Is she ready to make the sacrifices necessary? And can she finally heal the wounds that have kept motherhood at bay?!

!

After much soul-searching, and a process of healing that takes her home to San Francisco, then to New York and back to Tokyo (with a stopover in India on the way), Lowitz comes to a deepening

understanding of what motherhood truly means. At the age of 44, she and her husband begin the laboriously bureaucratic process of adopting a child in Japan, where bloodlines are paramount and family ties almost feudal in their cultural importance. !

!

Here Comes the Sun is the story of how one woman learns to conquer her fears, blast through the limits she has created for herself, and those she perceived around her, and how she becomes the confident woman, and mother, she’d always hoped she would be.

About the author

Also available

Leza lives in Tokyo with her husband, the writer Shogo Oketani and their eight-year-old son. She has been running her own (very popular!) yoga studio there for a decade, and travels around Japan and Asia to teach yoga, and write. Her debut Young Adult novel Jet Black and the Ninja Wind (the first of a trilogy published by Tuttle this autumn) is about a female ninja and her fight to save her native tribe. !

Up from the Sea! When a 140-foot wave swallows up half your village, how do you manage to stay whole?

!Leza has published 17 books. She’s the author

of Yoga Poems: Lines to Unfold By, which has been translated into four languages as is one of the highest selling poetry books on Amazon.!

!

!That’s the question fifteen-year-old Kai Takamoto asks himself after a tsunami sweeps over his sleepy seaside town in Up from the Sea.

!Written in the Japanese poetic form of haibun, Up From The Sea is a YA novel in verse in the tradition of Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust and Jame Richards’ Three Rivers Rising.

!

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

IRA TRIVEDI ! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! ! !

RIGHTS SOLD - Aleph Book Company, India

RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

!

kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

India in Love: Marriage and Sexuality in the 21st Century World Rights Available (ex. India) A ground-breaking look at the sexual revolution sweeping through urban India.

unprecedented insights into how the nation has sex, gets married and falls in (and out of) love in the 21st century.

Trivedi travelled from Shillong in the northeast to Chennai in the south, Konark in the east to Mumbai in the west and over a dozen other cities and towns, in order to gain

opening reportage with hundreds of interviews, detailed research, authoritative published surveys and discussions with experts on various aspects of sexuality and

!Bestselling author Ira

!Supporting her eye-

marriage, Trivedi has written a book that is often startling, sometimes controversial, but always entertaining and original.

About the author Ira Trivedi is the bestselling author of What Would You Do to Save the World?, The Great Indian Love Story and There Is No Love on Wall Street.

the Telegraph (India). She regularly speaks to students and youth groups across the country on various inspirational and motivational topics.

Ira, who writes in English and Hindi, contributes to a wide variety of publications including Foreign Affairs, Hindustan Times Brunch, Forbes, Outlook, Daily News & Analysis (DNA), The Asian Age and

She has lived all over the world: in four countries, nine cities and three continents. She graduated from Wellesley College with a BA in economics and gained her MBA from Columbia Business School, where she won the prestigious Feldberg Fellowship.

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

MICHAEL VATIKIOTIS

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RIGHTS CONTACT: Kelly Falconer Asia Literary Agency Hong Kong

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kelly@asialiteraryagency,org

Dust and the Essence of Lemons: A Levantine Family History 1845-1945 World Rights Available The Middle East is understood today through the lens of unending conflict and violence. Lost in the litany of perpetual strife are the layers of culture and civilization that accumulated over centuries, giving the region its cosmopolitan identity. !

It was once a region known as the Levant, a reference to the East, where the sun rose. There was above all

an affinity with three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This was a time when Arabs and Jews would rub shoulders together in bazaars and teashops, worked and played together, and intermarried. !

Michael’s family was a product of this now forgotten pluralist tradition.

By tracing their roots and compiling a picture of how they lived, Michael revives

a memory of that more peaceful time, and along with it something that may be used for future dialogue.!

The idea for this book was born one hot evening in Amman where Michael was a guest of Prince Hassan of Jordan, a friend of Michael’s late father, the eminent historian of the Middle East, P. J. Vatikiotis.

About the author Michael Vatikiotis has worked for the Bangkok Post and for the BBC World Service, and was the Managing Editor and Editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review.!

He is currently the Asia Regional Director of the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, based in Singapore.!

!He has written numerous articles for books and

journals, and his own books of fiction and non-fiction

include Indonesian Politics under Suharto, Political Change in Southeast Asia: Trimming the Banyan Tree, Debatable Land: Stories from Southeast Asia, The Spice Garden and, most recently, The Painter of Lost Souls.!

Michael has a PhD from Oxford University and in 2005 was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Maryland.

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

ASIA LITERARY AGENCY Typhoon Media

" "" Nigel Collett " Brad Gallaway " Kirk Kjeldsen " Starr Lam " Peter Tieryas Liu " Marshall Moore " Ali Shakir " Khaled Talib " Chris Tharp " Shannon Young " Yu Jihui " " " " " "

"

Firelight of a Different Colour Speaking in Forked Tongues Tomorrow City Starr College Guide Watering Heaven Bitter Orange A Muslim on the Bridge

Smokescreen Dispatches from the Peninsula How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit?

The Gunners of Shenyang

Asia Literary Agency Rights List - www.asialiteraryagency.org

Signal8Press

When Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing threw himself to his death from the terrace of Hong Kong’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel in 2003, he was the greatest star of his generation in the city. A performer loved for his character as much as for his magic as an entertainer, his death sent shock waves across Asia and amongst Asian populations around the world. Despite the fact that he was openly gay, he was adored, and remains adored, by multitudes in societies where his sexual orientation remains a littlediscussed taboo. Firelight of a Different Colour traces Leslie’s story from birth in 1950s Hong Kong to his death during the city’s crippling SARS epidemic. Through initial struggles to gain a foothold in TV and the nascent world of Cantopop, he achieved final success as a megastar of music and the big screen and held that position for nearly two decades. At the forefront of almost all the cultural changes Hong Kong saw during his lifetime, Leslie came to embody the unique spirit of the city. No Western performer can boast so widespread an influence across so many arts. Firelight of a Different Colour commemorates a life that continues to amaze and inspire.

Exhaustively researched and beautifully written, Nigel Collett's book is a perfectly fitting tribute to an incredible talent who was lost too soon. Essential reading for any serious student of Asian cinema or queer cinema.

-- Matthew Hays, author, journalist and film studies professor, Concordia University

Signal8Press Publication date: Feb. 25, 2014 Print edition: 5.5" x 8.5" perfect bound trade paperback Page count: 460 ISBN: 978-988-15542-6-0 Price (paper): US$18.95 E-book formats: ePub, Kindle, PDF Word count: 111,000 eISBN: 978-988-15542-0-8 Price (e-book): US$9.99

© Typhoon Media Limited 2013

Nigel Collett studied history at St Peter’s College, Oxford and biography at the University of Buckingham. After serving for twenty years in the British Army, a career that culminated in the command of 6th Queen Elizabeth’s Own Gurkha Rifles, he founded the Gurkha International Group, which finds employment for Nepalese men and women, principally as crew for cruise lines. His publications include A Grammar, Phrase Book and Vocabulary of Baluchi (1984) and An English-Nepali-English Dictionary (1994). He is the author of The Butcher of Amritsar, a life of Brigadier Dyer, the perpetrator of the Amritsar massacre, published in 2005.

Currently, he is a correspondent for Fridae.asia, Asia's largest LGBT news and social networking website, and writes for the English edition of China Daily. In 2008 he was appointed English Secretary of the Pink Alliance, Hong Kong's largest grouping of LGBT organizations and in 2011 helped found Hong Kong's annual Pink Season. Also in 2008, he was cofounder and coordinator of the Tongzhi Literary Group, a group aiming to foster writing on LGBT subjects or by LGBT authors, both in Chinese and English. He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society.

Signal8Press

Tomorrow City a novel by KIRK

KJELDSEN

After an armored car robbery goes horribly wrong and leaves four people dead, young ex-con Brendan Lavin flees New York City and attempts to start over again in Shanghai. But twelve years later, after opening a bakery under an assumed name and starting a family with a local woman, his former colleagues show up and force Brendan to assist in another armed robbery, of a wealthy diamond merchant. If he doesn’t cooperate, they’ll expose him and kill his family.

Will Brendan help them pull it off and keep his new life intact? Or will his past bring him down, destroying everything else along with it?

Tomorrow City is a riveting, literary crime novel that explores the theme of reinvention in Shanghai, the city that’s reinvented itself more than any other in the world over the past generation.

A tight, tense crime novel about a stranger in a strange land trying to outrun the ghosts of his past. Kirk Kjeldsen’s Shanghai is a terrifically fresh and evocative setting, and the action jumps off the page.

- Lou Berney, Edgar Award and Barry Awardnominated author of Whiplash River and Gutshot Straight

Tomorrow City is a vicious little tale of men and violence and the sucking black hole of the past. A coiled and sleek throwback noir, best read in one shot. More please.

- Elwood Reid, author of If I Don’t Six, Midnight Sun, and D.B.

Publication date: 8/27/2013 Print edition: 5" x 8" perfect bound trade paperback Page count: 200 ISBN: 978-988-15542-1-5 Price (paper): US$15.95 Tomorrow City unfolds with grace and power, E-book formats: ePub, Kindle, PDF building to a cinematic climax that Word count: 40,000 reverberates long after you’ve finished eISBN: 978-988-15542-5-3 reading. This is thriller writing at its finest.

Price (e-book): US$6.99 Kjeldsen is one to watch.

- Carlo Bernard, screenwriter of The Great Raid, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and The Uninvited © Typhoon Media Limited 2013

Synopsis Based on exclusive interviews with 115 students, alumni, and admissions chairs from America’s top colleges, Starr College Guide is a college guide and admissions manual to the Ivy League and other elite American schools. The interviewees, most of whom are from Greater China and the Asia-Pacific region, personalize the college experience for Asian students and their families around the world, and they share their own strategies and secrets for getting admitted. The admissions section of this book contains very clear-cut advice straight from regional admissions personnel from Yale, Penn and Brown. This part of the book details the scores needed for acceptance and tells how to build resumes and stories tailor-made for each university. In addition, this book highlights the career paths graduates are likely to embark on after graduation.

Featuring practical admissions strategies and real-life success stories, Starr College Guide is a must for any student from Asia who wants to gain an advantage in the Ivy League admissions process.

Metadata Publication date: September 12, 2014 Print edition: 5.5" x 8.5" perfect bound trade paperback Page count: TBC ISBN: 978-988-12196-2-6 Price (paper): US$24.95, HK$200 E-book formats: ePub, Kindle, PDF Word count: 107,000 eISBN: 978-988-12196-6-4 Price (e-book): US$9.99

Blurbs Informative, highly readable, and comprehensive. Starr Lam’s book is shot through with thought-provoking facts and opinions that provide a very clear flavor for each school and the types of students who would thrive in them. As both a writer and parent of an aspiring high schooler, I highly recommend this book.

-- Phillip Y Kim, author of Nothing Gained Starr College Guide provides useful information and insights to students who plan to apply for competitive universities in the U.S. Starr’s advice is candid and sometimes surprising. Ever since I have known Starr, I have been very impressed by his passion for education, and he truly embodies what an Ivy League education is all about. By interviewing 115 students and alumni of top U.S. universities, he has done extensive and meticulous research in writing this book. I am sure readers will be enlightened and inspired.

-- Jeff Sze, Political Assistant to Secretary for Education (HKSAR Government) and Stanford Club of Hong Kong Officer A comprehensive, well-researched guide that is a must-read for any aspiring student. Starr Lam's insights and observations are thoughtfully shared and articulated, backed up with solid research. Read this book before even thinking of applying -- anywhere.

-- Maseena Ziegler, author of Ladies who Launch in Hong Kong and Harvard Kennedy School alumna

Author Bio Starr Lam is an education consultant and tutor based in Hong Kong. Since 2005, he has helped dozens of students gain admission to Ivy League universities and other top-notch institutions such as Stanford, MIT, and the University of Chicago.

His teaching mainly focuses on IELTS (he has scored the perfect 9 in all four sections of the test) and SAT (scoring higher than 99.5% of candidates worldwide). He is a dual-degree graduate of University of Pennsylvania and The Wharton School, graduating with high honors. Prior to becoming an educator, he worked in leading investment banking, management consulting, and private equity firms.

Synopsis What would you do if you found out your girlfriend laid an egg every time she had sex? Who would you be if you were invited to a party in Beijing but had to make up a brand-new identity for six weeks? Peter Tieryas Liu’s Watering Heaven is a travelogue of and requiem for the American dream in all its bizarre manifestations and a surreal, fantastic journey through the streets, alleys, and airports of China. Whether it’s a monk who uses acupuncture needles to help him fly or a city filled with rats about to be exterminated so that the mayor can win his reelection bid, be prepared to laugh, swoon, and shudder at the answers Liu offers in this provocative debut collection.

Metadata Publication date: October 16, 2012 Print edition: 5.5" x 8.5" perfect bound trade paperback Page count: 208 ISBN: 978-988-15539-1-1 Price (paper): US$15.95 E-book formats: ePub, Kindle, PDF Word count: 46,000 eISBN: 978-988-15539-5-9 Price (e-book): US$7.99

Blurbs Exuberant. Wildly inventive. Grungy, grimy, gritty with global resonance for the 21st century, Watering Heaven boldly treads where devils fear to go. This debut collection of madly manic fiction rides bareback over the rocky metaphysical divide that is Asia (especially China) and the U.S.A. And the journey is bleakly compassionate. These are curious fictions, bordering at times on meditations about the unpredictability and possibility of existence. In particular, the problem of love is always at the forefront, as people meet and part, vanish and return, die and resurrect in a horrific relationship to the blatantly, and even grotesquely, physical. Liu’s protagonists are forever in search of the perfect connection with the partner who will pull them out of their own skins; at times this restlessness is disturbing and weirdly extremist. Yet at the center of each story is a pulsing, beating heart that seems to whisper: try, try, don’t stop trying, heaven is just around the corner. An astonishing energy prevails throughout the collection. This is definitely a writer to watch.

- Xu Xi, Author of Access: Thirteen Tales and Habit of a Foreign Sky What’s the meaning of life? Few writers risk asking such a naive question anymore, but Peter Tieryas Liu’s debut collection probes the membrane of modern meaninglessness in consistently passionate and original prose. With its robust inquiry into “love’s very anatomy,” Watering Heaven underscores the babble of the global village from inside China’s Forbidden City to inside the bacterium of the hand that holds the ubiquitous video game joystick. Liu showers us with tales of seemingly lost and strange people who could be a lot more like us than we care to admit-- a photographer who collects pieces of humans, a loner who listens to other people’s phone conversations, a politician who tries to stave off a mutant rat rebellion, and a saga of shit-covered shoes. Liu’s brave new world comes at us full-force with a spinning Blade Runner intensity, keeping us guessing as it keeps us on the edge of our postwar, pre-apocalyptic seats. Encore! Encore!

- Leza Lowitz, Author of Green Tea to Go: Stories from Tokyo

Author Bio Peter Tieryas Liu has almost 200 publications in magazines and journals including Adirondack Review, Camera Obscura Journal, Evergreen Review, Gargoyle, Indiana Review, Word Riot, and ZYZZYVA, and was the recipient of the 2012 Fiction Award from Mojo, the magazine run by Wichita State University. He has also worked as a technical writer for LucasArts, the gaming division of LucasFilm. By day, he's a VFX artist who has worked on movies like Men in Black 3 and Alice in Wonderland. You can find him at www.tieryasxu.com... as well as traveling the world with his wife.

SIGNAL8PRESS Bitter Orange

by Marshall Moore Seth Harrington can be invisible or undetectable, but he is not a superhero. The ability only works in morally grey situations; the rest of the time, he can’t turn it on and off at will. He can use a movie ticket stub to buy a coffee or a one-dollar bill to pay for a cell phone. He can stop muggings in plain sight, unseen, but only with worse violence. But this only adds to his confusion about his place in the world.

Still reeling from the horrors of the September 11 terrorist attacks and ambivalent about his future, Seth is at a crossroads: Can he be one of the good guys by doing bad things, or are his newfound powers part of someone else’s malevolent agenda?

There are no easy answers or expected outcomes in Marshall Moore’s exploration of urban life and the ways that people can disappear.

Bitter Orange is a dark wonder. Like Palahniuk at his best, Moore makes the impossible seem credible, grounding the fantastical elements of his tale with the foibles of human frailty. His characters live and breathe, and they will carry you along on this amazing, bizarre, and ultimately disturbing journey.

– Lee Thomas, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The German and Ash Street

With Bitter Orange, Marshall Moore gives us a queer Crimes and Misdemeanors, darkly witty and equally wise.

– Tom Cardamone, author of Green Thumb and editor of The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered Publication date: March 24, 2013

Marshall Moore has created a fully realized character in Seth Harrington, whose ennui has rendered him nearly motionless. The inner monologue and introspection explode once Seth realizes he has the power of invisibility and psychic projection, but this character study of a hipster in crisis is quite unlike anything I’ve ever read before.

More than just a “superhero” story, Bitter Orange examines how urban life, past tragedy, seemingly inconsequential choices, and things left unsaid can alter one’s trajectory.

Print edition: 5.5″ x 8.5″ perfect bound trade paperback

– Collin Kelley, author of Conquering Venus and Remain In Light

Price (e-book): US$7.99

Page count: 194 ISBN: 978-988-15540-3-1 Price (paper): US$16.95 E-book formats: ePub, Kindle, PDF Word count: 50,000 eISBN: 978-988-15540-7-9

© Typhoon Media Limited 2013

Synopsis A memoir and meditation on faith, A Muslim on the Bridge: On Being an IraqiArab Muslim in the Twenty-first Century tells a story of transformation and reflection as the author thoughtfully but pointedly deconstructs the widespread misconceptions about Islam, arguably the world’s most-misunderstood major religion. The son of a Shia father and a Sunni mother, Ali was born in Baghdad in 1969. At this time in Iraq’s history, the country had a Muslim heritage but was a secular, diverse society. Neither of Ali’s parents prayed, fasted, or visited the mosque. He and his friends grew up listening to Western pop music and watching Western films. They studied at a school established by American Jesuit priests in the early twentieth century… and Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay were among the students in that school at the time of Ali's enrollment. The years that followed saw drastic changes in Iraq as Saddam strong-armed the country into a strict, fundamentalist application of Islam, an interpretation Ali rejects. A Muslim on the Bridge is an essential read for our times, a book that takes a close, informed, and rational look at problematic issues in Islam like polygamy, violence, divorce, homosexuality, veiled women, interfaith marriages, apostasy, and the perception of other cultures and religions.

Author Bio Architect and artist Ali Shakir graduated from Baghdad University in 1992. Ali held his first painting exhibition Nostalgia in 1994 after a short architectural practice, and then co-founded L'Atelier Art Gallery in 1995 where he exhibited his artwork along with the work of other young Iraqi artists. Since leaving Iraq in 2006, Ali has published articles and essays—in Arabic and English—in several newspapers and literary journals in the Arab world, England, the United States, and New Zealand, where he is living now.Follow him on Twitter: @BradGallaway

Blurbs With almost a quarter of the world's population embracing Islam, Ali Shakir's work provides a timely insight into the dilemmas facing contemporary Muslims caught between the desire for modernity and respect for tradition. Having set out to determine whether other religions might be "better, worse, or just like Islam", his journey is also an articulate exploration of the rivalry between monotheistic faiths that has always existed and, along with politics, kept the flames of hatred in the Middle East burning for so long. He particularly examines the Koran whose teachings are wide open to interpretation, being written in a language that is different from the ordinary Arabic of today, and focuses on the "most quoted verse on Muslim bigotry word wide" which states that they should avoid dealings and friendships with non-believers in every possible way. The Prophet Mohammed acknowledged both Judaism and Christianity on several occasions, he says; the commandment said nothing about friendships, being merely an instruction not to take non-believers as protectors or leaders. It is hard to disagree with his conclusion that between Muslims, Jews and Christians it is extremely difficult to determine who are the promised descendants of Abraham. This book is a well-written collection of sensitive musings weaving personal experiences in a diary/narrative form. He touches on subjects as great as the meaning of Arabic culture in general, the Arab Spring, and what that has brought to those who sought a more secular way of life. Tackling the question of men's rights over women, illicit love, feminism, polygamy, homosexuality, as well as the wearing of the abaya, he also finds room for the dying art of coffeemaking. All told, it is a very good read.

- Mira and Tony Roca, authors of Memories of Eden

!

A Muslim on the Bridge doesn't only reflect the voices of moderate middle-class Arab Muslims, it also echoes the voices of many Arab Christians as well as the other minorities in the region. The book's touching stories dynamically weave threads for an honest account hardly found in the mainstream media.

-- Fadi Zaghmout, Jordanian blogger and author of Arous Amman (Amman Bride)

!

A fascinating, poignant look at a life straddling two different worlds, Iraq and the modern, Western world. Ali's story also tells us what life in Iraq was like long before the U.S. invasion, from his childhood education, his time in the military, and how he watched the divide among secular and religious Muslims growing in intensity. A decade of news-watching could never provide the insight in the pages of this book.

-- Michael Luongo, editor, Gay Travels in the Muslim World

Metadata Publication date: Nov. 19, 2013 Print edition: 5" x 8" perfect bound trade paperback Page count: 296 ISBN: 978-988-15542-9-1

Price (paper): US$16.95 E-book formats: ePub, Kindle, PDF Word count: 70,000 eISBN: 978-988-15542-2-2 Price (e-book): US$7.99

Dispatches from the Peninsula

by Chris Tharp

C

hris Tharp lives in Busan, South Korea, where he teaches, plays rock and roll and performs stand-up comedy.

His award-winning writing has appeared online at such sites as Travelers’ Tales, Road Junky Travel, Matador Travel, and Monkey Goggles. He is a regular columnist for Busan Haps magazine and maintains his own blog, Homely Planet, at tharp42. livejournal.com. He loathes mayonnaise and any of its sister sauces.

Publication Date: September 27, 2011 Print Edition: 8.5” x 5.5” perfect bound trade paperback Page Count: 290 ISBN: 978-988-15161-1-4 Price: US$16.95 E-Book Formats: ePub, mobi (Kindle), PDF Word Count: 90,000 eISBN: 978-988-15161-5-2 Price: US$7.99

“Tharp is like some punk-rock Huck Finn, as aware and humane as he is blithely non-PC, drama springing up around him with every choice he makes: another country, another drink, another thought he maybe should have kept to himself—but his brain is bigger than his mouth, and Dispatches from the Peninsula gives us the whole show. And somehow, amid all its intelligence and humor, the book packs a deeper wallop too, as a serious meditation on the lifelong experiment of growing up.”

Lawrence Krauser Author of Lemon, The Joy of Google, and The Day in Question

Thousands of young adults pass through South Korea each year, teaching English in private schools that together make up one of the country’s largest industries. Korea, long isolated by culture and geography, with a complex language and set of social mores, can be a difficult place to call home.

Chris Tharp has begun to make a name for himself as a travel writer, and in this gruff but affectionate memoir, explains why Korea can be both hard to like and hard to leave. He navigates his way through the timeless alleys and neon streets of Korea’s cities, painting a picture of a society that is at once ancient and utterly modern; he serves in the trenches of the English teaching industry, working his way from the private, for-profit academy to the university; he treks through the peninsula’s mountain valleys and rides deep into the country’s rural soul on the back of his motorcycle; he also explores the internal geography of Korea, from nearly being deported over a comedy performance, getting caught in the middle of a street riot, to staring face-to-face with North Korean soldiers along the DMZ. During this six-year journey, Tharp must also deal with the death of his parents, which forces him to ask the question: Is home a place that we’re from, or is it something we take with us wherever we go?

“Tough and true is Tharp’s journey in South Korea. I found myself back there, welcoming anew Korea’s wonder, her wrangle, the distinct spirit of the peninsula and her people. All along the way, Tharp is an observant and steady companion.”

Cullen Thomas Author of Brother One Cell

© Typhoon Media Limited 2011

In this collection, twenty-six women reveal the truth about expatriate life in modern East Asia through original works of memoir and creative non-fiction. Their experiences are varied and unique, demonstrating that expat women’s lives go far beyond the stereotypical. The writers hail from a dozen different countries and walks of life. Some are well-known; others are fresh voices adding nuance to the expat conversation.

Through deeply personal accounts, they explore what they have learned about themselves and the world through their lives abroad. Together, they create a portrait of the modern expatriate experience that will both resonate and inspire.

Imprint: Signal 8 Press!

Publication date: June 10, 2014!

Print edition: 5.5" x 8.5" bound trade paperback!

Page count: 324!

ISBN: 978-988-12195-2-7!

Price (paper): US$18.95, HK$160!

E-book formats: ePub, Kindle, PDF! Word count: 97,000! eISBN: 978-988-12195-6-5!

Price (e-book): US$9.99

With contributions by…!

Shannon Dunlap!

Dorcas Cheng-Tozun!

Neha Mehta!

Jennifer S. Deayton!

Pamela Beere Briggs!

Kaitlin Solimine!

Jenna Lynn Cody!

Sharon Brown!

Suzanne Kamata!

Stephanie Han! Eva Cohen!

Barbara Craven!

Michelle Borok!

Christine Tan!

Catherine Rose Torres!

Jocelyn Eikenburg!

India Harris!

Saffron Marchant!

Philippa Ramsden!

Nicola Chilton!

Edna Zhou!

Susan BlumbergKason!

Leza Lowitz!

Ember Swift!

Coco Richter!

Kathryn Hummel!

“How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit is an eclectic, soulful collection of stories by badass women who have adventured far out of their comfort zones. Full of candid observations about travel, language, food, self and other, it’s a book for anyone who has ever felt peripheral, upside down, culturally shocked or inspired. In other words, a book for all of us.”!

– Rachel DeWoskin, author of Foreign Babes in Beijing, Repeat After Me, Big Girl Small, and Blind.!

!

“A unique and inspiring collection of voices that calls up all the wonder, fascination, challenges, disorientation, and delights faced by women expats throughout Asia. I was moved by the breadth of experiences included in this anthology at the same time that I fell in love with one thread running throughout: how the expatriate journey takes us away from ourselves and then ultimately delivers us back, richer, wiser, and even more aware of how our own identities fit within our wide, wide world.”!

– Tracy Slater, author of The Good Shufu: A Wife in Search of a Life Between East and West

The Gunners of Shenyang

by Yu Jihui

Publication date: May 14, 2013 Print edition: 8.5" x 5.5" perfect bound trade paperback Page count: 260 ISBN: 978-988-15540-2-4 Price (paper): US$16.95 E-book formats: ePub, Kindle, PDF Word count: 73,000 eISBN: 978-988-15540-6-2 Price (e-book): US$8.99 “Yu Jihui has survived famine and political oppression to tell the remarkable tale of how obsession with food caused by famine coincided with the political obsessions of Communism in Mao's China. Bitter, sad, but at times earthily amusing, this tale reveals how China's Great Famine scarred the generation that endured it. What Wild Swans and Life and Death in Shanghai did for the Cultural Revolution, The Gunners of Shenyang now does for the Great Leap Forward.

Nigel Collett Author of Firelight of a Different Colour: The Life and Times of Leslie Cheung and The Butcher of Amritsar

In Yu Jihui’s memoir of his life as a university student in China as the nation starved during Mao’s Great Leap Forward, carrots are decadent luxuries and flatulence is the people’s true common language. “Soapy,” the author’s nickname during his college days, has been dubious about the benefits of the socialist revolution sweeping the country ever since his father was exiled to a desolate town in the middle of nowhere for daring to question the wisdom of trying to industrialize overnight. As a young adult, Soapy and his dorm-mates attend classes, chase girls, and attend endless political meetings, always struggling with the need to maintain a cheerfully patriotic outlook despite that pesky urge to faint from hunger from time to time.

When Big Zhang, an older boy from the provinces, dares to be a nonconformist, openly mocking the system, the dangerous silliness of the day turns to literal, life-or-death danger. The Gunners of Shenyang is at once hilarious, revealing, informative, thought-provoking, and sometimes college-boy vulgar — a memoir of the horrors of the times from a boy still young enough to enjoy himself and a man now wise enough to see the big picture for what it was.

“This dark comedy of Chinese university life in the famished 1960s, based on real events, is like Wild Swans meeting Three Idiots: a book that probably shouldn’t be funny but is. Highly recommended for anyone interested in a ground-level view of those bizarre days.”

Nury Vittachi Author of The Curious Diary of Mr Jam

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