The Mekong Review; Mitski; and stop-motion sushi

The Mekong Review aims to be for Southeast Asia what he said The New York Review of Books and The London Review of Books had been since 9/11: ‘brave, trenchant critics of their respective governments.’ It’s a long shot on many levels, not least because it covers a region where English literacy is patchy, postal systems are unreliable and newspapers that are not controlled by governments tend to struggle against censorship and chronic financial constraints. Editor in chief Minh Bui Jones moonlights as a deliveryman when he visits the region.

07 Dec 2018 · Matthew Alampay Davis

Reporting on the Khmer Rouge; Kemba Walker's jumpshot; and NK Jemisin's worldbuilding

I reminded myself regularly that all the adults I met were survivors or former killers, who now had to try to live with what they had seen or done. Almost everyone, survivor or killer, had lost family members. They carried around inside themselves millions of tiny worlds of suffering.

01 Dec 2018 · Matthew Alampay Davis