Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations Announces China Books Review

NEW YORK, April 3, 2023 — Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations is pleased to announce its new collaboration with The Wire China to create the upcoming China Books Review, an online publication that will  provide information, insight, and intelligent commentary about all things China books-related.

The China Books Review will offer reviews by respected writers, interviews with authors, edited excerpts, and more general essays in the tradition of The New York Review of Books, focusing on books about and from China, as well as the greater Sinophone world. It will also present lists of upcoming China books, bestsellers, book-related events, Chinese titles, China books from the historical archive, and recommendations by China specialists from their own bookshelves.

The China Books Review will provide a wealth of critical commentary, free to access, on books about China and from China, from new publications to archival gems. The China Books Review aims to be an inviting and accessible site for anyone who follows or is curious about China, and seeks to better understand this complex nation at a critical juncture in its history.

This digital magazine, set to launch later this year, is the brainchild of Asia Society Vice President and the Center’s Arthur Ross Director Orville Schell and The Wire China’s Co-Founder David Barboza, a former New York Times Shanghai bureau chief and business correspondent who, during his dozen years based in China, won two Pulitzer Prizes. Barboza and Schell will serve as co-publishers of the China Books Review.

Alec Ash will be the editor of China Books Review. Alec, who recently returned from a decade of living in China, is currently The Wire China’s books editor, and former managing editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books China Channel. He is himself an author, of Wish Lanterns: Young Lives in New China, a BBC Book of the Week, and of the forthcoming The Mountains Are High, a literary nonfiction reported memoir from the valley of Dali in southwest China, following the stories of 'reverse migrants' who moved there from the big cities.

“Books on China have for too long comprised what Sun Yat-sen called ‘a plate of loose sand.’ With the launch of the China Books Review, we hope to create a harbor of refuge for authors of such works," said Schell.

“Our goal is simple: to deliver the finest coverage of books about China, and to produce a digital publication that through its essays, reviews and interviews with authors can help deepen our understanding of a complex and magical part of the world," said Barboza.

The China Book Review’s core team also includes the Center’s Deputy Director Mary Kay Magistad, an award-winning former China correspondent and podcaster, Associate Director for China Programming Bin Ouyang, Assistant Director Jeffrey Sequeira, and Senior Program Officer Taili Ni, who will serve as the Review’s assistant editor. 

Interested in contributing? The China Book Review pays competitively and is looking for:

• Reviews of recent or upcoming books, either about or from China, both short-form (<1000 words) and long-form (>2000 words) engaging with multiple titles.
• Essays that engage with broader ideas and trends, especially those with a focus on culture and society, including reportage from China and the Sinophone world.
• Interviews with authors, thinkers, artists, and other public figures focused on, or from, China, and/or excerpts or multimedia offerings that feature their work.
• Top 10 lists of notable China books (or other media), both recent and from the deeper historical archive, framed around a theme.

For more information, pitches, and inquiries about making submissions to the China Books Review, please write to [email protected].