• Passion – "Unhappiness can be seductive"

    In October last year, we went to see Stephen Sondheim’s 1994 musical Passion (based on Tarchett’s epistolary novel Fosca, written in 1869) at the Donmar Warehouse (as part of the Sondheim at 80 season).1 I am surprised how this production still lingers on…

  • Three Cha contributors named finalists for the 2010 HKU Poetry Prize

    – We are very pleased to announce that Cha contributors W.F. Lantry (Jewel Tones), Jason Lee (Beds in the East and Other Poems) and Ling Hoi Ching (A Seed and a Plant) are three of the five finalists for the inaugural HKU…

  • Nabina Das in The Caravan

    – Nabina Das’s poem “Goodbye to Ballimaran” is now published in The Caravan. Read it here. – Nabina Das’s poetry was published in Issue #10 of Cha. –

  • Why are poor and homeless people in London important?

    In the final paragraph of his London: The Biography (2001), Peter Ackroyd answers:  [W]hen it is asked how London can be a triumphant city when it has so many poor, and so many homeless, it can only be suggested that…

  • Nabina Das in Muse India

    – Nabina Das’s three poems “Tracks to the inner city”, “Meditation sans Prayer” and “Seven-Day Window” are now published in Muse India. Read them here. – Nabina Das’s poetry was published in Issue #10 of Cha. –

  • Boswell and ‘sexual favours’

    In a chapter about London’s sexy life (Chapter 41 “You sexy thing”), Peter Ackroyd relates some of Boswell’s sexual encounters.  Boswell’s diary of street life in 1762 provides an account of sexual favours currently on offer. On the evening of…

  • What is London’s colour?

    Peter Ackroyd in London: The Biography (2001) answers (see below). What is Hong Kong’s colour, I wonder? Red is London’s colour. The cabs of the early nineteenth century were red. The pillar boxes are red. The telephone boxes were, until…

  • Concelebratory Shoehorn Review – The Fourth Anniversary Issue

    The Fourth Anniversary Issue of Concelebratory Shoehorn Review (editor: Maurice Oliver) is now online. It features poetry by Barry Ballard, Cheong Lee San, Kevin Prufer, Corey Cook, John Gallaher, Sandra McPherson and Kelly Norman Ellis; and photography of Milan Malovich…

  • Literary criticism doesn’t matter any more — Where did it all go wrong?

    In his article “So you ‘like’ Hamlet? Sorry, that’s not good enough” in today’s Times (see here), John Sutherland mentions that in the last years of Frank Kermode‘s life, one of the questions that vexed him was ‘Why doesn’t literary criticism…

  • William Shakespeare’s Hamlet

    In his latest book 50 Literature Ideas You Really Need to Know, John Sutherland says this about Hamlet: “Every age interprets the play’s enigmas differently, sometimes wildly so (is Hamlet mad, enquired Oscar Wilde; or merely the critics of Hamlet?).…