Category: 2026 Entries
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Call for abstractsCha: An Asian Literary Journal Workshop Hong Kong & Ireland:Interwoven Histories, Shared Languages, & Connected Futures Format: Virtual Dates of workshop: TO BE CONFIRMED (July 2026) Workshop focus: This symposium invites proposals that place Hong Kong and Ireland…
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS Editor’s note: Aastha Uprety’s essay reads Jia Zhangke’s Still Life and Razan AlSalah’s A Stone’s Throw as twin elegies of engineered upheaval, where dams and pipelines reorder earth and memory. Through…
![[ESSAY] “Energies of Displacement: Transformation in Jia Zhangke’s 𝑆𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝐿𝑖𝑓𝑒 and Razan AlSalah’s 𝐴 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑒’𝑠 𝑇ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑤”by Aastha Uprety](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/energies-of-displacement-transformation-in-jia-zhangkes-still-life-and-razan-alsalahs-a-stones-throw-by-aastha-uprety.png?w=935)
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[REVIEW] “𝐾𝑎𝑟𝑏𝑎𝑙𝑎 and the Ethics of Resistance: Premchand’s Vision of Communal Harmony” by Fathima M
茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [REVIEW] “Karbala and the Ethics of Resistance: Premchand’s Vision of Communal Harmony” by Fathima M Premchand (author), Haris Qadeer and Sami Rafiq (translators), Karbala, Sahitya Akademi, 2023. 232 pgs. The tragedy…
![[REVIEW] “𝐾𝑎𝑟𝑏𝑎𝑙𝑎 and the Ethics of Resistance: Premchand’s Vision of Communal Harmony” by Fathima M](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/02smpremchand-removebg-preview.png?w=494)
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Editor’s note: Anna Nguyen’s essay “A Dead Language” turns on an offhand slight, “No one speaks Vietnamese,” and worries it into grief, form, and theory. Between a father’s aphasic silence and a mother’s nightly monologues, Vietnamese persists. English, institutional and…
![[ESSAY] “A Dead Language” by Anna Nguyen](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/anna-nguyen.jpg?w=933)
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All entries on SUNDANCE 2026 [SUNDANCE 2026] “Josef Kubota Wladyka’s Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!: A Bird, a Body, and the Illusion of Depth” by Nirris Nagendrarajah Josef Kubota Wladyka (director), Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!, 2026. 122 min. In Ha-Chan, Shake…
![[SUNDANCE 2026] “Josef Kubota Wladyka’s 𝐻𝑎-𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑛, 𝑆ℎ𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝐵𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑦!: A Bird, a Body, and the Illusion of Depth” by Nirris Nagendrarajah](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image.png?w=1000)
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All entries on SUNDANCE 2026 [SUNDANCE 2026] “Rafael Manuel’s Filipiñana: Beneath the Manicured Surface” by Nirris Nagendrarajah Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Filipiñana. Rafael Manuel (director), Filipiñana, 2026. 100 min. A successful short does not necessarily yield a successful feature. One…
![[SUNDANCE 2026] “Rafael Manuel’s Filipiñana: Beneath the Manicured Surface” by Nirris Nagendrarajah](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image-1.png?w=1000)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “What We Keep: Memory, Migration, and Survival in M Lin’s The Memory Museum” by Susan Blumberg-Kason M Lin, The Memory Museum, Graywolf Press. 2026. 272 pgs. Nostalgia is a…
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “What We Keep: Memory, Migration, and Survival in M Lin’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑀𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑢𝑚” by Susan Blumberg-Kason](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/memory-museum-m-lin-cha-asian.jpg?w=1000)
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All entries on SUNDANCE 2026 [SUNDANCE 2026] “Wounded Souls in Stephanie Ahn’s Bedford Park” by Nirris Nagendrarajah Stephanie Ahn (director), Bedford Park, 2025. 121 min. I did not like Celine Song’s Past Lives (2023), not for lack of desire to…
![[SUNDANCE 2026] “Wounded Souls in Stephanie Ahn’s 𝐵𝑒𝑑𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑘” by Nirris Nagendrarajah](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/bedford-park.jpg?w=230)
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[SUNDANCE 2026] “Three Perspectives on a Haunting: Vera Miao’s 𝑅𝑜𝑐𝑘 𝑆𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠” by Nirris Nagendrarajah
All entries on SUNDANCE 2026 [SUNDANCE 2026] “Three Perspectives on a Haunting: Vera Miao’s Rock Springs” by Nirris Nagendrarajah Vera Miao (director), Rock Springs, 2026. 97 min. Gracie, played by Aria Kim One leaves Rock Springs with two impressions: that…
![[SUNDANCE 2026] “Three Perspectives on a Haunting: Vera Miao’s 𝑅𝑜𝑐𝑘 𝑆𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠” by Nirris Nagendrarajah](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/rock-springs-cha-nirris.jpg?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: Pál Dániel Levente, a guest of honour at the 2026 Brahmaputra Literature Festival, proposes a poetics of butterflies, stones, and blades. The five poems move within that range. India, New Delhi, Agra, and the Ganges become sites of…
![[ESSAY] “Butterflies, Stones, and Blades” by Pál Dániel Levente](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/shot-by-cerqueira-hemgxmfpsaw-unsplash.jpg?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS Editor’s note: Jonathan Chan reads She Follows No Progression (Wendy’s Subway, 2024), edited by Juwon Jun and Rachel Valinsky, as a collective meditation on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, attending closely to…
![[ESSAY] “Reading the Gap: Indeterminacy, Translation, and Legacy in 𝑆ℎ𝑒 𝐹𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑠 𝑁𝑜 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛” by Jonathan Chan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/she-follows-no-progression-a-theresa-hak-kyung-cha-reader-edited-by-juwon-jun-and-rachel-valinsky.png?w=579)
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Editor’s note: In this reflective essay, Gutierrez Mangansakan II recounts acting on a film by Lav Diaz to examine how Mindanao shapes Diaz’s cinema. Blending personal observation with critical analysis, he argues that the director’s duration, restraint, and resistance to…
![[ESSAY] “In Search of Mindanao in the films of Lav Diaz” by Gutierrez Mangansakan II](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/lav-diaz.webp?w=1024)
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茶 LEEDS茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [LEEDS | REVIEW] “Building Shenzhen from the Ground Up: Sheng Keyi’s Northern Girls” by Todd Foley Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Northern Girls. Sheng Keyi (author), Shelly Bryant (translator), Northern Girls:…
![[LEEDS | REVIEW] “Building Shenzhen from the Ground Up: Sheng Keyi’s 𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝐺𝑖𝑟𝑙𝑠” by Todd Foley](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/https-www.penguin.sgbooknorthern-girls.jpg?w=974)
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Editor’s note: In Gutierrez Mangansakan II’s essay, growing trees in red-clay pots becomes a metaphor for exile, love, and impermanence. Through memories of family, cats, and lost homelands, he reflects on denied inheritance and chosen distance, arguing that care, memory,…
![[ESSAY] “Reflection on Exile, Impermanence, and Red Clay Pots” by Gutierrez Mangansakan II](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/aslan-and-buffy-in-the-dirty-kitchen.jpg?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “On Grief, Diaspora, and Grace Loh Prasad’s The Translator’s Daughter”by Rebekah Chan Click HERE to read all entries in Chaon Translator’s Daughter. Grace Loh Prasad, The Translator’s Daughter, The Ohio State University Press,…
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “On Grief, Diaspora, and Grace Loh Prasad’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟’𝑠 𝐷𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑒𝑟” by Rebekah Chan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/the-translators-daughter.jpg?w=880)
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茶 LEEDS茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [LEEDS | REVIEW] “Primal Energy and Female Defiance in Sheng Keyi’s Northern Girls” by Cuilin Sang Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Northern Girls. Sheng Keyi (author), Shelly Bryant (translator), Northern Girls:…
![[LEEDS | REVIEW] “Primal Energy and Female Defiance in Sheng Keyi’s 𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝐺𝑖𝑟𝑙𝑠” by Cuilin Sang](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/northern-girls-cha.png?w=1024)
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS Editor’s note: Laurehl Onyx B. Cabiles considers the films Big Fish and Little Fish in relation to his father and the Filipino seafood dish kinilaw, using cinema as a lens for…
![[ESSAY] “𝐵𝑖𝑔 𝐹𝑖𝑠ℎ, 𝐿𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝐹𝑖𝑠ℎ, & The Fake Legend of Kinilaw” by Laurehl Onyx B. Cabiles](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/big-fish-little-fish.png?w=940)
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All entries on SUNDANCE 2026 [SUNDANCE 2026] “Visions of a Future Self: Kogonada’s zi” by Nirris Nagendrarajah Kogonada (director), zi, 2025. 199 min. In cinema, whenever I see a shot of the back of a character’s head, I think of…
![[SUNDANCE 2026] “Visions of a Future Self: Kogonada’s 𝑧𝑖” by Nirris Nagendrarajah](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/zi-film-cha-nirris.png?w=702)
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茶 LEEDS茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [LEEDS | REVIEW] “Memory, Fiction, and Subjective Reality in Ge Fei’s A Flock of Brown Birds” by Todd Foley Ge Fei (author), Poppy Toland (translator), Flock of Brown Birds, Penguin…
![[LEEDS | REVIEW] “Memory, Fiction, and Subjective Reality in Ge Fei’s 𝐹𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑘 𝑜𝑓 𝐵𝑟𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝐵𝑖𝑟𝑑𝑠” by Todd Foley](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/poppy-toland.jpg?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: Zalman S. Davis places Xuân Diệu and Huy Cận within Vietnamese literary history shaped by Confucian ethics, French colonial modernity, and revolutionary discipline. The essay reads Thơ Mới poetry as a space where male intimacy could appear through…
![[ESSAY] “Between Confession and Restraint: Queer Intimacy and the Making of Vietnamese Modernist Lyricism in Xuân Diệu and Huy Cận” by Zalman S. Davis](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/xuan-dieu-1916e280931985-and-huy-can.webp?w=700)
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Please click LEEDS to view selected pieces,updated regularly. We are very pleased to announce that we have formed a collaboration with the Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing to republish selected reviews of translated titles from their platform. These reviews…
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Editor’s note: Cha’s long-term contributor Matt Turner introduces 6AMING, his forthcoming poetry book from Antiphony, due in September. In this short essay, he discusses time-stamped automatic writing, no-music influence, not-poetry, underground journals, and resistance to spectacle, surveillance, and institutional validation.…
![[ESSAY] “NO U-TURN—6𝐴𝑀𝐼𝑁𝐺: Themes and Contexts” by Matt Turner](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/matt-turner-6aming-cha-asian.png?w=637)
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Read Matt Turner’s essay “NO U-TURN—6AMING: Themes and Contexts” HERE. [EXCLUSIVE] “Eight Poems from 6AMING” by Matt Turner Photograph © Wang Yin 8:38-3:11 pressed against, side to sidethe shelter—hidden, aggrievedunder a constant temperaturelittle balls of bone and eyerunning around, pouring…
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All entries on SUNDANCE 2026 [SUNDANCE 2026] “‘I Want to Make Films for Teenagers Forever’: A Conversation on BURN” by Nirris Nagendrarajah & Makoto Nagahisa Makoto Nagashia (director), BURN, 2025. 103 min. INTRODUCTION Nirris Nagendrarajah W-w-why do people do what…
![[SUNDANCE 2026] “‘I Want to Make Films for Teenagers Forever’: A Conversation on 𝐵𝑢𝑟𝑛” by Nirris Nagendrarajah & Makoto Nagahisa](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/burn.jpg?w=936)
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Editor’s note: Daniel Gauss treats Prambanan Temple as a ninth-century political technology, where ritual, architecture, and kingship converged to naturalise obedience by embedding rule within Shaivite cosmology. Built by the Sanjaya dynasty as a counter to Borobudur Temple, it functioned…
![[ESSAY] “Prambanan: A Temple in Java that Turned Faith into Obedience” by Daniel Gauss](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/img_20251111_094005.jpg?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: Troy Cabida reflects on his debut poetry collection Neon Manila, exploring queer Filipino-immigrant embodiment, pop music, resistance, as glamour and violence coexist. Some poems from the collection can be found HERE. [ESSAY] “On Neon Manila: A Balancing Act…
![[ESSAY] “On 𝑁𝑒𝑜𝑛 𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑙𝑎: A Balancing Act Between Sparkle and Substance” by Troy Cabida](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/img_6830.jpg?w=1024)
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Read Troy Cabida’s essay “On Neon Manila: A Balancing Act Between Sparkle and Substance” HERE. [EXCLUSIVE] “Four Poems from Neon Manila” by Troy Cabida Troy Cabida, Neon Manila, Nine Arches Press, 2025. 72 pgs. Black Turtleneck Sonnet With my first ever…
![[EXCLUSIVE] “Four Poems from 𝑁𝑒𝑜𝑛 𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑙𝑎” by Troy Cabida](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/81b4db7dtkl._sl1500_-1.jpg?w=984)
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Editor’s note: Chris Song offers a rigorous meditation on the Fleurs des lettres Issue 118 cover controversy, where a grieving teenager’s image appeared without consent. Reading the intervention of Hong Kong Readers’ Bookstore, the magazine’s board of directors, and the…
![[ESSAY] “A Face, a Cover, a Failure: Fleurs des lettres Issue 118 Cover Controversy” by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-a-fragment-of-history-a-life-bound-in-dependence-with-the-river-as-kin.png?w=596)
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Editor’s note: Julia Merican reads Lu Lei’s practice through meals, menus, embroidery, and exhibitions, attending to how intimacy operates as both method and politics. From private dinners with strangers to layered textile works, Lu uses food and language to negotiate…
![[ESSAY] “A Seat at the Table: Lu Lei and the Politics of Intimacy” by Julia Merican](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/64901cc90ad6cbfa52190a71-biography_1325594-resize-1920-1234.webp?w=1024)
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Editor’s note: Kathy Nguyen recounts a Vietnamese refugee family’s exploitation by a nameless sponsor, detailing coerced labour, rage, and inherited memory across resettlement landscapes. It condemns capitalism as predatory, sustained by dispossession and silence, while honouring survival resistance. An earlier…
![[ESSAY] “Sweating Labour, Angry Tears” by Kathy Ngoc Nguyen](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/abstract-orange-brushstroke-white-paper.jpg?w=1024)
Cha 