SOUTHEAST ASIA: The Word ‘Kitaab’ Can Mean ‘Book’

LMU’s Asia Media writes: Interested in a terrific blog about writers and writing in Asia?  Go to http://kitaab.org.  It favors writers who can write, and writers’ festivals that are more than book conventions. Look up its coverage of the impending Singapore Fall Writers Festival.

Kitaab, we are told by the site, means “book” in many Asian languages, and was founded in 2005 by journalist and writer Zafar Anjum as a space to celebrate and critique Asian writing in English. As the site tells us: “The revamped website was launched in July 2013 with a much stronger focus. Kitaab is curated to avoid information overload which is the curse of the information age. The idea behind Kitaab was to create a link-based information storehouse where the most important stories on Asian writers and writing were carefully curated, so that lovers of Asian writing would have to look no further for the assorted news on their favourite books and writers. All they had to do was to visit Kitaab and quench their thirst for literary news and views.”

For our part, we think this site is one of the most exciting on the web about writers and writing in Asia. And that subject is becoming more salient every year, it seems.

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