The definitive Anglo-Indian dictionary has been posted online by the University of Chicago's Digital South Asia project. This is a real joy... Hours of fun. Some places to start:

shampoo, pajamas, pundit, cashmere, veranda, pariah, thug, cummerbund, rattan, shawl, loot, punch, jungle, khaki, calico, cushy, dinghy, dungaree, juggernaut, bungalow, bandana, toddy, chintz

Thanks to Amardeep Singh of Lehigh University.

Pick of the week last month, but we just received our copy today.

«Goenawan Mohamad has been at odds with the prevailing powers in Indonesia almost since his birth. His father was executed by Dutch occupying forces in 1947; when in his 20s Mohamad was denounced by the Indonesian Community Party and fled to Europe. The magazine, Tempo, which he founded in 1971, was banned by Soeharto’s regime in 1984. Under Soeharto, he developed an oblique and allegorical style of writing to avoid censorship. Unlike most opinion pieces, Mohamad’s essays written for Tempo are tantalisingly subtle and nuanced. Instead of easy outrage at the murder of a girl by her Palestinian father, Mohamad approaches this tragedy through a contemplation of the notions of “difference” and “sameness”. This tension between the “I” and the “not I” is teased out in another essay about monotheistic fundamentalism and its need to crush the “other”. Like all good essayists, Mohamad is more interested in meditating on the complexities of modern multicultural societies than offering up simplistic solutions.»

- Fiona Capp, Review, The Age, July 23, 2005

Conversations with Difference is published by Tempo, Indonesia, but distributed in rest of Asia and Australia by Singapore University Press.

Technorati Tags: literaryreviews

Yesterday the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies hosted a very nice "evening with Jomo" which was an opportunity to launch Malaysian 'Bail Outs'? Capital Controls, Restructuring and Recovery and After the Storm: Crisis, Recovery and Sustaining Development in Four East Asian Economies, both recently published by Singapore University Press. In addition, ISEAS took the opportunity to launchReforming Corporate Governance in Southeast Asia: Economics, Politics and Regulations, Ho Khai Leong (editor).

Jomo spoke on his overall research projects and direction, and fielded questions, among them "now that you have become a UN bureaucrat does it mean you will stop thinking...".

Many thanks to Director Kesavapany for hosting a lovely evening. NUS Publishing brought the wine...

Sample a bit of this extraordinary life story through excerpts posted online. Says Insun Sony Mustapha, Mustapha Husain's daughter who translated his memoirs, they were "written in 1976 when he was 66 years old and 31 years after World War II ended. Despite his feeble health and long years of silence, these episodes of his life remained vivid in his mind..." NUS Publishing is distributing this book outside Malaysia on behalf of Malaysian publisher Utusan Publications & Distributors Sdn Bhd.