ArtReview Asia's 2020 Lockdown Reading List Features Asian-American Trauma, Manga Masterpieces, and Book Preservation

ArtReview Asia's year-end reading guide for lockdown features six notable publications spanning diverse themes. Johanna Hedva's 'Minerva The Miscarriage of the Brain' collects a decade of writings on mysticism and motherhood from the Korean-American multidisciplinary artist, whose 2016 'Sick Woman Theory' manifesto has gained renewed relevance. Yoshiharu Tsuge's manga collection 'The Swamp' introduces English readers to the postwar Japanese master's bleak, enigmatic stories through Drawn & Quarterly's planned seven-volume anthology. Shubigi Rao's 'Pulp II: A Visual Bibliography of the Banished Book' documents global efforts to protect books and libraries, winning the 2020 Singapore Literature Prize for Creative Non-fiction. Cathy Park Hong's essay collection 'Minor Feelings' examines Asian-American racial trauma with poetic language and cultural criticism. Muhammad Haji Salleh's translation of 'The Genealogy of Kings' provides access to the fifteenth-sixteenth century Malay historical text about the Malacca Sultanate. The list includes works addressing chronic illness, postwar poverty, cultural preservation, racial identity, and pre-colonial history.