Robert H. Abel
Robert H. Abel is a USA-based writer who writes frequently on subjects related to China. He has published three novels (including Riding a Tiger) and three collections of stories.
Crossing by Andrew Xia Fukuda
ROBERT H. ABEL | 28 April 2010Given the attention in the US press these days to the problem of bullying in high schools, this novel -- runner up in Amazon's 2009 Breakthrough Contest -- could not be more timely, nor indeed, more suitable for a particular audience, that of young adults. In addition, it is beautifully written and has a plot that will scare your pants off. With the events of Columbine High School and even the tragedies at Virginia Technical... [ more ]
The Merry Mysogynist by Colin Cotterrill
ROBERT H. ABEL | 09 March 2010I've come late to COLIN COTTERRILL's series of novels featuring the elderly Lao coroner and man-about-Vientiane, Siri Paiboun, but if THE MERRY MYSOGYNIST is anything like the previous five novels, they must be quite a party. In this novel, Cotterrill juggles four or five subplots while dishing up a main entree of a psychopathic seducer who preys on women of marriageable age and limited means.
Hotel China by SCC Overton and Edmund Price (eds.) / Hong Kong Writers Circle
ROBERT H. ABEL | 26 January 2010Readers who love Hong Kong or at least have a strong interest in it should get hip to a series of books that have been written by and published by the Hong Kong Writers Circle. Each is a compilation of twenty or more stories that center on a shared theme -- Sweat and the City, Hong Kong Whodunnits, Haunting Tales, Love and Lust, and most recently, HOTEL CHINA. All take advantage of Hong Kong's special blend of... [ more ]
Beijing Coma by Ma Jian
ROBERT H. ABEL | 02 August 2008While in some ways a tedious and exasperating novel, BEIJING COMA is in many more ways amazing, engrossing and -- in the final analysis -- important.
Dai Wei has been slammed into a coma by a gunshot wound to the head in Tiananmen Square on June 4th 1989. His main in the demonstrations had been "chief of security", tasked with protecting key student leaders and especially their broadcasting... [ more ]
The Feng Shui Detective Goes South by Nury Vittachi
ROBERT H. ABEL | 08 May 2002C. F. Wong, feng shui expert, geomancer, detective, Cantonese speaker with only a fair grasp of English, is once again involved in a tangled web of mysteries in THE FENG SHUI DETECTIVE GOES SOUTH, that require his special brand of sleuthing -- and good fortune -- to solve.
This time around he has an office in Singapore, but his adventures eventually land him in Sydney and, in fact, on the roof of Sydney's famed opera... [ more ]
Embracing Defeat by John W. Dower
ROBERT H. ABEL | 21 October 2001One of the many unfortunate effects of the recent murderous attacks on the USA has been to take U. S. -- Asia relations off the front pages and hurl us back into the 11th Century -- albeit an 11th century with U. S. Stinger missiles, Russian tanks, and nuclear weapons in the shadows.
It is also interesting to note that attempts by U. S. journalists to make sense of the calamity -- how and why did this... [ more ]
The Missionary and the Libertine by Ian Buruma
ROBERT H. ABEL | 07 September 2001As I was reading this invigorating collection of essays, by coincidence I had two magazines on hand with articles by the same author. One, in the New York Review of Books, where IAN BURUMA frequently publishes, is about the English novelist and political scam artist, Jeffrey Archer; the other, in the New York Times Magazine, compares Russian democratic reforms with economic reforms in China. The range of... [ more ]
Lipstick, and Other Stories by Alex Kuo
ROBERT H. ABEL | 03 July 2001At the conclusion of one of ALEX KUO's remarkable stories, the author/narrator provides the reader with a "purge kit" which can be used to obtain the documentary evidence behind the story "if history is the only way you have of approaching truth."
