Writer and editor focused on China. Editor, https://xitter.cf/t.co/pdWqljgc75. Senior fellow, Asia Society. Author, ‘Wish Lanterns’ and ‘The Mountains Are High’
New York, NY
Joined January 2011
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Thrilled to make it onto NPR's list of their best books of 2024. "In this beautifully written book, Ash introduces us to [urban escapees in rural China]. They fittingly call Dali “Dalifornia,” for its chilled vibes, California-like good weather and picturesque mountains."
apps.npr.org/best-books/#yea…
Fascinating story from Emily Feng's new book
After 14 years of war in Syria, Damascus fell to the rebels in December 2024. Fighting with them was a small but critical cohort of Uyghurs, who had fled China and joined the battle. But once the war was won, could they find a home so far from their homeland?
Read an excerpt from Emily Feng's new book "Our Hearts Burned for Home": chinabooksreview.com/2026/10…
"Relying on Shen Fu to resolve the Diaoyu Islands question is a bit like enlisting Dickens’ character Mr. Micawber to navigate Brexit."
A Qing dynasty failson’s memoir of genteel poverty, parties and potting soil was rediscovered in a Suzhou book stall in 1874 and remains one of China’s favorite love stories.
Read Jeremiah Jenne on Shen Fu's "Six Records of a Floating Life," his latest pick in The China Archive column: chinabooksreview.com/2026/09…
"China’s prison camp system was made up of a bewildering archipelago of penal facilities at almost every level of government in every part of the country."
In 1991, a CBS investigation into China’s reform-through-labor camps shocked the world, exposing how prison-made goods were being exported to the U.S. Three decades later, camps like it still exist.
Read the excerpt from Orville Schell's new book "Inside China's Secret Prisons": chinabooksreview.com/2026/09…
Alec Ash retweeted
We recommend five books from China that deserve more recognition, from an internet novel about the fashion industry to a star reporter’s study of how Germany reckoned with its wartime past.
Read Na Zhong's latest "What China's Reading" column: chinabooksreview.com/2026/09…
Alec Ash retweeted
Join us for a panel discussion on Oct 15 at Asia Society with Jianying Zha, Li Yuan and Orville Schell, on occasion of the publication of his book "Inside China's Secret Prisons," that examines how China's turbulent political history has shaped the way Chinese people understand authority, each other, and themselves.
Use code CBR15 for half-price tickets, as a China Books Review reader: asiasociety.org/center-us-ch…
Interesting piece on how China essentially exported SEZs (and colonial extraterritoriality) to Ethiopia
Beijing is investing heavily in Ethiopia, helping to run Special Economic Zones similar to China's own. But African workers are questioning whether the states of legal exception and national indignity that it creates are worth the development it brings.
Read Hannah Borenstein’s review of "Immunity on Trial" and "Made in Ethiopia": chinabooksreview.com/2026/09…
Alec Ash retweeted
The veteran literary translator John Minford tells us how his collection ballooned, why his library is called “Three Dog Hall,” and how New Zealand pine is the best shelving material.
Read the latest My China Bookshelf column: chinabooksreview.com/2026/09…
I’ve been through that border crossing, it’s a big building. We are truly living in a disaster movie cnn.com/2026/08/26/world/vid…
Alec Ash retweeted
Here's Henry Kissinger introducing Mao Zedong to his wife Nancy, who just passed away on August 20, 2026. Mao was stunned by how tall she was!
Full newsreel: youtube.com/watch?v=91oPGzaF…
I’ve been through that border crossing, it’s a big building, just unbelievable to see it overwhelmed with water. We live in disaster movie times cnn.com/2026/08/26/world/vid…
I’ve been through that border crossing, it’s a big building, just unbelievable to see it overrun with floods cnn.com/2026/08/26/world/vid…
Alec Ash retweeted
Precedent-setting moment in news media. The editor of the second most important opinion page in the country greenlights the use of AI for drafting pieces, no disclosure necessary.
If you're in San Francisco on Aug 20, come join this:
Executive Roundtable with Alec Ash | Asia Society asiasociety.org/northern-cal…
The CBR game! Vibe-coded by @alexludoboyd. Click the drop-down for past issues. This one is a real deep cut for the China book nerds out there..
We made a game! Test your China knowledge by seeing if you can match a book we reviewed with a quote we pulled from it — if you need a hint, read the reviews 😉
Play now: chinabooksreview.com/game/
On the 37th anniversary of Tiananmen, read this amazing piece by Yangyang Cheng for CBR, who read almost a dozen novels about Tiananmen to argue how the facts of history are getting distorted by fiction and diasporic imagination: chinabooksreview.com/2026/06…
My Chinese book talk about "reverse migration" from city to countryside is up online:【纽约文化沙龙】第240期：大理福尼亚：嬉皮士的躺平之都，士绅化的网红农场？youtube.com/watch?v=CPSYpOqG…
本周日中文讲座（纽约文化沙龙）luma.com/sgt4ig3l
Alec Ash retweeted
A new documentary on young Chinese men’s romantic struggles shows the underbelly of a society where the winners take all.
Read Karen Ma's review of the new documentary The Dating Game: chinabooksreview.com/2026/05…
I talked to Daniel A. Bell about whether today's China learns lessons from the old thinkers (his take: yes; my take: erm)
Ancient Chinese Politics with Daniel Bell
The Legalists and Confucians still run the show in today’s China, argues a scholar of classical Chinese thought — but the Mohists and Daoists still have a voice in the debate.
Listen to the podcast: chinabooksreview.com/2026/05…
Alec Ash retweeted
Congratulations to Yiyun Li for winning the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Memoir, for her book "Things in Nature Merely Grow": pulitzer.org/winners/yiyun-l…
Take the chance to re-read Taili Ni's profile of Yiyun Li, back in 2024 (before that winning book was conceived): chinabooksreview.com/2024/03…