The region needs an international-standard publisher to promote and explain Eastern perspectives to a global audience to complement Asia’s growing power and influence.
Walk into any international airport’s bookstore and, regardless of where you are, you’ll find the same types of books. There will be the one extolling the virtues of the latest American or European business tycoon. Several will debate the first years of US President Donald Trump’s White House. One will discuss technological disruption as viewed by Western experts. There will be several thick volumes about the first or second world wars, redescribing the victories of the Allies.
When you find a non-Western topic on a bookshelf, the book is invariably written by a Western writer (not to belittle the good writing or research that went into it).
This array of books offers slim pickings for non-Western customers or those interested in more global perspectives. The airport bookstore is the most visible representation of how little the cultural conversation deals with Asia. “Best of” lists from mainstream publications rarely feature books about Asia written by Asians.
The blinkers extend upwards to the highest levels: the Nobel Prize in Literature, for example, has only been awarded to five authors in Asia, and to no Indian author since 1913.
This sadly reflects a world where the wealth of non-Western knowledge and perspectives goes unrecognised and unpublished. This is not just a tragedy, but a practical problem, given the region’s growing prominence in world affairs. Asia, and indeed the world, needs other sources of knowledge to balance what is written in the West. Either Western publishers should recognise this opportunity for new ideas and customers – or Asia must give birth to its own group of publishers.
Asia does not have an international commercial publisher focused on the Asia market as a whole. Such a publisher would not just sell Western books to Asian readers, or sell Asian books to Westerners, but would also sell Asian books to Asian readers to knit together a truly “pan-Asian” reading audience.