According to New Asia Now contributor Sheng Keyi, there is a saying in China: “If a Chinese person wants to learn about China, they have to learn English.” And the author of speculative novel Death Fugue points to the heavy censorship in the Chinese media and publishing industry. Keyi should know, Death Fugue has been banned in mainland China. Many Asian writers have difficulty expressing themselves as a result of either oppression or corruption in their countries. A common atrocity among the nations of Miguel Syjuco, Annie Zaidi, and Sheng Keyi was the levels of corruption in their societies. They each chose to write openly about the dark, and rarely scrutinized, aspects of particular Asian countries. They are all part of New Asia Now, a Griffith Review collection of work from young Asian writers, all born after 1970. It is the journal’s most ambitious edition, according to the Griffith Review editor and session chair, Julianne Schultz. The session began with the three authors reading excerpts of their work, and then they leapt into discussing the …