On A Chinese ScreenMaugham spent the winter months of 1919 20 travelling 1500 miles up the Yangtze River. Always more interested in people than places, he gave full rein to a sensitive and philosophical nature. On a Chinese Screen is the refined accumulation of the countless scraps of paper on which he had taken notes. Within the narrow confines of their colonial milieu, missionaries, consuls, army officers and company managers are all gently ridiculed as they persist

Guess who's

and the journalists who report on them get the scoop despite the danger they find themselves in

Harihar Arora: second-generation north Indian in Madras

general manservant who recited while he served the meals

and the most he can hope for is a polite platonic friendship

Yogiri and Tomochika begin making their way through the Meld Plains

Deep niche deeper

It encompasses all the small stories of Nick and Charlie's lives that together make up something larger

' Anita Desai

traditionally regarded as slow cooking

who can’t wait to show Ryouta how great they look in yukata

who's arrived with the man she wants to marry only to find that a rejected lover is planning to get in the way