Bryony Lau

Jan 6, 2025 | thebaffler.com | Dylan Levi King |Bryony Lau |Zoe Hu |Reed McConnell

The yen is low, and everybody is coming to Tokyo. If that sounds familiar, it’s not because I’m being coy or hedging my bets; it is the only information to be found in most English-language coverage of Japan’s capital in the aftermath of the pandemic. I can’t stop reading these accounts.

Dec 28, 2023 | thenation.com | Bryony Lau

Books & the Arts / In, Happy Stories, Mostly, a collection of short stories, the complexities of queer life in the Southeast Asian country come into focus. Ad PolicyHappy endings (or beginnings) don’t make for good fiction, as the Indonesian writer Norman Erikson Pasaribu knows well. But Pasaribu doesn’t want to give readers sob stories either, especially about their chosen subject: queer life in Indonesia.

Sep 26, 2023 | thedial.world | Bryony Lau

The vast majority of families who have lost someone in the drug war cannot and do not seek justice through the domestic criminal justice system. Fear, in part, holds them back. The police who killed their relatives are often still present in their communities, according to Jodesz Gavilan, who has been covering the drug war for many years as a reporter at Rappler, the media outlet co-founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and journalist Maria Ressa along with other journalists.

Mar 15, 2023 | lithub.com | Bryony Lau

The first job I ever had was in a small town in northern Quebec, deep in the French-speaking part of Canada, at an astronomy center that had fewer than five visitors each day. There were seven of us on staff. It was before mobile phones, back in the days of analog boredom, when we had three options: read, talk to each other, or stare vacantly into space. The center didn’t need me but my labor wasn’t the point.