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You can find it on bookshelves in New York City, London, Singapore and Sydney. It's a sponsor of literary festivals in Ubud on Bali and Hay-on-Wye in Wales. And it's distributed in 250 Barnes & Noble stores across the U.S. The Asia Literary Review (ALR) — a slick, expensive-looking quarterly magazine of writing from and about Asia — has come far since its early print runs of just a few hundred copies, when it was so little known that it struggled to attract enough content.

What began in 1999 as a Hong Kong journal of prose and poetry known as Dim Sum — a part-time labor of love produced, somewhat intermittently, by Hong Kong author Nury Vittachi — took on a new lease of life when, in late 2006, U.K.-based banker and arts patron Ilyas Khan bought out the publication. He restyled it as the ALR, publishing it under the umbrella of his Asia-focused literary publishing agency and film-production business, Creative Work. "We purposely decided not to restrict ourselves to Hong Kong," says Khan, previously a director of the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival and a former Hong Kong resident who has a penchant for collecting rare editions of George Gissing and Henry James. "Our objective was to do things properly, on a much bigger, broader scale ... [and] publish an Asian literary journal that competes globally and is available globally."

Khan and his partners, who include former Granta editor Ian Jack, first had to lay down the journal's parameters. "The concept of Asia is tricky because it's an idea as much as a geographical area," says Chris Wood, who took on the role of the ALR's editor in chief in 2007. "We asked ourselves, Can we actually call ourselves the Asia Literary Review? What are our boundaries? Do we include Constantinople, Australia? Do we limit ourselves to Asians writing about Asia?" In the end, the ALR decided not to opt for a mission statement but to keep its remit as broad and diverse as the continent it seeks to represent. "The upshot is, we want to offer a glimpse of Asia through writing," says Wood. "The best of Asian writing, by both established names and a new generation of writers."

The result is an unabashed miscellany that delights in its own variety: its 200-odd pages span the breadth of fiction, reportage, memoir, travel writing, polemic and even photography. Wood says the magazine will eventually produce themed issues, but for now, readers can expect the unexpected. Dip into recent copies and you'll find them packed with everything from poetry by Margaret Atwood to a photo-essay on the Mumbai bombings to experimental short fiction by emerging Singaporean writer O Thiam Chin.

There are plenty of Asian voices that might otherwise remain unheard. "Without the ALR it would be impossible, unless you had a really a deep interest in a certain country, to read many of these authors," says Montreal-based Filipino author Miguel Syjuco, who had never been published internationally until his short story "Leaves in the Rain: Redux" first came to light in an ALR issue. (His unpublished novel Ilustrado won the Man Asian Literary Prize last year.) "It's opened up a channel," he says. "It's like the Panama Canal."

The traffic that the ALR generates is lured not only by the possible shortcut to renown, but also by the fact that the magazine pays unexpectedly well. "Nobody writes for love," insists Khan. "Writing is a profession, and it's just as important as any other art or form of expression. We pay the going rate." Wood backs him up. "We can pay a fee that will encourage writers," he says, "and if we can put them in a journal alongside better-known names that's a great encouragement. In the past, many Asian authors have found it difficult to see a future in writing. Perhaps now they can see the road ahead."

• Lara Day
• A small Hong Kong – based journal is creating opportunities for writers across Asia and beyond