Asian fiction (2)
Explore the best Asian fiction books with our curated list of captivating novels. Discover top-rated stories from Japan, China, Korea, and more—perfect for fans of Asian literature and culture.
Book
The Red Queen
by Margaret Drabble
"After a brief, intense, and ill-fated love affair, she returns to London. Is she ensnared by the events of the past week, of the past two hundred years, or will she pick up her life where she left it?"--BOOK JACKET.
Book
Red Sorghum
by Mo Yan
A story of Northeast Gaomi Township narrated omnisciently by a young man at the end of the cultural revolution.
Book
The Tale of Murasaki
by Liza Dalby
The Tale of Murasaki is an elegant and brilliantly authentic historical novel by the author of Geisha and the only Westerner ever to have become a geisha. In the eleventh century Murasaki Shikibu wrote the world’s first novel, The Tale of Genji, the most popular work in the history of Japanese literature. In The Tale of Murasaki, Liza Dalby has created a breathtaking fictionalized narrative of the life of this timeless poet–a lonely girl who becomes such a compelling storyteller that she is invited to regale the empress with her tales. The Tale of Murasaki is the story of an enchanting time and an exotic place. Whether writing about mystical rice fields in the rainy mountains or the politics and intrigue of the royal court, Dalby breathes astonishing life into ancient Japan.
Book
Shadow Theatre
by Fiona Cheong
Alone and pregnant, Shakilah Nair has returned to Singapore after a fifteen-year exile. Her story is one of passion and violence, set in a world shared with ghosts, vampires, and other spirits.
Book
The Rice Mother
by Rani Manicka
At the age of fourteen, Lakshmi leaves behind her childhood among the mango trees of Ceylon for married life across the ocean in Malaysia, and soon finds herself struggling to raise a family in a country that is, by turns, unyielding and amazing, brutal and beautiful. Giving birth to a child every year until she is nineteen, Lakshmi becomes a formidable matriarch, determined to secure a better life for her daughters and sons. From the Japanese occupation during World War II to the torture of watching some of her children succumb to life’s most terrible temptations, she rises to face every new challenge with almost mythic strength. Dreamy and lyrical, told in the alternating voices of the men and women of this amazing family, The Rice Mother gorgeously evokes a world where small pleasures offset unimaginable horrors, where ghosts and gods walk hand in hand. It marks the triumphant debut of a writer whose wisdom and soaring prose will touch readers, especially women, the world over.
Book
Tree of Heaven
by R. C. Binstock
Reminiscent of John Fowles's The Collector and, in its pristine style, of Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day, this extraordinary love story, set against the violence of Japan's invasion of China in the 1930s, is sensitive, impassioned . . . disturbing, perceptive and as contemporary as today (Lois Wheeler Snow, author of Edgar Snow's China).
Book
Dream Jungle
by Jessica Hagedorn
One of Jessica Hagedorn's most daring novels—“a deft and complex tale of corruption, fealty, and integrity” (The Baltimore Sun) In a Philippines of desperate beauty and rank corruption, two seemingly unrelated events occur: the discovery of an ancient lost tribe living in a remote mountainous area and the arrival of a celebrity-studded, American film crew, there to make an epic Vietnam War movie. But the lost tribe may be a clever hoax and the Hollywood movie seems doomed as the cast and crew continue to self-destruct in a cloud of drugs and ego. As the consequences of these events play out, four unforgettable characters—a wealthy, iconoclastic playboy; a woman ensnared in the sex industry; a Filipino-American writer; and a jaded actor—find themselves drawn irrevocably together in this lavish, sensual portrait of a nation in crisis.
Book
The Painter from Shanghai
by Jennifer Cody Epstein
Reminiscent of "Memoirs of a Geisha," this novel is a re-imagining of the life of Pan Yuliang and her transformation from prostitute to post-Impressionist.
Book
The Pearl Diver
by Jeff Talarigo
In 1948, a nineteen-year-old pearl diver's dreams of spending her life combing the waters of Japan’s Inland Sea are shattered when she discovers she has leprosy. By law, she is exiled to an island leprosarium, where she is stripped of her dignity and instructed to forget her past. Her name is erased from her family records, and she is forced to select a new one. To the two thousand patients on the island of Nagashima, she becomes Miss Fuji. Although drugs arrest the course of Miss Fuji's disease, she cannot leave the colony. Instead, she becomes a caretaker to the other patients, and through the example of their courage, she gains insight into the deep wellspring of strength she will need to reclaim her freedom. Written with precision and eloquence, The Pearl Diver is a dazzling meditation on isolation and community, cruelty and compassion.
Book
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
by Lisa See
Lily is haunted by memories–of who she once was, and of a person, long gone, who defined her existence. She has nothing but time now, as she recounts the tale of Snow Flower, and asks the gods for forgiveness. In nineteenth-century China, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication: nu shu (“women’s writing”). Some girls were paired with laotongs, “old sames,” in emotional matches that lasted throughout their lives. They painted letters on fans, embroidered messages on handkerchiefs, and composed stories, thereby reaching out of their isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments. With the arrival of a silk fan on which Snow Flower has composed for Lily a poem of introduction in nu shu, their friendship is sealed and they become “old sames” at the tender age of seven. As the years pass, through famine and rebellion, they reflect upon their arranged marriages, loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their lifelong friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a brilliantly realistic journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as deeply moving as it is sorrowful. With the period detail and deep resonance of Memoirs of a Geisha, this lyrical and emotionally charged novel delves into one of the most mysterious of human relationships: female friendship.
Book
Red Poppies
by Alai
A lively and cinematic twentieth-century epic, Red Poppies focuses on the extravagant and brutal reign of a clan of Tibetan warlords during the rise of Chinese Communism. The story is wryly narrated by the chieftain's son, a self-professed "idiot" who reveals the bloody feuds, seductions, secrets, and scheming behind his family's struggles for power. When the chieftain agrees to grow opium poppies with seeds supplied by the Chinese Nationalists in exchange for modern weapons, he draws Tibet into the opium trade -- and unwittingly plants the seeds for a downfall. A "swashbuckling novel" (New York Times Book Review), Red Poppies is at once a political parable and a moving elegy to the lost kingdom of Tibet in all its cruelty, beauty, and romance.
Book
My Name is Sei Shonagon
by Jan Blensdorf
Having modeled herself after the eleventh-century author of "The Pillow Book," an incense maker recounts the time she lived in America with her fiercely traditional uncle after the death of her parents.
Book
The Tapestries
by Kien Nguyen
- The novel was inspired by the life of the author's grandfather, a tapestry weaver in the last imperial court of Vietnam.- A selection of Minnesota's Talking Volumes book club.- A brilliantly textured historical romance that is sure to be a favorite with reading groups throughout the country.- Hardcover ISBN: 0-316-28441-6
Book
The Girl Who Played Go
by Shan Sa
As the Japanese military invades 1930s Manchuria, a young girl approaches her own sexual coming of age. Drawn into a complex triangle with two boys, she distracts herself from the onslaught of adulthood by playing the game of go with strangers in a public square--and yet the force of desire, like the occupation, proves inevitable. Unbeknownst to the girl who plays go, her most worthy and frequent opponent is a Japanese soldier in disguise. Captivated by her beauty as much as by her bold, unpredictable approach to the strategy game, the soldier finds his loyalties challenged. Is there room on the path to war for that most revolutionary of acts: falling in love?
Book
The Gift of Rain
by Tan Twan Eng
Penang, 1939. Sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton is a loner. Half English, half Chinese and feeling neither, he discovers a sense of belonging in an unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip shows his new friend around his adored island of Penang, and in return Endo trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. The enigmatic Endo is bound by disciplines of his own and when the Japanese invade Malaya, threatening to destroy Philip¿s family and everything he loves, he realises that his trusted sensei, to whom he owes absolute loyalty, has been harbouring a devastating secret. Philip must risk everything in an attempt to save those he has placed in mortal danger and discover who and what he really is. With masterful and gorgeous narrative, replete with exotic and captivating images, sounds and aromas of rain swept beaches, magical mountain temples, pungent spice warehouses, opulent colonial ballrooms and fetid and forbidding rainforests. Tan Twan Eng weaves a haunting and unforgettable story of betrayal, barbaric cruelty, steadfast courage and enduring love.
Book
Waiting
by Ha Jin
Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award • National Book Award Winner • Pulitzer Prize Finalist • A New York Times Notable Book From the widely acclaimed author—a rich and atmospheric novel about a man living in two worlds, struggling with the conflicting claims of two utterly different women. The demands of human longing contend with the weight of centuries of custom in acclaimed author Ha Jin’s Waiting, a novel of unexpected richness and universal resonance. Every summer Lin Kong, a doctor in the Chinese Army, returns to his village to end his loveless arranged marriage with the humble and touchingly loyal Shuyu. But each time Lin must return to the city to tell Manna Wu, the educated, modern nurse he loves, that they will have to postpone their engagement once again. Caught between the conflicting claims of these two utterly different women and trapped by a culture in which adultery can ruin lives and careers, Lin has been waiting for eighteen years. This year, he promises will be different. "Ha Jin profoundly understands the conflict between the individual and society, between the timeless universality of the human heart and constantly shifting politics of the moment. With wisdom, restraint, and empathy for all his characters, he vividly reveals the complexities and subtleties of a world and a people we desperately need to know."—Judges' Citation, National Book Award
Book
Cloud of Sparrows
by Takashi Matsuoka
In 1861, after centuries of isolation, Japan finally has opened its doors to the West, and Lord Genji, a young nobleman with a gift for prophecy, joins forces with a group of Christian missionaries, a mysterious geisha, and a legendary swordsman to embark on a harrowing odyssey toward an ultimate battle. A first novel. Reprint.
Book
The Binding Chair
by Kathryn Harrison
In poised and elegant prose, Kathryn Harrison weaves a stunning story of women, travel, and flight; of love, revenge, and fear; of the search for home and the need to escape it. Set in alluring Shanghai at the turn of the century, The Binding Chair intertwines the destinies of a Chinese woman determined to forget her past and a Western girl focused on the promises of the future.
Book
The Serpent's Children
by Laurence Yep
When villagers call Cassia and her brother, Foxfire, "the serpent's children," they mean it as an insult. But to Cassia it is an honor, for legend says that once a serpent sets her mind on something, she never gives up. And in a time when famine, drought, and violence mark her family's life, Cassia has nothing less than survival to fight for. Their father is a revolutionary, determined to free China from invaders. Foxfire, certain he'll find a mountain of gold, flees to a faraway land. Cassia will need all of her strength and wisdom to keep her family together, and to prove that she is truly the serpent's child.
Book
The Drink and Dream Tea House
by Justin Hill
From a spellbinding storyteller comes a highly original, inventive novel that transports us to another world. In the small Chinese town of Shaoyang, times are changing rapidly, and the villagers are struggling to keep up with a China that has transformed radically not only since 1949 but since 1989 and the turbulent days of the protests of Tiananmen Square. The colorful array of characters in this touching, funny and memorable novel come from various generations and all corners of the village -- like Madame Fan, who sings opera from her balcony each morning and is trying to marry off her young daughter Peach, and Da Shan, who has returned home with newfound wealth from the big city to a town he no longer recognizes. Justin Hill has written a beautiful, utterly memorable, and tender story about the clash of the old world and the new.
Book
The Noodle Maker
by Jian Ma
A satirical novel exploring the absurdities and cruelties of society in post-Tiananmen China. Journeys into the world of individuals whose lives are controlled, shaped, and beaten by politics and fate.
Book
The Scent of the Gods
by Fiona Cheong
The Scent of the Gods tells the enchanting, haunting story of a young girl's coming of age in Singapore during the tumultuous years of its formation as a nation. Eleven-year-old Su Yen bears witness to the secretive lives of "grown-ups" in her diasporic Chinese family and to the veiled threats in Southeast Asia during the Cold War years. From a child's limited perspective, the novel depicts the emerging awareness of sexuality in both its beauty and its consequences, especially for women. In the context of postcolonial politics, Fiona Cheong skilfully parallels the uncertainties of adolescence with the growing paranoia of a population kept on alert to communist infiltration. In luminous prose, the novel raises timely questions about safety, protection, and democracy—and what one has to give up to achieve them. Ideal for students and scholars of Asian American and transnational literature, postcolonial history, women's studies, and many other interconnected disciplines, this special edition of The Scent of the Gods includes a contextualizing introduction, a chronology of historical events covered in the novel, and explanatory notes. Fiona Cheong is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of the novel Shadow Theatre. Leslie Bow is a professor of English and Asian American studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the author of Partly Colored: Asian Americans and Racial Anomaly in the Segregated South.
Book
The Fat Man's Daughter
by Caroline Petit
Hong Kong, 1937. Orphaned at the age of 19 by the sudden death of her father, a shady Hong Kong dealer in antiquities, Leah Kolbe finds that she has also been left penniless. She is approached by a Mr. Chang who claims to have known her father and offers her a commission to go to Manchukuo to smuggle out Chinese Imperial treasure and the Chief Eunuch. The trip is perilous, through besieged Nanking and by sampan across the South China Sea. It is not until she returns home that Leah realises that she has become a woman with a country of one. Now in pb.
Book
Native Speaker
by Chang-rae Lee
ONE OF THE ATLANTIC’S GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS OF THE PAST 100 YEARS The debut novel from critically acclaimed and New York Times–bestselling author of On Such a Full Sea and My Year Abroad. In Native Speaker, author Chang-rae Lee introduces readers to Henry Park. Park has spent his entire life trying to become a true American—a native speaker. But even as the essence of his adopted country continues to elude him, his Korean heritage seems to drift further and further away. Park's harsh Korean upbringing has taught him to hide his emotions, to remember everything he learns, and most of all to feel an overwhelming sense of alienation. In other words, it has shaped him as a natural spy. But the very attributes that help him to excel in his profession put a strain on his marriage to his American wife and stand in the way of his coming to terms with his young son's death. When he is assigned to spy on a rising Korean-American politician, his very identity is tested, and he must figure out who he is amid not only the conflicts within himself but also within the ethnic and political tensions of the New York City streets. Native Speaker is a story of cultural alienation. It is about fathers and sons, about the desire to connect with the world rather than stand apart from it, about loyalty and betrayal, about the alien in all of us and who we finally are.
Book
Musashi
by 吉川英治
Musashi Miyamoto fights in 1600 for the losing side of the battle at Sekigahara when the Tokugawa Shogunate begins its reign.
Book
Women of the Silk
by Gail Tsukiyama
Spanning the years between the world wars, this tale of a young Chinese girl forced to work in a silk factory describes the sisterhood of workers she discovers there.
Book
駱駝祥子
by 老舍
Renowned for his absurdist re-visioning of the world and experimentation with the techniques of humour in his writings, Lao She has written about most major historical events in modern China. In his masterpiece Camel Xiangzi, he reveals his prophetic vision of the future of China. The novel depicts the life of Xiangzi, a young rickshaw-puller in Beijing, who fails to improve his life no matter how hard he works. When innocent people's hopes are destroyed, they are awakened to the truth that they are but playthings of fate, which is a Chinese concept for the unnameable in life's absurdities. The novel demonstrates the techniques of bitter humour Lao She employs in his portrayal of characters, who are caught in the endless social turmoil in the 1930s. The novel's socio-historical dimensions have made it a widely used text for the cultural analysis of modern China. Book jacket.
Book
The Red Thread
by Nicholas Jose
Set in contemporary Shanghai, this elegant and seductive love story revolves around Shen, an art appraiser, and Ruth, a young Australian woman, who find their lives strangely mirrored in "Six Chapters of a Floating Life, " an actual centuries-old Chinese manuscript that is missing the final chapters. Two-color.
Book
The Three-Inch Golden Lotus
by Feng Jicai
This beguiling story is woven around the life of Fragrant Lotus, who has her feet bound in the supreme Golden Lotus style when she is six years old. Events in Fragrants Lotus’ life twist and unfold in a series of witty and often wicked ironies, obliterating easy distinctions between kindness and cruelty, history and fable, forgery and authentic work. The novel’s waggish narrator exists in the tension between judgement and description, wryly deflating his reader’s certainties along the way. Written in 1985, The Three-Inch Golden Lotus is a deeply affecting, thoroughly enjoyable literary revelation.
Book
Four Reigns
by Kukrit Pramoj (M.R.)
M.R. Kukrit Pramoj (1911-1995) was a phenomenon. He achieved distinction in the fields of politics, classical dance drama, and literature, while also even appearing in the Hollywood version of The Ugly American playing opposite Marlon Brando.
Book
The Woman Warrior
by Maxine Hong Kingston
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An exhilarating blend of autobiography and mythology, of world and self, of hot rage and cool analysis. First published in 1976, it has become a classic in its innovative portrayal of multiple and intersecting identities—immigrant, female, Chinese, American. • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER “A classic, for a reason.” —Celeste Ng, bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere and Our Missing Hearts, via Twitter As a girl, Kingston lives in two confounding worlds: the California to which her parents have immigrated and the China of her mother’s “talk stories.” The fierce and wily women warriors of her mother’s tales clash jarringly with the harsh reality of female oppression out of which they come. Kingston’s sense of self emerges in the mystifying gaps in these stories, which she learns to fill with stories of her own. A warrior of words, she forges fractured myths and memories into an incandescent whole, achieving a new understanding of her family’s past and her own present.
Book
The Last Time I Saw Mother
by Arlene J. Chai
"AN OFTEN LYRICAL AND ALWAYS TOUGH-MINDED DEBUT . . . Provides rare insight into the three cultures--Spanish, Chinese, and Filipino--that coexist in the Philippines." --The New York Times Book Review Caridad's mother never writes. So when a letter arrives for her in Sydney from Manila, Caridad doesn't even recognize her mother's handwriting. There is more distance than just miles between the two women. And that is why Caridad is called home. Her mother needs to talk. And to reveal a secret that has been weighing heavily on her for years. As Caridad hears at last the unspoken stories, and the never forgotten tragedy of the war years, she will learn a startling truth that will change her life forever. For Caridad is not who she thinks she is. . . . "Beautifully written . . . Reading each chapter is like having a conversation with a close friend." --Chicago Tribune "A sensitive . . . portrait of a family of Filipina women . . . The novel illuminates much modern Philippine history." --The Boston Globe
Book
Green River Daydreams
by Heng Liu
The author of Black Snow serves up an epic novel of forbidden romance and political turmoil in early 20th-century China.