China flag Historical fiction books from China

Recommended historical fiction books (10)
Travel the world without leaving your chair. If you are into historical fiction here are some historical fiction books from China for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge.

1.

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers : Stories by Yiyun Li EN

Rating: 4     11 Votes
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
Brilliant and original, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers introduces a remarkable new writer whose breathtaking stories are set in China and among Chinese Americans in the United States. In this rich, astonishing collection, Yiyun Li illuminates how mythology, politics, history, and culture intersect with personality to create fate. From the bustling heart of Beijing, to a fast-food restaurant in Chicago, to the barren expanse of Inner Mongolia, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers reveals worlds both foreign and familiar, with heartbreaking honesty and in beautiful prose. “Immortality,” winner of ... continue
Recommended: 09 Apr 2022

2.
Babel

Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang EN

Rating: 5     3 Votes
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he'll enroll in Oxford Univer... continue

3.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Sijie Dai EN

Rating: 4     1 Vote
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
New York Times Bestseller Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is an enchanting tale that captures the magic of reading and the wonder of romantic awakening. An immediate international bestseller, it tells the story of two hapless city boys exiled to a remote mountain village for re-education during China’s infamous Cultural Revolution. There the two friends meet the daughter of the local tailor and discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation. As they flirt with the seamstress and secretly devour these banned works, the two friends find transit from their grim surrou... continue
Recommended: 09 Apr 2022

4.

Balzac und die kleine chinesische Schneiderin by Sijie Dai DE

Rating: 3     1 Vote
Country: Asia / China flag China
Recommended: 02 Sep 2023

5.
Becoming Madame Mao

Becoming Madame Mao by Anchee Min EN

Rating: 5     1 Vote
Country: Asia / China flag China
Tags: Set in CHINA
Recommended: 23 Jan 2023

6.
Brothers

Brothers by Yu Hua FR

Rating: 4     10 Votes
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
A bestseller in China, Brothers is an epic and wildly unhinged black comedy of modern Chinese society running amok. Here is China as we've never seen it before, in a sweeping, Rabelaisian panorama of forty years of rough-and-rumble Chinese history, from the madness of the Cultural Revolution to the equally rabid madness of extreme materialism. Yu Hua, award-winning author of To Live, gives us a surreal tale of two comically mismatched stepbrothers, Baldy Li, a sex-obsessed ne'er-do-well, and the bookish, sensitive Song Gang, who vow that they will always be brothers—a bond they will struggle t... continue
Recommended: 25 Jan 2023

7.
Dragon Springs Road

Dragon Springs Road : A Novel by Janie Chang EN

Rating: 4     7 Votes
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
From the author of Three Souls comes a vividly imagined and haunting new novel set in early 20th century Shanghai—a story of friendship, heartbreak, and history that follows a young Eurasian orphan’s search for her long-lost mother. That night I dreamed that I had wandered out to Dragon Springs Road all on my own, when a dreadful knowledge seized me that my mother had gone away never to return . . . In 1908, Jialing is only seven years old when she is abandoned in the courtyard of a once-lavish estate near Shanghai. Jialing is zazhong—Eurasian—and faces a lifetime of contempt from both Chinese... continue
Recommended: 29 Nov 2022

8.
Family

Family by Jin Ba EN

Rating: 2.5     2 Votes
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
Four generations of the Kao family struggle to live on the family compound as intergenerational conflicts arise.
Recommended: 03 Dec 2022

9.
Life

Life by Lu Yao EN

Rating: 4     1 Vote
Country: Asia / China flag China
Recommended: 25 Jan 2023

10.
Miss Chopsticks

Miss Chopsticks by Xinran EN

Rating: 3.9     10 Votes
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
From the author of 'The Good Women of China' comes the uplifting story of three sisters who, like so many migrant workers in today's China, leave their peasant community to seek their fortune in the big city.
Recommended: 20 Nov 2022


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