Popular Asian Fantasy Books
Find fantasy books written by authors from Asia for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (59)
21.
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami EN
JapanDescription:
A teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom.
22.
Kundo Wakes Up by Saad Z. Hossain EN
Country: Asia / 
Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Description:
Saad Z. Hossain's Kundo Wakes Up is a companion to the Ignyte and Locus Award-Nominated novella The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday. Hundreds of miles away from the techno-utopia of Kathmandu, the all-powerful, all-seeing AI known as Karma has gone silent, leaving the dying city of Chittagong—along with all its remaining residents—to continue its inexorable fall into the sea. Kundo, once a famous artist with the Karma points to prove it, goes searching for his missing wife, only to uncover more inexplicable disappearances. And so Kundo and a group of motley companions embark on a tumultuous jou... continue
23.
Locust Girl : A Lovesong by Merlinda Bobis EN
Country: Asia / 
Philippines
Philippines
Description:
This novel is a fairytale, a political allegory, and a philosophical interrogation of the human heart. Most everything has dried up: water, the womb, even the love among lovers. The earth is now mostly desert, except the last green haven behind the border where the carers of the earth preserve the natural order. Carers manage the earth's last resources and keep the wasters out. But in the vast dry outside, hunger is the pernicious plague, and people feed on sand and locusts. So they walk the dry to cross the border. But once, terrible fires crossed it too and devastated the green haven. Since ... continue
24.
Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura EN
Description:
"How can you save your friend's life if she doesn't want to be rescued? In a tranquil neighbourhood of Tokyo, seven teenagers wake to find the mirrors in their bedrooms are shining. At a single touch, they are pulled from their lonely lives into to a wondrous castle filled with winding stairways, watchful portraits and twinkling chandeliers. In this new sanctuary, they are confronted with a set of clues leading to a hidden room where one of them will be granted a wish. But there's a catch -- if they don't leave by five o'clock, they will die. As time passes, a devastating truth emerges -- only... continue
25.
Monkey King : Journey to the West (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) by Wu Cheng EN
ChinaDescription:
Before there was The Lord of the Rings, there was China's Monkey King, one of the all-time great fantasy novels--which Neil Gaiman has said "is in the DNA of 1.5 billion people"--now published in a thrilling new one-volume translation with an illustrated foreword by Gene Luen Yang A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with flaps and deckle-edged paper A shape-shifting trickster on a kung-fu quest for eternal life, Sun Wukong, or Monkey King, is one of the most memorable superheroes in world literature, known to legions of fans of the most popular anime of all time, Dragon Ball, and the world's la... continue
26.
My Beijing : Four Stories of Everyday Wonder by Nie Jun EN
Description:
"Four short stories set in a hutong, or residential alleyway, of Beijing, China. Yu'er, her grandfather, and their eccentric neighbors experience the magic of everyday life."--
27.
Night on the Galactic Railroad & Other Stories from Ihatov by Kenji Miyazawa EN
Description:
Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933) is one of Japan's most beloved writers and poets, known particularly for his sensitive and symbolist children's fiction. This volume collects stories which focus on Miyazawa's love of space and his use of the galaxy as a metaphor for the concepts of purity, self-sacrifice and faith which were near and dear to his heart. "The Nighthawk Star" follows an lowly bird as he struggles to transform himself into something greater, a constellation in the night sky; "Signal & Signal-less" depicts a pair of star-crossed train signals who dream of eloping to the moon; and "Night ... continue
28.
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo EN
IsraelDescription:
The mesmerizing adult debut from Leigh Bardugo, a tale of power, privilege, dark magic, and murder set among the Ivy League elite Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. In fact, by age twenty, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s... continue
South Korea30.
People from My Neighborhood : Stories by Hiromi Kawakami EN
Description:
Nominated for the 2021 Shirley Jackson Award From the author of the internationally bestselling Strange Weather in Tokyo, a collection of interlinking stories that masterfully blend the mundane and the mythical—"fairy tales in the best Brothers Grimm tradition: naïf, magical, and frequently veering into the macabre" (Financial Times). A bossy child who lives under a white cloth near a tree; a schoolgirl who keeps doll's brains in a desk drawer; an old man with two shadows, one docile and one rebellious; a diplomat no one has ever seen who goes fishing at an artificial lake no one has ever hear... continue