Popular Asian Historical Books
Find historical books written by authors from Asia for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (110)
71.
The Corpse Walker and Other True Stories of Life in China by Yiwu Liao EN
ChinaDescription:
The Corpse Walker is a collection of twenty-seven extraordinary interviews that opens a window, unlike any other, onto the lives of ordinary, often outcast, Chinese men and women. Liao Yiwu reconstructs conversations he had between 1990 and 2008 with a range of remarkable people- a professional mourner, a human trafficker, a leper, an abbot, a retired government official, a former landowner, a mortician, a feng shui master, a former Red Guard, a political prisoner, a village teacher, a blind street musician, a Falun Gong practitioner and a corpse walker. The result is an idiosyncratic, powerfu... continue
72.
The Crossing : A Story of East Timor by Luís Cardoso EN
Country: Asia / 
Timor-Leste
Timor-Leste
Description:
East Timor hit the world's newspaper headlines in August 1999 after its bloody, brave vote for independence from Indonesia - one of the great expressions of a people's democratic spirit, and its oppression. Before that - as a Portuguese colony and for 24 years of murderous Indonesian rule - it had been ignored.
73.
The Dead Lake by Hamid Ismailov, Andrew Bromfield EN
Country: Asia / 
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Description:
Yerzhan grows up in a remote part of Kazakhstan where the Soviets test atomic weapons. As a young boy he falls in love with the neighbour's daughter and one evening, to impress her, he dives into a forbidden lake. The radio-active water changes Yerzhan. He will never grow into a man. While the girl he loves becomes a beautiful woman.
74.
The Devils' Dance by Hamid Ismailov EN
Country: Asia / Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Description:
Winner of the EBRD Literature Prize 2019 On New Years' Eve 1938, the writer Abdulla Qodiriy is taken from his home by the Soviet secret police and thrown into a Tashkent prison. There, to distract himself from the physical and psychological torment of beatings and mindless interrogations, he attempts to mentally reconstruct the novel he was writing at the time of his arrest - based on the tragic life of the Uzbek poet-queen Oyhon, married to three khans in succession, and living as Abdulla now does, with the threat of execution hanging over her. As he gets to know his cellmates, Abdulla discov... continue
75.
The Eighth Life : (for Brilka) The International Bestseller by Nino Haratischvili EN
GeorgiaDescription:
AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR ‘That night Stasia took an oath, swearing to learn the recipe by heart and destroy the paper. And when she was lying in her bed again, recalling the taste with all her senses, she was sure that this secret recipe could heal wounds, avert catastrophes, and bring people happiness. But she was wrong.’ At the start of the twentieth century, on the edge of the Russian Empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution. A caution which is justified: this is a recipe for ecstasy that... continue
76.
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé EN
IsraelDescription:
"The 1948 Palestine-Israel War is known to Israelis as 'The War of Independence', but for Palestinians it will forever be the Nakba, the 'catastrophe'. Alongside the creation of the State of Israel, the end of the war led to one of the largest forced migrations in modern history. Around a million people were expelled from their homes at gunpoint, civilians were massacred, and hundreds of Palestinian villages deliberately destroyed. Though the truth about the mass expulsion has been systematically distorted and suppressed, had it taken place in the twenty-first century it could only have been c... continue
77.
The Garden of Departed Cats by Bilge Karasu EN
TurkeyDescription:
A surreal, utterly unique Turkish novel about a human chess game.
78.
The Ink Dark Moon by Izumi Shikibu, Ono no Komachi EN
JapanDescription:
Here is a collection of sexy, brief, fleeting poems about love, lust and longing. They originate from a time in Japanese history where aristocratic women of the Heian court were free to marry and conduct love affairs according to their desires. Education and refinement were so highly valued that the courtly manner of expressing oneself, whether to give condolences for a death, to send back a forgotten fan, or to heighten the anticipation of a lover's visit, was with a poem of just five lines. A convention of secrecy surrounding love affairs fills these verses with palpable emotion. These vivid... continue
79.
The Interpreter's Daughter by Teresa Lim EN
SingaporeDescription:
A photograph passed down through generations inspires this beautifully written, compelling memoir of one Singapore family and the secrets that defined their story A cherished family photograph, taken in Hong Kong, 1935, sets Teresa Lim on a journey to uncover her family history. Through detective work, serendipity, and the kindness of strangers she was guided to the fascinating, ordinary, extraordinary life of her great-aunt Fanny, and her world of sworn spinsters, ghost husbands and the working-class feminists of 19th century south China. But to recover her great-aunt's past, we must first ge... continue
80.
The Jaguar Smile : A Nicaraguan Journey by Salman Rushdie EN
IndiaDescription:
In this brilliantly focused and haunting portrait of the people, the politics, the land, and the poetry of Nicaragua, Salman Rushdie brings to the forefront the palpable human facts of a country in the midst of a revolution. Rushdie went to Nicaragua in 1986, harboring no preconceptions of what he might find. What he discovered was overwhelming: a culture of heroes who had turned into inanimate objects and of politicians and warriors who were poets; a land of difficult, often beautiful contradictions. His perceptions always heightened by his special sensitivity to “the views from underneath,” ... continue