Popular Asian Cultural Books
Find cultural books written by authors from Asia for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (57)
21.
ChinaDescription:
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.
22.
Miss Kim Knows and Other Stories by Cho Nam-Joo EN
Country: Asia / 
South Korea
South Korea
Description:
FROM THE AUTHOR OF KIM JIYOUNG, BORN 1982 Eight women. Eight stories. One reality. A woman is born. A woman is filmed in public without consent. A woman suffers domestic violence. A woman is gaslit. A woman is discriminated against at work. A woman grows old. A woman becomes famous. A woman is hated, and loved, and then hated again. Written in Cho Nam-Joo's masterful, razor-sharp prose, Miss Kim Knows brings together the lives of eight Korean women, aged 10 to 80. Contained in each of these biographies is a microcosm of contemporary Korea, and the challenges and injustices that women face from... continue
23.
No Funeral for Nazia by Taha Kehar EN
PakistanDescription:
A witty and theatrical South Asian mystery novel set over the course of one single electrifying night, exploring the unfinished business death leaves in its wake. Nazia Sami is a celebrated author, but perhaps her greatest plot twist is yet to be produced. In her final days, she wields a pen one last time as she fills her diary with instructions for her sister and writes six letters to be delivered after her death. There is to be no funeral for Nazia. Instead, only six invitees are invited to a party, one of whom is a mystery guest. Over the course of an extraordinary evening, secrets are reve... continue
24.
No Presents Please by Jayant Kaikini EN
IndiaDescription:
No Presents Please is a vivid evocation of city life, exploring the sub-locales and spatial identities of Mumbai and the struggles of small-town migrants. Jayant Kaikini's gaze takes in the people living on the margins - a bus driver who, when denied annual leave, steals the bus to travel home; a slum dweller who catches cats and sells them for pharmaceutical testing; a father at his wit's end who takes his mischievous son to a reform institution. From Irani cafes to chawls, old cinema halls to local trains, the author seeks out and illuminates moments and feelings of existential anxiety, path... continue
25.
Now You See Us by Balli Kaur Jaswal EN
SingaporeDescription:
We are invisible: we clean your houses, we look after your children, we know your secrets. But now you know one of ours...
26.
Description:
A wealthy Chinese teen is sent to America on her own to attend private school. Claire is a rich 11th grader in Shanghai; Dani is a scholarship student at a private school in Southern California who helps her mother clean houses. When Claire is parachuted into America to finish high school and Dani's mother needs the income from a boarder, they become unlikely housemates.
27.
Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa EN
JapanDescription:
Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is one of Japan's foremost stylists - a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. "Rashomon" and "In a Bamboo Grove" inspired Kurosawa's magnificent film and depict a past in which morality is turned upside down, while tales such as "The Nose", "O-Gin" and "Loyalty" paint a rich and imaginative picture of a medieval Japan peopled by Shoguns and priests, vagrants and peasants. And in later works such as "Death Register", "The Life of a Stupid Man" and "Spinning Gears", Akutagawa drew from his own... continue
28.
Red Scarf Girl : A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang EN
Description:
In 1966 Ji-li Jiang turned twelve. An outstanding student and leader, she had everything: brains, the admiration of her peers, and a bright future in China′s Communist Party. But that year China′s leader, Mao Ze-dong, launched the Cultural Revolution, and everything changed. Over the next few years Ji-li and her family were humiliated and scorned by former friends, neighbors, and co-workers. They lived in constant terror of arrest. Finally, with the detention of her father, Ji-li faced the most difficult choice of her life. Told with simplicity and grace, this is the true story of one family′s... continue
29.
Reflections of an Extraordinary Era by Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee EN
Description:
An inspirational and vivid behind-the-scenes biography of the Gandhi family and the tumult of India's independence by Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi. The granddaughter of both Gandhiji and Rajaji, Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee's childhood was peopled by freedom fighters and leaders who laid the foundation for an independent India. She is seventy-eight now, but there was a time when, as a sprightly little girl growing up in Delhi in the 1940s, Tara bore witness to World War II, the tumultuous run-up to India's freedom, its tragic partition and Gandhi's assassination in 1... continue
30.
Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok EN
Description:
NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2019 BY Marie Claire • Nylon • Huffington Post • CrimeReads • Bookbub • Book Riot • Debutante Ball “Like all most compelling mysteries, Jean Kwok’s Searching for Sylvie Lee has a powerful emotional drama at its heart. A twisting tale of love, loss and dark family secrets.” — Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train and Into the Water A poignant and suspenseful drama that untangles the complicated ties binding three women—two sisters and their mother—in one Chinese immigrant family and explores what happens when the eldest dau... continue