Popular Asian Historical Fiction Books
Find historical fiction books written by authors from Asia for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (232)
11.
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers : Stories by Yiyun Li EN
ChinaDescription:
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
12.
A True Novel by Minae Mizumura EN
JapanDescription:
As an impoverished immigrant with mixed Chinese origins, Taro Azuma has faced prejudice his entire life. Desperately trying to make his fortune, Taro has a secret; he is obsessed with a girl from an aristocratic family. When Taro's ambitious leads him to become one of the wealthiest Japanese men in America, he finally gets close to her. But her relatives are determined to uncover his background. Using the template of Wuthering Heights, A True Novel is an epic love story and an in-depth study of social history after WWII.
13.
A Woman of Pleasure : A Novel by Kiyoko Murata EN
Description:
An unforgettable novel of fearless women banding together to pursue the lives they want, inspired by the real-life historic Japanese courtesan strike In 1903, a fifteen-year-old girl named Aoi Ichi is sold to the most exclusive brothel in Kumamoto, Japan. Despite her modest beginnings in a southern fishing village, she becomes the protégée of an oiran, the highest-ranking courtesan at the brothel. Through the teachings of her oiran, Shinonome, Ichi begins to understand the intertwined power of sex and money. And in her mandatory school lessons, her writing instructor, Tetsuko, encourages Ichi ... continue
14.
Ali and Nino : A Love Story by Kurban Said EN
Country: Asia / 
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Description:
A reprint of a love story of two childhood friends, a Muslim warrior and a Christian girl, during the Russian Revolution. Set on the Caspian Sea, the novel symbolizes the clash of cultures between East and West. It was first published in German in 1937.
15.
All the Light There Was : A Novel by Nancy Kricorian EN
ArmeniaDescription:
Early in The Sweetness, an inquisitive young girl asks her grandmother why she is carrying nothing but a jug of sliced lemons and water when they are forced by the Germans to evacuate their ghetto. "Something sour to remind me of the sweetness," she tells her, setting the theme for what they must remember to survive. Set during World War II, the novel is the parallel tale of two Jewish girls, cousins, living on separate continents, whose strikingly different lives ultimately converge. Brooklyn-born Mira Kane is the eighteen-year-old daughter of a well-to-do manufacturer of women s knitwear in ... continue
16.
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine EN
LebanonDescription:
An obsessive introvert in Beirut, eschewed by her family and neighbors for her divorced status and lack of religious reverence, quietly translates favorite books into Arabic while struggling with her aging body until an unthinkable disaster threatens what little life remains to her. By the best-selling author of The Hakawati. 20,000 first printing.
17.
And the Mountains Echoed : A Novel by Khaled Hosseini EN
Country: Asia / 
Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Description:
An unforgettable novel about finding a lost piece of yourself in someone else. Khaled Hosseini, the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations. In this tale revolving around not just parents and children but brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Hosseini explores the many ways in which families nurture, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those clo... continue
18.
Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje EN
Sri LankaDescription:
With his first novel since the internationally acclaimed The English Patient, Booker Prize—winning author Michael Ondaatje gives us a work displaying all the richness of imagery and language and the piercing emotional truth that we have come to know as the hallmarks of his writing. Anil’s Ghost transports us to Sri Lanka, a country steeped in centuries of tradition, now forced into the late twentieth century by the ravages of civil war. Into this maelstrom steps Anil Tissera, a young woman born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America, who returns to her homeland as a forensic anthropolog... continue
19.
Arabesques by Anton Shammas EN
PalestineDescription:
A luminous, inventive, and deeply personal exploration of living in the liminal space between Jewish and Arab, ancient and modern, by a gifted Palestinian writer. Chosen by The New York Times as one of the best books of 1988, Arabesques is a luminous novel that engages with history and politics not as propaganda but as literature. That engagement begins with the language in which the book is written: Anton Shammas, from a Palestinian Christian family and raised in Israel, wrote in Hebrew, as no Arab novelist had before. The choice was provocative to both Arab and Jewish readers. Arabesques is ... continue
20.
At the Breakfast Table by Defne Suman EN
TurkeyDescription:
Told from four different perspectives, At the Breakfast Table is a story of hidden histories and family secrets, from the author of The Silence of Scheherazade. Buyukada, Turkey, 2017. In the glow of a late summer morning, family gather for the 100th birthday of the famous artist Shirin Saka. It ought to be a time of fond reminiscence, looking back on a long and fruitful artistic career, on memories spanning almost a century. But the deep past is something Shirin has spent a lifetime trying to conceal. Her grandchildren, Nur and Fikret, and great-grandchild, Celine, do not know what she's hidi... continue