Read Around Asia Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Asia.
Best books from Asia (1405)
1201.
My Sweet Girl by Amanda Jayatissa EN
Sri LankaDescription:
'My Sweet Girl is like nothing else I've read. Set in San Francisco and Sri Lanka, this is a story about friendship, lies, and guilt. A stunning and original must-read' Samantha Downing, Sunday Times bestselling author of My Lovely Wife A girl in a new country. A dark secret left behind. A dead body which might tell all. Ever since she was adopted from an orphanage in Sri Lanka, Paloma has led a privileged Californian life: the best schools, a generous allowance and parents so perfect that Paloma fears she'll never live up to them. Now at thirty, Paloma has managed to disappoint her parents so... continue
1202.
A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam EN
Description:
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 It begins with a message: a telephone call informing Krishan that his grandmother''s former care-giver, Rani, has died in unexpected circumstances, at the bottom of a well in her village in the north, her neck broken by the fall. The news arrives on the heels of an email from Anjum, an activist he fell in love with four years earlier while living in Delhi, bringing with it the stirring of distant memories and desires. As Krishan makes the long journey by train from Colombo into the war-torn Northern Province for the funeral, so begins a passage into the so... continue
1203.
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje EN
Description:
In a narrative as mysterious as memory itself - at once both shadowed and luminous - Warlightis a vivid, thrilling novel of violence and love, intrigue and desire. It is 1945, and London is still reeling from the Blitz and years of war. 14-year-old Nathaniel and his sister, Rachel, are apparently abandoned by their parents, left in the care of an enigmatic figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and grow both more convinced and less concerned as they get to know his eccentric crew of friends- men and women with a shared history, all of whom seem determined now to protect, a... continue
1204.
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje EN
Description:
BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of Warlight traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an abandoned Italian villa at the end of World War II. “A rare spellbinding web of dreams.” —Time The nurse Hana, exhausted by death, obsessively tends to her last surviving patient. Caravaggio, the thief, tries to reimagine who he is, now that his hands are hopelessly maimed. The Indian sapper Kip searches for hidden bombs in a landscape where nothing is safe but himself. And at the center of his labyrinth lies the English patient, nameless and hideously burned, a ma... continue
1205.
Wave by Sonali Daraniyagala FR
Description:
The book opens and we are inside the wave: thirty feet high, moving at twenty-five mph, racing two miles inland. And from there into the depths of the author's despair: how to live now that her life has been undone? Sonali Deraniyagala tells her story - the loss of her two boys, her husband, and her parents - without artifice or sentimentality. In the stark language of unfathomable sorrow, anger, and guilt: she struggles through the first months following the tragedy -- someone always at her side to prevent her from harming herself, her whole being furiously clenched against the reality she ca... continue
1206.
The seven moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka EN
Description:
WINNER OF THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE A searing satire set amid the murderous mayhem of Sri Lanka beset by civil war Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time when scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts who cluster around him can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to try... continue
1207.
Funny Boy : A Novel by Shyam Selvadurai EN
Description:
A coming of age story about Arjun Chelvaratnam, who struggles with his homosexuality, entering into an affair with a schoolmate and breaking not only sexual taboos, but also social structures that separate the Tamil and Sinhalese.
1208.
The Girl Who Stole an Elephant by Nizrana Farook EN
Description:
A thrilling, joyous adventure of friendship, flight and righting wrongs.
1209.
El Fantasma de Anil by Michael Ondaatje ES
Description:
Sri Lanka, finales de los años 80. La situación de inestabilidad y caos social se recrudece. Dos son los personajes que protagonizan nuestra aventura. Anil, médico forense que debe hacer un informe para las Naciones Unidas y Sarath, un arqueólogo que colabora con ella. Ambos irán tomando conciencia de la catástrofe que vive aquel distante país. Desaparecidos, asesinatos, fosas comunes ... La pareja se dará cuenta de cuán peligrosa podría resultar la curiosidad en un territorio donde reina la anarquía. Lo que suceda aquí les cambiará la vida. Ésta es una novela política que logra retratar con f... continue
1210.
Las Siete Lunas de Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka ES
Description:
Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida -war photographer, gambler, and closet queen- has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to the photos that will rock Sri Lank... continue