Popular Asian Memoir Books
Find memoir books written by authors from Asia for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (126)
101.
The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee EN
Country: Asia / 
North Korea
North Korea
Description:
An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships and the story of one woman s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom. As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repressio... continue
102.
The Latehomecomer : A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang EN
LaosDescription:
One Hmong family's harrowing escape from war in Laos to the uncertainty of a new home as refugees in Minnesota.
103.
The Other Side of Silence : A Memoir of Exile, Iran, and the Global Women's Movement by Mahnaz Afkhami EN
IranDescription:
When Mahnaz Afkhami picked up the phone in a New York hotel room early one morning in November 1978, she learned she could never go home again: she had been declared an apostate and enemy of the Iranian Revolution and was now on its death list. Afkhami, Iran's first minister for women's affairs, began to rebuild her life in the United States, becoming an architect of the women's movement in the Global South. Along the way, she encountered familial, cultural, political, and organizational hurdles that threatened to derail her quest to empower women and change the very structure of human relatio... continue
104.
The Pianist of Yarmouk by Aeham Ahmad EN
SyriaDescription:
'Ahmad has created a moving and visceral account of conflict, hope and the power of music' Hannah Beckerman, Observer The incredible and inspirational true story of one young man's struggle to find peace during war, and the power of music to bring hope to a desperate nation. ____________ One morning in war-torn Damascus, a starving man drags a piano into a rubbled street. Everything he once knew has been destroyed by war. Amidst ruin and despair, he begins to play. He plays of love and hope, he plays for his family and his fellow Syrians. He plays even though he could be killed for doing so. A... continue
105.
The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon by Sei Shōnagon EN
JapanDescription:
The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon is a fascinating, detailed account of Japanese court life in the eleventh century. Written by a lady of the court at the height of Heian culture, this book enthralls with its lively gossip, witty observations, and subtle impressions. Lady Shonagon was an erstwhile rival of Lady Murasaki, whose novel, The Tale of Genji, fictionalized the elite world Lady Shonagon so eloquently relates. Featuring reflections on royal and religious ceremonies, nature, conversation, poetry, and many other subjects, The Pillow Book is an intimate look at the experiences and outlook o... continue
106.
The Prisoner : A Memoir by Hwang Sok-yong EN
Country: Asia / 
South Korea
South Korea
Description:
A sweeping account of imprisonment--in time, in language, and in a divided country--from Korea's most acclaimed novelist In 1993, writer and democracy activist Hwang Sok-yong was sentenced to five years in the Seoul Detention Center upon his return to South Korea from North Korea, the country he had fled with his family as a child at the start of the Korean War. Already a dissident writer well-known for his part in the democracy movement of the 1980s, Hwang's imprisonment forced him to consider the many prisons to which he was subject--of thought, of writing, of Cold War nations, of the heart.... continue
107.
The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam EN
CambodiaDescription:
A Cambodian woman sold into sexual slavery at the age of twelve describes the horrors she experienced until she managed to escape and discusses her role as an activist for the young women whom she has rescued from the region's brothels.
108.
The Shell : Memoirs of a Hidden Observer by Moustafa Khalifa EN
Description:
The work of a moder-day Sozhenitsyn that exposes acts of violence and brutality committed by the Syrian regime. This compelling first novel is the astonishing story of a Syrian political prisoner of conscience—an atheist mistaken for a radical Islamist—who was locked up for 13 years without trial in one of the most notorious prisons in the Middle East. The novel takes the form of a diary which Musa keeps in his head and then writes down upon his release. In Tadmur prison, the mood is naturally bleak and yet often very beautifully captured. The narrator, a young graduate, is defiant and stoical... continue
109.
The Silent Steppe : The Story of a Kazakh Nomad Under Stalin by Mukhamet Shai︠a︡khmetov EN
Country: Asia / 
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Description:
Born into a family of nomadic Kazakh herdsmen in 1922, Mukhamet Shayakhmetov's father was imprisoned as an 'enemy of the people' as Soviet rule spread across his people's vast steppe-land in central Asia. In this book, Shayakhmetov recalls the scale of suffering in his homeland under Stalin's rule.
110.
The Tears of My Soul by Hyŏn-hŭi Kim EN
Country: Asia / North Korea
North Korea
Description:
Kim Hyun Hee was trained by the North Korean Army to be one of the deadliest espionage agents on the face of the Earth. This is the true story of her terrorist acts and her lifelong repentance.