Read Around Asia Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Asia.
Best books from Asia (1411)
851.
Hotline by Dimitri Nasrallah EN
LebanonDescription:
A 2023 Canada Reads Finalist Longlisted for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize A vivid love letter to the 1980s and one woman's struggle to overcome the challenges of immigration. It's 1986, and Muna Heddad is in a bind. She and her son have moved to Montreal, leaving behind a civil war filled with bad memories in Lebanon. She had plans to find work as a French teacher, but no one in Quebec trusts her to teach the language. She needs to start making money, and fast. The only work Muna can find is at a weight-loss center as a hotline operator. All day, she takes calls from people responding to ad... continue
852.
Description:
A master of contemporary Arabic fiction returns to English translation with a cunningly layered dark comedy about the powers and limits of creativity in a war zone.
853.
Mind Platter by Najwa Zebian EN
Description:
From celebrated Lebanese-Canadian poet and speaker, Najwa Zebian, comes this revised and expanded edition of her debut collection. Mind Platter is a compilation of reflections on life as seen through the eyes of an educator, student, and human who experienced her early days in silence. It is written in the words of a woman who came from Lebanon to Canada at the age of sixteen and experienced what it was like to have fate push her to a place where she didn't belong. It is written in the voice of every person who has felt unheard, mistreated, misjudged, or unseen. The book contains over 200 one-... continue
855.
De Niro's Game by Rawi Hage EN
Description:
In this explosive, captivating portrait of life in a war zone, two young men must choose their futures: to stay in the war-torn Beirut and consolidate power through crime, or to go into exile abroad, alienated from the only existence they have known.
856.
An Unsafe Haven by Nada A. Jarrar EN
Description:
'Captivating ...There's a breadth of humanity in An Unsafe Haven which is very moving. I loved the sense of Lebanon and of what is unique and precious about the Arab world' Helen Dunmore Hannah has deep roots in her hometown of Beirut, where she lives with her American husband, Peter. Just when they thought they had gotten used to the upheavals in Lebanon, the war in neighbouring Syria enters its fifth year, and the region's increasingly fragile state throws their daily lives into chaos. A chance meeting with a Syrian woman and her son in a busy street forces Hannah to face the worsening refug... continue
857.
The Occasional Virgin : A Novel by Hanan al-Shaykh EN
Description:
On a sunny beach on the Italian Riviera, two thirtysomething women, Yvonne and Huda, relax by the sparkling sea. But despite the setting, as their vacation unfolds, their complicated pasts seep through to the idyllic present. Both women spent their childhoods in Lebanon—Yvonne raised in a Christian family, Huda in a Muslim one—and they now find themselves torn between the traditional worlds they were born into and the successful professional identities they’ve created. Three months later, when Huda (a theater director from Toronto) visits Yvonne (an advertising executive) in London, a chance e... continue
858.
Late for Tea at the Deer Palace: The Lost Dreams of My Iraqi Family by Tamara Chalabi EN
Description:
Just ten days after Baghdad’s fall in 2003, Tamara Chalabi arrived in the city after a lifetime in exile—finally entering the homeland she’d known only through stories and her own imagination. Investigating four generations of her family’s history at the forefront of Iraqi society, Chalabi offers a rich portrait of Middle Eastern life and a provocative look at a lost Iraq. Unforgettable characters provide glimpses of the end of the Ottoman Empire, the birth of the Iraqi state, the flowering of “the Paris of the Middle East,” and Iraq’s descent into chaos. At once intimate and magisterial, Chal... continue
859.
Flight Against Time by Emily Nasrallah EN
Description:
Flight against time is a moving story about the immigrant experience. An elderly couple leaves their village in Lebanon to visit their children and grandchildren now living in the new world: Prince Edward Island, Canada. They find a world of peace and great comfort, but despite the war back home, the old man longs for his small village and a way of life deeply etched in his heart.Nasrallah skillfully weaves truth and imagination to create a story rich in human emotion and psychological insight. The novel stands as witness to a time and its people, a mirror of the whole culture and historical m... continue
860.
