Read Around Asia Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Asia.
Best books from Asia (1407)
941.
Seasons of Flight by Manjushree Thapa EN
NepalDescription:
It was and it was not far, where she came from. Some days her birth village felt centuries away, and other days it was too close, she could not get far enough away from it- She lived, now, in America, in a spare, uncluttered flat with a transient feel. Her only memento from home was an ammonite, a lustrous stone the colour of shale, the shape of a lopsided egg. A fossil of marine life from when the himals were below the sea, millennia ago.' Prema, a young woman adrift in war-torn rural Nepal, with little to bind her to her family, village and country, wins a green card in a US government ... continue
942.
Description:
This unusual memoir of a spirited girl in the remote region of Nepal described in Peter Matthieson’s The Snow Leopard vividly portrays life in her primitive mountain village in the 80s, her struggles in bewildering Kathmandu, and her journey to America to receive life-saving surgery. An inspiring story of an indomitable spirit conquering all obstacles, a tale of a girl with a disability on her way to becoming a dynamic woman in a new world.
943.
The Guru of Love by Samrat Upadhyay EN
Description:
Writing of Samrat Upadhyay's story collection, critics raved: "like a Buddhist Chekhov . . . speak s] to common truths . . . startlingly good" (San Francisco Chronicle) and "subtle and spiritually complex" (New York Times). Upadhyay's novel showcases his finest writing and his signature themes. The Guru of Love is a moving and important story--important for what it illuminates about the human need to love as well as lust, and for the light it shines on the political situation in Nepal and elsewhere. Ramchandra is a math teacher earning a low wage and living in a small apartment with his wife a... continue
944.
MAD COUNTRY by Samrat Upadhyay EN
Description:
If you see Orwell and Kafka together walking down a street, you are in the world of Samrat Upadhyay's Mad Country. The editor of an investigative magazine contends with the trauma of a disappeared colleague, a political tragedy that vies for her attention with a more domestic crisis: a friend who's suicidal over a divorce. An American hippie in Kathmandu in the 1980s undergoes a drastic identity change, only to discover that the metamorphosis brings its own heartbreak. A young man forms a bond with an African woman who has inexplicably appeared on the streets of the city. A wealthy Nepali boy-... continue
945.
Slavenkind by Urmila Chaudhary NL
Description:
Waargebeurd verhaal van een Nepalese jonge vrouw die op haar zesde door haar ouders werd verkocht als huisslavin aan een rijke familie.
946.
Country: Asia / 
North Korea
North Korea
Description:
'Dear President Trump ... As you are interested in North Korea, you will surely be interested in this book' Margaret Atwood on The Accusation Smuggled out of North Korea and now an international sensation, The Accusation is the work of an anonymous dissident known to us only by the pseudonym 'Bandi'. Bandi's profound, vividly characterised stories tell of life under the totalitarian regimes of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. The Accusation depicts ordinary men and women facing the horrors of life in a police state: a factory supervisor caught between loyalty to an old friend and loyalty to the re... continue
947.
In Order To Live : A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park EN
Country: Asia / North Korea
North Korea
Description:
'I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea, and that I escaped from North Korea.' Yeonmi Park was not dreaming of freedom when she escaped from North Korea. She didn't even know what it meant to be free. All she knew was that she was running for her life, that if she and her family stayed behind they would die - from starvation, or disease, or even execution. This book is the story of Park's struggle to survive in the darkest, most repressive country on earth; her harrowing escape through China's underworld of smugglers and human traffickers; and then her escape from Ch... continue
948.
The Aquariums of Pyongyang : Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag by Chol-hwan Kang, Pierre Rigoulot EN
Country: Asia / North Korea
North Korea
Description:
Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, one man's suffering gives eyewitness proof to an ongoing sorrowful chapter of modern history.
949.
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
950.
