Asian literature

The Accidental Apprentice

by Vikas Swarup

In life you never get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate.

A business empire worth ten billion dollars. This is the tantalizing offer made by Vinay Mohan Acharya, one of India’s richest men, to Sapna...

Em and the Big Hoom: A Novel

by Jerry Pinto

"Profoundly moving . . . I cannot remember when I last read something as touching as this." -Amitav Ghosh, author of The Glass Palace

First published by a small press in India, Jerry Pinto's devastatingly original...

Weapon of Vengeance

by Mukul Deva

Ruby Gill is a rogue MI6 agent, the daughter of an Indian father and Palestinian mother. Her mission is to destroy a Palestinian-Israeli peace summit in New Delhi. Ruby's father, whom she has not seen since...

No Country: A Novel

by Kalyan Ray

Spanning two centuries and three continents, from famine-stricken Ireland to colonial India to modern-day upstate New York, No Country is a riveting, enchanting melting pot of a story about history, family,...

I'll Be Right There

by Kyung-Sook Shin

How friendship, European literature, and a charismatic professor defy war, oppression, and the absurd

Set in 1980s South Korea amid the tremors of political revolution, I’ll Be Right There follows Jung...

The Man with the Compound Eyes

by Wu Ming-Yi

When a tsunami sends a massive island made entirely of trash crashing into the Taiwanese coast, two very different people—an outcast from a mythical island and a woman on the verge of suicide—are united...

Call to Arms

by Lu Xun

Call to Arms is a collection of revolutionary Chinese writer Lu Xun’s most famous and most important short stories. Featuring “A Madman’s Diary,” a scathing attack of traditional Confucian civilization...

In the Light of What We Know

by Zia Haider Rahman

A bold, epic debut novel set during the war and financial crisis that defined the beginning of our century

One September morning in 2008, an investment banker approaching forty, his career in collapse and his...

The Sculptor in Exile

by Krishna Baldev Vaid

Bringing together the best of Vaid’s highly experimental short stories, The Sculptor in Exile makes for exhilarating reading. Rigour and wit inform these complex and transgressive meditations on time, love,...

Steps in Darkness

by Krishna Baldev Vaid

Beero lives through a succession of days and events. His father gambles, his mother screams and gets hit by her husband, his sister flirts rather desperately. Beero searches for love and kindness in his strife-torn...

Family Life: A Novel

by Akhil Sharma

"Outstanding…Every page is alive and surprising, proof of [Sharma’s] huge, unique talent."—David Sedaris Hailed as a "supreme storyteller" (Philadelphia Inquirer) for his "cunning, dismaying and beautifully...

Bombay Stories

by Saadat Hasan Manto

A collection of classic, yet shockingly contemporary, short stories set in the vibrant world of mid-century Bombay, from one of India’s greatest writers.

Arriving in 1930s Bombay, Saadat Hasan Manto discovered...

Decoded

by Mai Jia, Olivia Milburn & Christopher Payne

One of China’s bestselling novels, an unusual literary thriller that takes us deep into the world of code breaking

In his gripping debut novel, Mai Jia reveals the mysterious world of Unit 701, a top-secret...

The Guest Cat

by Takashi Hiraide & Eric Selland

A wonderful sui generis novel about a visiting cat who brings joy into a couple’s life in Tokyo

A bestseller in France and winner of Japan’s Kiyama Shohei Literary Award, The Guest Cat, by the acclaimed...

Boy in the Twilight: Stories of the Hidden China

by Yu Hua & Allan H. Barr

From the acclaimed author of Brothers and To Live: thirteen audacious stories that resonate with the beauty, grittiness, and exquisite irony of everyday life in China.

Yu Hua’s narrative gifts, populist voice,...

The Middleman

by Mani Shankar Mukherji & Mani Sankar Mukherji

1970s Calcutta. The city is teeming with thousands of young men in search of work. Somnath Banerjee "1970s Calcutta. The city is teeming with thousands of young men in search of work. Somnath Banerjee spends...

The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly: A Novel

by Sun-mi Hwang, Nomoco & Chi-Young Kim

The 2-million-copy bestselling modern fable from Korea that is winning hearts around the world

This is the story of a hen named Sprout. No longer content to lay eggs on command, only to have them carted off...

Schoolgirl

by Osamu DAZAI

The novella that first propelled Dazai into the literary elite of post-war Japan. Essentially the start of Dazai's career, Schoolgirl gained notoriety for its ironic and inventive use of language. Now it illuminates...

Bankerupt

by Ravi Subramanian

A university is an institution for higher education and research. It can also be a place where academic brilliance leads to overinflated egos, bitter politics and finally, murder. Cirisha Narayanan, a professor...

A Calamitous Chinese Killing

Inspector Singh Investigates #6

by Shamini Flint

Inspector Singh returns in the sixth chapter of his trademark series, where he journeys throughout Asia busting crimes!

Stop No. 6: China . . .

'It's impossible not to warm to the portly, sweating, dishevelled,...