2018: The Year in Asian Books

A subjective list of some books we particularly liked this year. Fiction (in translation and not), history, biography, literature, society, memoir, photography, religion, covering Asia from the Pacific to the Mediterranean, from Siberia to India.

All of us here hope you will, as we have, found enjoyment, enlightenment and inspiration from these, and indeed, all other books you care to crack open this or another year.

The year refers to the date of review, not of publication. Click on the title or book cover for the review.

Translated fiction

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• Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (Japanese)
• Horsemen of the Sands by Leonid Yuzefovich (Russian)
• Bride and Groom by Alisa Ganieva (Russian)
• Petulia’s Rouge Tin by Su Tong (Chinese)
• The Devils’ Dance by Hamid Ismailov (Uzbek)
• Like a Sword Wound by Ahmet Altan (Turkish)
• The Book of Tbilisi: a city in short fiction, edited by Becca Parkinson and Gvansta Jobava (Georgian)
• I’ll Go On by Hwang Jungeun (Korean)
• The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth by Veeraporn Nitiprapha (Thai)

Fiction

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• Insurrecto by Gina Apostol
• The Kinship of Secrets by Eugenia Kim
• The Book of Chocolate Saints by Jeet Thayil
• Patient X: The Case-Book of Ryunosuke Akutagawa by David Peace
• Sweden by Matthew Turner
• Front Desk by Kelly Yang (children’s)

Arts and society

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• Risalo by Shah Abdul Latif, edited and translated by Christopher Shackle (Sindhi)
• Old Hong Kong Photos and the Tales They Tell by David Bellis
• A Fantastic State of Ruin: The Painted Towns of Rajasthan by David Zurick
• The Heart is a Shifting Sea: Love and Marriage in Mumbai by Elizabeth Flock
• Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone by Richard Lloyd Parry

History

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• The History of Central Asia (vol 4): The Age of Decline and Revival by Christoph Baumer
• Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire by Anne F Broadbridge
• China at War: Triumph and Tragedy in the Emergence of the New China by Hans van de Ven
• The China Mission: George Marshall’s Unfinished War, 1945-1947 by Daniel Kurtz-Phelan
• The Flying Tigers: The Untold Story of the American Pilots Who Waged a Secret War Against Japan by Sam Kleiner
• Mr. X and the Pacific: George F Kennan and American Policy in East Asia by Paul J Heer
• Hicky’s Bengal Gazette: The Untold Story of India’s First Newspaper by Andrew Otis
• Jesus in Asia by RS Sugirtharajah

Biography and memoir

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• Our Story: a memoir of love and life in China by Rao Pingru (Chinese)
• Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography by Robert Irwin
• My Year of Dirt and Water: Journal of a Zen Monk’s Wife in Japan by Tracy Franz
• City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir by Paul French

A compilation of other publications’ “best books” is here.