Here is an unsystematic survey of “best books” lists and a highly unscientific indication as to where Asian books appear in the radar on the mainstream English language press. Only relatively long lists were chosen.
Fiction seems to have done reasonably well compared to Asian non-fiction, which, with the exception of the Economist, hardly makes the lists at all. But even in the fiction selections, most of the authors have strong (even national or residential) ties with the English-speaking West and only a few are works in translation.
Update 20 December: The Chicago Review of Books had a somewhat shorter list, but a higher proportion of Asian books, at least in fiction.
Update 23 December: The San Francisco Chronicle’s list contains a fair proportion of Asian (and Asian-American) fiction.
New York Times 100 Notable Books
Fiction:
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Selection Day by Aravind Adiga
Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama
Non-fiction:
Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? by Graham Allison
The Economist (about 45)
Fiction:
The Golden Legend by Nadeem Aslam
Non-fiction:
Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone by Richard Lloyd Parry
Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 by Naoki Higashida
The Souls of China: The Return of Religion after Mao by Ian Johnson
Esquire (50)
Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Shafak
The Golden House by Salman Rushdie
Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy
The Windfall by Diksha Basu
Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami
Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan
The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Boston Globe (approx 41)
Fiction:
Frontier by Can Xue, translated from the Chinese by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Non-fiction:
Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China by Xiaolu Guo
Chicago Review of Books
Djinn City by Saad Z. Hossain
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Phrasis, poetry by Wendy Xu
San Francisco Chronicle (100)
Fiction:
Human Acts by Han Kang
Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran
Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy
The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Selection Day by Aravind Adiga
Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Temporary People by Deepak Unnikrishnan
Non-fiction:
Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li