How did Asia fare in the “Best Books” lists of 2020? We like to keep score, but there are also many excellent recommendations and hidden gems in these many lists.
In this (highly unscientific) sampling, we take a broad view of what constitutes an “Asian” book. Japanese literature again makes a strong showing, this year joined by a clutch of Korean novels: Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami and Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo seem to come out on top. Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu won the National Book Award and naturally shows up on several of the lists, as does How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang, which was shortlisted for the Booker.
There is less concurrence in the non-fiction lists but Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World by Amy Stanley (podcast) features more than one, as does One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965 by Jia Lynn Yang.
Click on the title for our review; and see the ARB’s own list of the favorite Asian books from 2020.
- The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda
- Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
- Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara
- The Glass Kingdom by Lawrence Osborne (podcast)
- How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang
- Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo
- Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl by Jonathan C. Slaght
- Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri
- The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah
- Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East by Kim Ghattas
- A Burning by Megha Majumdar
- The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan
- Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town by Barbara Demick
- Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-Up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World by Lesley MM Blume
- Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
- The King at the Edge of the World by Arthur Phillips
- Man of My Time by Dalia Sofer
- Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
- Obit: Poems by Victoria Chang
- Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn
- A Woman Like Her: The Story Behind the Honor Killing of a Social Media Star by Sanam Maher
World Literature Today’s 75 Notable Translations of 2020
- Hunter School by Sakinu Ahronglong
- The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar
- I Live in the Slums by Can Xue
- Second Sister by Chan Ho-Kei
- Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo
- The Book of Shanghai, ed. by Dai Congrong & Jin Li
- Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
- The Law of Lines by Hye-young Pyun
- Year of the Rabbit by Tian Veasna
- b, Book, and Me by Kim Sagwa
- Lean against This Late Hour by Garous Abdolmalekian
- Mrs. Murakami’s Garden by Mario Bellatin
- Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City by Fang Fang
- The Pear Field by Nana Ekvtimishvili
- Pa-Liwanag: To the Light (Translating Feminisms)
- Passage to the Plaza by Sahar Khalifeh
- Fracture by Andrés Neuman
- Deviant Disciples: Indonesian Women Poets (Translating Feminisms) ed. by Intan Paramaditha
- The Highly Unreliable Account of the History of a Madhouse by Ayfer Tunç
- A Story of Civilization through the Great Epics by Suchethana Swaroop
- Dressed for a Dance in the Snow: Women’s Voices from the Gulag by Monika Zgustova
TIME: Best Fiction, Non-Fiction, The 100 Must-Read Books of 2020
- Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
- Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda
- Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang
- Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara
- How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa
- If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
- Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
- Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo
- One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965 by Jia Lynn Yang
- Run Me to Earth by Paul Yoon
- Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan
- Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri
- Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui
- Nights When Nothing Happened by Simon Han
- A Burning by Megha Majumdar
- Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
- Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
- We Are Not Free by Traci Chee
- Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
- Brown Album by Porochista Khakpour
- Obit: Poems by Victoria Chang
Refinery29: The Best Books of 2020
- How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang
- Little Gods by Meng Jin
- The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-Eun
- If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
- Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang
- Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
- Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
- A Burning by Megha Majumdar
- My Baby First Birthday by Jenny Zhang
- Impostures: The Maqāmāt of al-Harīrī, translated from the Arabic by Michael Cooperson
- Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl by Jonathan C. Slaght
- Spies and Scholars: Chinese Secrets and Imperial Russia’s Quest for World Power by Gregory Afinogenov
- Underground Asia: Global Revolutionaries and the Assault on Empire by Tim Harper
Foreign Affairs: The Best of Books 2020
- The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the Twenty-first Century by Thant Myint-U
- The Hundred Year’s War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 by Rashid Khalidi
- MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman by Ben Hubbard
- Hybrid Actors: Armed Groups and State Fragmentation in the Middle East by Thanassis Cambanis, et al.
- Migration in the Time of Revolution: China, Indonesia, and the Cold War by Taomo Zhou
- The Art of Political Control in China by Daniel C Mattingly
- The Bhutto Dynasty: The Struggle for Power in Pakistan by Owen Bennett-Jones
- White Ivy by Susie Yang
- How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang
- If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
- Where the Wild Ladies Are by Matsuda Aoko
- Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
- Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
- You People by Nikita Lalwani
- Sharks in the Time of Saviours by Kawai Strong Washburn
- Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
Washington Post: 50 notable works of nonfiction in 2020
- One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965 by Jia Lynn Yang
- Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World by Amy Stanley (podcast)
- Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
- We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State by Kai Strittmatter
- Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town by Barbara Demick
- Wuhan Diary: Dispatches From a Quarantined City by Fang Fang
The Guardian: Best Books of 2020
- Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
- Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara
- The Wolf of Baghdad by Carol Isaacs
- Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha
- Born Fighter by Ruqsana Begum
- New World: Waking Up in Trump’s America by Jake Halpern and Michael Sloa
- Anisha, Accidental Detective by Serena Patel
NY Post: Best books of 2020 ~ The top 30 must-read titles from the past year
- White Ivy by Susie Yang
- If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
- Destination Wedding by Diksha Basu
- Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan
- A Burning by Megha Majumdar
- Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World by Amy Stanley (podcast)
- Underground Asia by Tim Harper
- Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town by Barbara Demick
- India’s Founding Moment by Madhav Khosla
- Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
- Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
- The Myth of Chinese Capitalism by Dexter Roberts
- The Law of Lines by Hye-Young Pyun
- How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang
- Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
- Out of Mesopotamia by Salar Abdoh
- A Burning by Megha Majumdar
- How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs: The Syrian Arab Conference of 1920 and the Destruction of its Historic Liberal-Islamic Alliance by Elizabeth F Thompson
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The best books of 2020 for your summer reading list
- How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang
- If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
- A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing by Jessie Tu
- Amnesty by Aravind Adiga
- Sharks in the Time of Saviours by Kawai Strong Washburn
PopMatters: The Best Books of 2020 Fiction Non-Fiction
- Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
- The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
- Year of the Rabbit by Tian Veasna
- Serenade for Nadia by Zülfü Livaneli
- Cuisine Chinoise: Tales of Food and Life by Zao Dao
- The Sky Is Blue with a Single Cloud by Kuniko Tsuruta
- Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie
- Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
- Spring Rain by Andy Warner
- Sweet Time by Weng Pixin
- Sigh, Gone: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In by Phuc Tran
Japan Times: Our critics’ favorite books published in 2020
- Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
- The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
- Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
InStyle: The 20 Best Books of 2020
- The Son of Good Fortune by Lysley Tenorio
- If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
The Independent: The 20 best books of 2020
- Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
- The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts