The American expat-in-Asia novel has been done so many times it’s practically its own genre, but the inverse is almost unheard of—until now. Naomi Xu Elegant’s debut novel, Gingko Season, is a witty, humorous and clever story of twenty-five-year-old Penelope Lin, an expat from Beijing who navigates adulthood alongside a diverse cast of friends.
Naomi Xu Elegant’s debut novel, stars Penelope Lin, a young Chinese woman living in New York in the faraway year of 2018. With difficult parents and a bad break-up, she works for a museum’s exhibition on bound feet, with a gaggle of other, somewhat clueless friends. But a meeting with Hoang, a researcher at a…
How, as we ask every year, did Asia fare in the “Best Books” lists of 2025?
Genevieve Yang, the protagonist of Jemimah Wei’s debut novel The Original Daughter works a dead-end job in Singapore, living in the shadow of her adopted younger sister, Arin, a rising movie star. Genevieve’s dying mother asks her to call Arin; Genevieve refuses.