“Owlish” by Dorothy Tse
A shimmering, fairy-tale city of glass towers where nothing is quite as it seems: this is the vision of Hong Kong presented by award-winning writer Dorothy Tse in her first solo novel.
“The Great Reclamation” by Rachel Heng
Rachel Heng writes in The Great Reclamation about the making of modern Singapore, a sweeping story with hints of magical realism. The book is substantial at 450 pages and spans a period of twenty-five years, but Heng’s writing is engaging from the beginning and it doesn’t take long for the story to pick up speed.
“Dinner for Six” by Lu Min
The “six” in Dinner for Six is the number at the assembled table when a Chinese widow and widower form a temporary family with their respective son and daughter each. Author Lu Min, in this translation from Nicky Harman and Helen Wang, first focuses on the widow’s son Ash, who becomes shaped by all the…
“Mystery Train” by Can Xue
Can Xue’s experimental novella Mystery Train opens in total darkness: a chicken-farm employee named Scratch wakes up to find himself “in one of [the] pitch-dark sleeper cars” of a train. Confused, Scratch gets out of bed and looks at his wrist to check the time, but is unable to make out the face of his…
“Dying is Easier than Loving” by Ahmet Altan
While the first two books in Ahmet Altan’s “Ottoman Quartet”, Like a Sword Wound and Love in the Days of Rebellion, could be read as stand-alone novels, the third installment, Dying is Easier than Loving, requires familiarity with the story that came before.
“Welcome Me to the Kingdom” by Mai Nardone
Thailand remains under-represented in English-language fiction, contemporary or otherwise; little has been translated and only a little more has been published by authors who can claim roots in the country. Mai Nardone is a Thai-American writer who, while represented in such mainstream publications as Granta, McSweeney’s and Ploughshares, was raised and lives in Bangkok: any…
“Puppet Flower: A Novel of 1867 Formosa” by Yao-Chang Chen
On 12 March 1867, an American merchant ship, the Rover, capsized near Kenting, on Taiwan’s southern coast. A handful of survivors managed to come ashore, but almost all were promptly killed by a local indigenous tribe.
“Hospital” by Han Song
Hospital by acclaimed Chinese science-fiction writer Han Song is a kafkaesque trip through a fictional hospital turned nation-state that explores the Buddhist philosophy on suffering, the nature of the doctor-patient relationship, and the mental state of patients who suffer from chronic conditions.
“The Woman Beyond the Sea” by Sarit Yishai-Levi
The beaches of Tel Aviv are some of the most spectacular of any major world city. Sarit Yishai-Levi uses these beaches as a backdrop for her newest novel, The Woman Beyond the Sea, translated from Hebrew by Gilah Kahn-Hoffmann. And as the title implies, the water also serves as a boundary, specifically between three generations…
“Dust Child” by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai and “Skull Water” by Heinz Insu Fenkl
With war comes much trauma, and America’s Asian wars had the additional consequence of Amerasian children—too often left behind by both parents—who more times than not ended up on the streets. There is a term in Vietnamese that translates to “children of the dust” and it’s this concept that drives the story and title of…
“The Blue Women” by Anukrti Upadhyay
Intergenerational strife is the dominant flavor of this piquant collection of short stories by Anukrti Upadhyay, the award-winning author of Kintsugi.
“Love at Six Thousand Degrees” by Maki Kashimada
Author Maki Kashimada became a member of the Japanese Orthodox Church when she was in high school. The Orthodox Church in Japan is an autonomous Eastern Orthodox Church within the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, one of fifteen subdivisions within the Orthodox Church. There have been Orthodox Christians in Japan since the 1860s, but they…
“Kamusari Tales Told at Night” by Shion Miura
Long ago at the bottom of a lake lived a large, white snake—revered for his great powers, the local people implored this mythical creature to reform the landscape so that they could cultivate crops and survive the winter. According to the oft-told tale, after striking a deal with the chieftain, the snake god replaced the…
“The Narrow Cage and Other Modern Fairy Tales” by Vasily Eroshenko
Vasily Eroshenko was a transnational writer working in the early 20th century, writing in a variety of languages ranging from Japanese and Russian to Esperanto as he moved about Europe and Asia. He was born in Ukraine and lived, among other places, in Russia, England, Japan, Myanmar, India, China, and the Soviet Union. His writings…
“The Flowers of Buffoonery” by Osamu Dazai
The last few years have seen a dramatic increase in titles translated from Japanese into English. While many of these novels and short stories collections are by rising authors, publishers also present readers with classic works by authors already well-known outside of Japan. These include Osamu Dazai, long celebrated for his No Longer Human, first…
