“What’s Left of Me Is Yours” by Stephanie Scott
Based on a true story, this debut legal thriller is a simmering tale of passion and murder set in the murky world of the wakaresaseya: agents hired to break up marriages.
“I Live in the Slums” by Can Xue
In the newly-translated I Live in the Slums, her first collection of short stories in a decade, Chinese writer Can Xue invites us on a bizarre, at times whimsical, dark and unclassifiable journey exploring the terrain of and interaction with China’s urban geography. She keeps with her unique unconventional voice, as is best known in…
“The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree” by Shokoofeh Azar
Not everyone takes to magical realism, with the “one hundred years” in Gabriel García Márquez’s groundbreaking work being taken as a description of the time needed to finish it. Since that, the “magical realism label” has been assigned to a bandwagon’s-worth of Latin American writers, from Isabel Allende to Laura Esquivel and, more recently, Junot…
“Days of Distraction” by Alexandra Chang
Alexandra is a 25-year-old contract tech reporter in the Silicon Valley with a dilemma: should she stay in a job with neither benefits nor prospects, or move to Ithaca, New York with her boyfriend for five years while he pursues a PhD at Cornell? Alexandra Chang’s debut novel, Days of Distraction, is a fictionalized account…
“Hunter School” by Sakinu Ahronglong
If you are like most English-language readers, then indigenous writing from Taiwan in English translation will be largely, if not entirely, terra incognita, which is one reason among many why the publication of Sakinu Ahronglong’s Hunter School, which is about one non-Han indigenous tribe in particular, is important. As translator Darryl Sterk explains in his…
“Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982” by Cho Nam-Joo
When Cho Nam-Joo’s Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 was published in South Korea several years ago, it took the country by storm, selling more than a million copies and becoming the most popular book in over a decade. Applauded by many women, those who do not support feminism have spoken out against it. Last year, the…
“Last Tang Standing” by Lauren Ho
Andrea Tang seems to have it all. She’s a rising mergers and acquisitions attorney on Singapore’s 40 under 40 list. UK-educated Andrea’s goal is, via grueling hours at her Singapore law firm, to make partner at the age of thirty-three. But her family has other plans for her, which propels her to invent a boyfriend…
“Raya: Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara” by Srinivas Reddy
Krishnadevaraya may be the most important monarch that most people (well, non-Indian people) have never heard of.
“Glorious Boy” by Aimee Liu
Reminiscent of the tone and atmosphere of Somerset Maugham and George Orwell’s Asia-set novels, Glorious Boy is a Second World War story of adventure and loss, uniquely set in the Andaman Islands, one of India’s farthest flung territories.
“Red Affairs, White Affairs” by Felicia Nay
Part travelogue, part study of comparative religion, this debut novel by Felicia Nay is a love story and a love letter to the city where it is set—contemporary Hong Kong.
“Exciting Times” by Naoise Dolan
Twenty-two year-old Ava is a cash-strapped English teacher from Ireland living with roommates who pay less attention to her than the cockroaches in their Hong Kong Airbnb. When Ava meets Julian, a twenty-eight year-old Oxford-educated English banker, her life changes in ways she never imagined. Julian is conservative with expressing his feelings, yet offers his…
“Gold Dust” by Ibrahim al-Koni
In the Sahara Desert, Ukhayyad, the son of a powerful tribal leader, receives a camel as a gift. The Mahri camel is not an ordinary breed. It is beautiful, unique. Ukhayyad develops an endearment towards the animal which only grows and runs parallel with his coming-of-age. Gold Dust, its English edition recently republished, follows their…
“The Book of Shanghai: A City in Short Fiction”
Comma Press’s “city anthology” series of short fiction (often in translation) has reached Shanghai. Besides the setting, these stories all follow a common theme, whether intentional or not, of loneliness and isolation.
“How Much of These Hills is Gold” by C Pam Zhang
As anti-Chinese prejudice rears its ugly head in the United States, more palpably and consequentially than it has in living memory, it is worth remembering that Chinese have been in America for generations. C Pam Zhang’s debut novel of Chinese immigrants who came for the railroads and the gold rush, How Much of These Hills…
“Bombay Balchão” by Jane Borges
Mumbai, or Bombay as it was once known, has a Christian memory. This needs pointing out because it is not among the frequently consulted or talked about whenever the city is mentioned in Bollywood or even the fiction produced about the city.
