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Afghanistan

Nadeem Aslam, The Wasted Vigil.
A British doctor whose Afghani wife was killed by the Taliban opens his home near Jalalabad to others.

Andrea Busfield, Born under a Million Shadows.
After his father is killed by the Taliban, a boy’s mother becomes a housekeeper for some foreigners.

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner.
A writer returns to his homeland of Afghanistan to rescue the son of his childhood friend.

Yasmina Khadra, The Swallows of Kabul.
The lives of a diplomat and a lawyer undergo dramatic changes under the Taliban.

William Young, The Mullah’s Storm.
A plane carrying a Taliban prisoner is shot down over the Hindu Kush during a blizzard.

Bangladesh

Tahmima Anam, A Golden Age.
A woman tries to keep her family together during the Pakistani invasion of Bangladesh in 1971.

China

Jennifer Epstein, The Painter from Shanghai.
In early 20th century Shanghai, Pan Yuliang is sold to a brothel but becomes a renowned artist.

Lisa Huang Fleischman, Dream of the Walled City.
A woman born in 1890 to an upper-class family lives through China's political and social changes.

Diane Wei Liang, The Eye of Jade. Mystery
A woman in Beijing opens a private investigations agency and is hired to find a missing jade seal.

Ann Mah, Kitchen Chinese.
After getting fired, a Chinese-American woman moves to Beijing and becomes a food critic.

Xiaolong Qiu, Death of a Red Heroine. Mystery
A poet assigned by the government to be a detective investigates the death of a National Model Worker.

Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.
Two friends in 19th century China keep in touch using a secret form of writing known only to women.

Anyi Wang, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow.
A girl from the crowded alleys of Shanghai finds her fortunes changed after winning a beauty contest.

Hong Kong

Alice Greenway, White Ghost Girls.
Two American sisters living in Hong Kong become involved in a tragic event that changes their lives.

Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher.
A married Englishwoman in Hong Kong has an affair with a man haunted by the Japanese occupation.

India

Aravind Adiga, White Tiger.
A man from a poor rural area becomes a chauffeur for a rich man in Delhi and murders his employer.

Chitra Divakaruni, Sister of My Heart.
Two girls born on the day their fathers died share a special bond but family secrets tear them apart.

Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide.
The lives of three people from different worlds collide in the Sundarbans on the Bay of Bengal.

Shilpi Somaya Gowda, Secret Daughter.
An American woman agrees to adopt a child from her Indian husband’s homeland.

Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Missing Servant. Mystery
A private detective is hired to find a missing maid working for a lawyer fighting government corruption.

Thrity Umrigar, The Space Between Us.
A rich housewife and her servant in Bombay come from different backgrounds but find a common bond.

Padma Viswanathan, The Toss of a Lemon.
In early 20th century India, a Tamil Brahmin child bride becomes a widow at 18 and devotes herself to her family.

Farahad Zama, The Marriage Bureau for Rich People.
A man who is bored with retirement decides to open a matchmaking service for well-to-do clients.

Japan

Angela Davis-Gardner, Plum Wine.
An American teacher in Japan receives a bequest of plum wine and the memoirs of a Hiroshima survivor.

Sujata Massey, The Salaryman's Wife. Paperback Mystery
A Japanese-American antique dealer living in Tokyo investigates the murder of a businessman's wife.

Seicho Matsumoto, Inspector Imanishi Investigates. Mystery
Inspector Imanishi investigates the death of an unknown man found on the train tracks in Tokyo.

Yoko Ogawa, The Housekeeper and the Professor.
A relationship blossoms between a math professor with short-term memory loss and his housekeeper.

John Burnham Schwartz, The Commoner.
A commoner marries the future Emperor of Japan but struggles to adapt to royal life.

Gail Tsukiyama, Street of a Thousand Blossoms.
Two brothers come of age in Japan during World War II and in the years of rebuilding that follow.

Korea

Sonya Chung, Long for This World.
Over 50 years after he emigrated to America, a man returns to Korea followed by his daughter—a war photographer recovering from injuries.

James Church, A Corpse in the Koryo. Mystery
An assignment to photograph a passing car leads a North Korean policeman into a web of intrigue.

Eugenia Kim, The Calligrapher’s Daughter.
A girl becomes a companion to the princess but things change when Japan exerts control over Korea.

Frances & Ginger Park, To Swim Across the World.
A poor boy in South Korea and a rich girl in the North grow up during wartime and eventually emigrate.

Mira Stout, One Thousand Chestnut Trees.
A woman journeys to Korea to understand her mother’s heritage and family history.

Laos

Colin Cotterill, The Coroner’s Lunch. Mystery
A coroner deals with the death of an official’s wife and 3 corpses that may cause an incident with Vietnam.

Malaysia

Tan Twan Eng, The Gift of Rain.
A half-British, half-Chinese man befriends a Japanese aikido master and is conflicted when the war begins.

Shamini Flint, Inspector Singh Investigates. Mystery
Inspector Singh is sent to Kuala Lumpur when a citizen of Singapore is accused of killing her husband.

Rani Manicka, The Rice Mother.
A girl married to a much older man makes the best of things but is haunted by a prophecy of heartbreak.

Preeta Samarasan, Evening Is the Whole Day.
The secrets of a prosperous Malaysian family are revealed after a tragic death.

Mongolia

Michael Walters, The Shadow Walker. Mystery
A Mongolian detective and a British investigator team up to investigate a series of brutal murders.

Nepal

Samrat Upadhyay, Arresting God in Kathmandu.
Young people seek balance in a society that’s rapidly modernizing but where marriages are still arranged.

Pakistan

Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders.
Interconnected stories revolving around the family and servants of a wealthy landowner in Pakistan.

Kamila Shamsie, Broken Verses.
A quiz show researcher in Karachi tries to learn what happened to her activist mother who disappeared.

Sri Lanka

Roma Tearne, Bone China.
A prosperous family lose their tea plantation as war brews in Sri Lanka, and some decide to emigrate to the United Kingdom.

Thailand

John Burdett, Bangkok 8.
Bangkok cops investigate the death of a U.S. Marine.

Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Sightseeing.
Stories showing Thailand on the crossroads between the ancient and the modern.

Timothy Hallinan, A Nail through the Heart. Mystery
An American travel writer in Bangkok takes on a missing persons case that exposes brutal crimes.

Tibet

Eliot Pattison, The Skull Mantra. Mystery
A political prisoner in Tibet is temporarily released to investigate the death of a fellow inmate.

Xinran, Sky Burial.
A Chinese woman whose husband was killed in Tibet goes to work there as a doctor in hopes of finding out what happened to him.

Vietnam

Kien Nguyen, The Tapestries.
A boy working in the house of the man who killed his father falls in love with his enemy’s daughter.

Tatjana Soli, The Lotus Eaters.
After her brother is killed in the Vietnam War, a woman goes to Saigon to work as a photojournalist.