Fiction & Mysteries Set in Asia

Afghanistan

Dan Fesperman, The Warlord’s Son.
An aging American journalist enters the war zone of Afghanistan after 9/11 with the help of a local guide.

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner.
A successful 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.

Borneo

C. S. Godshalk, Kalimantaan.
A remarkable tale of adventure, ambition, loss and love in 19th century Borneo.

Burma
Daniel Mason, The Piano Tuner.
In 1886, an Englishman travels to a remote outpost in Burma to tune the piano of an eccentric and controversial British commander.

China

Lan Samantha Chang, Inheritance.
After their mother’s suicide, two sisters vow to stay together but are torn apart by the Japanese invasion and an act of betrayal.

Sijie Dai, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress.
Two boys sent to a reeducation camp discover a cache of Western classics translated into Chinese.

John Dalton, Heaven Lake.
An American missionary teaching English in Taiwan sets out on a journey across China after being caught in a compromising position with a student.

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.

Ha Jin, Waiting.
Once a year for 18 years, a doctor goes before the court seeking a divorce from his peasant wife so he can marry his city-bred girlfriend.

Rui Li, Silver City.
The saga of two families in a provincial salt-mining town covers the history of modern China, from the 1920s through the Cultural Revolution and beyond.

Anchee Min, Empress Orchid.
A girl chosen to be the Emperor’s fourth wife is caught in the upheaval of foreign invasion and domestic intrigue.

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, Dragon Bones.
When the body of an American archaeologist turns up in the Yangtze, a Chinese government agent and her American husband investigate.

Hua Yu, To Live.
The reckless son of a wealthy landowner gambles away the family fortune and must face the hardships of life as a simple peasant.

Hong Kong

John Lanchester, Fragrant Harbor.
From the 1930s to present, the lives of English and Chinese residents of Hong Kong intersect.

Paul Theroux, Kowloon Tong.
An Englishman must decide whether to sell his family company to a Chinese businessman.

India

Anita Rau Badami, The Hero’s Walk.
The troubled life of an unremarkable, middle-aged family man and advertising copywriter who lives in a sweltering city on the Bay of Bengal.

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 lush and dangerous Sundarban islands in the Bay of Bengal.

Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance.
Five people of different backgrounds find their lives becoming intertwined during the turbulent days of India’s State of Internal Emergency of the 1970s.

Anita Nair, Ladies’ Coupe.
A middle-aged single woman in India decides to break free from her controlling relatives and boards a train where she meets five other women.

Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things.
A divorced woman brings her twin children home to a small village where a tragedy unfolds.

Japan

Sarah Bird, The Yokota Officers Club.
A college student returns home to a U.S. military base in Okinawa and finds her family has changed.

Kazuo Ishiguro, Artist of the Floating World.
A successful artist who created propaganda during the war finds his life changed after Japan’s defeat.

Sujata Massey, 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.

Miyuki Miyabe, All She Was Worth. Mystery
A Japanese detective tracks down his nephew's fiancée, who shed her identity and disappeared.

Hiroko Sherwin, Eight Million Gods and Demons.
In the Meiji era, a man marries a young bride but is attracted to a geisha.

Gail Tsukiyama, The Samurai’s Garden.
A Chinese man is sent to his family’s summer home in Japan to recover from tuberculosis.

Korea

Nora Okja Keller, Fox Girl.
After the Korean War, three young people long to come to America and start a new life.

Marie Myung-Ok Lee, Somebody’s Daughter.
A Korean girl adopted by Scandinavian-Americans goes to Seoul to learn about her birth mother.

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.

Kyong-ni Park, The Curse of Kim’s Daughters.
A man’s five daughters are cursed with unhappiness.

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 Laotian coroner deals with the sudden death of an official’s wife and the appearance of three corpses that may cause an incident with Vietnam.

Malaysia

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.

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

Cheryl Benard, Moghul Buffet. Mystery
A Pakistani detective investigates the disappearance of a Western businessman from a border town.

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

Singapore

Vyvyane Loh, Breaking the Tongue.
A Chinese man brought up with English ways is forced to reevaluate his life during the fall of Singapore.

Nury Vittachi, The Feng Shui Detective. Mystery
A feng shui consultant who analyzes crime scenes takes on a case that leads him to Sydney.

Sri Lanka

Romesh Gunesekera, The Reef.
A chef is so committed to pleasing his master that he doesn’t notice the turmoil growing in Sri Lanka.

Michael Ondaatje, Anil’s Ghost.
A forensic anthropologist seeks the source of the organized campaigns of murder engulfing Sri Lanka.

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.

Tibet

Alai, Red Poppies.
A chieftain’s son considered an idiot by his family uses his common sense to consolidate their wealth.

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

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.

Thu Huong Duong, Memories of a Pure Spring.
A Vietnamese singer and her composer husband experience persecution after the Communist victory.