The Asian Experience

Inheritance
By Lan Samantha Chang
In 1931, abandoned after their mother's suicide, the young Junan and her sister, Yinan, make a pact never to leave each other. The two girls are inseparable - until Junan marries. When the Japanese invade China, Junan and her husband are separated. Unable to follow him, Junan makes the fateful decision to send her sister after him. 

Also noteworthy:  Hunger: A Novella and Stories

No Man's Land: A Novel
by Thu Huong Duong
Central Vietnam. 1975. A young peasant woman, happily married to a successful farmer, returns to her house to find a thong of villagers assembled at her gate. She learns that her first husband - who reportedly died as a martyr and war hero many years earlier - is in fact alive and has returned to claim her. Faced with immense pressure, she agrees to leave her second husband and their son to live in a squalid shack with the veteran.

Also noteworthy:  Memories of a Pure Spring, Novel without a Name, Paradise of the Blind

A Pale View of the Hills
By Kazuo Ishiguro
The story of Etsuko, a Japanese woman now living alone in England, dwelling on the recent suicide of her daughter. In a story where past and present confuse, she relives scenes of Japan's devastation in the wake of World War II.

Also noteworthy:  An Artist of the Floating World

Waiting
By Ha Jin
Lin Kong, a dedicated doctor is torn by his love for two women: one who belongs to the New China of the Cultural Revolution, the other to the ancient traditions of his family's village. With wisdom, restraint, and empathy for all his characters, Ha Jin vividly reveals the complexities and subtleties of a world and a people we desperately need to know.

Also noteworthy:  In the Pond,  Under the Red Flag,  War Trash

Snow Country
By Yasunari Kawabata
Snow Country tells a story of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan, the snowiest region on earth. It is there, at an isolated mountain hot spring, that the wealthy sophisticate Shimamura meets the geisha Komako, who gives herself to him without regrets, knowing that their passion cannot last. Their affair can have only one outcome. Yet, in chronicling its doomed course, Kawabata creates a novel exalting in its sadness.

Also noteworthy:  The Master of GoandThousand Cranes

Sightseeing: Stories
By Rattawut Lapcharoensap
A collection of stories set largely in contemporary Thailand these are generous, tender tales of family bonds, youthful romance, generational conflicts and cultural shifts beneath the glossy surface of a warm, Edenic setting.

Breaking the Tongue
By Vyvyane Loh
This novel chronicles the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in World War II. Central to the story is one Chinese family. Claude, the son, is profoundly ashamed of his own heritage. Humphrey, the father, is blinded by his allegiance to the Empire. Observing both the family and the larger landscape is Grandma Siok, whose sage advice and quotations from the ancient Art of War fall on deaf ears. And then there is Ling-Li, the elusive young woman - part nurse, part warrior - who guards secrets.

Becoming Madame Mao
By Anchee Min
Madame Mao is almost universally known as the "white-boned demon" -- ambitious, vindictive, and cruel -- whose bid to succeed her husband led to the death of millions. But Min's story begins as a young girl named Yunhe, the unwanted daughter of a concubine. She later fled the miseries of her family life, first to an opera troupe, then to Shanghai and fame as an actress, and finally to the mountainous regions of Yenan, where she fell in love with and married Mao Zedong.

Also noteworthy:  Empress Orchid and The Last Empress

The Tapestries
By Kien Nguyen
The novel was inspired by the life of the author's grandfather, a tapestry weaver in the last imperial court of Vietnam. A brilliantly textured historical romance that is sure to be a favorite with reading groups throughout the country.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
By Lisa See
Set in 19th-century China, See's national bestseller tells a story of two young women who find solace with each other, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their lifelong friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart.

Also noteworthy:  Peony In Love

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
By Dai Sijie

At the height of Mao's Cultural Revolution, two boys are exiled to the countryside for "reeducation." But the boys have a violin to distract them - as well as, before long, a beautiful young tailor's daughter and a stash of Western classics.

Also noteworthy:  Mr. Muo’s Travelling Couch

The Samurai's Garden
By Gail Tsukiyama
Twenty-year-old Chinese painter Stephen is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight.

Also noteworthy:  The Street of a Thousand Blossoms

The Lily Theater: A Novel of Modern China
By Lulu Wang
When twelve-year-old Lian Shui accompanies her mother to reeducation camp, no one imagines that Lian will receive an education. But detained along with them are some of China's greatest thinkers and they take an interest in young Lian. She in turn delivers lectures of her own to the creatures inhabiting a pond she dubs "The Lily Theater." These ideas inform her life when she returns to school and reunites with her best friend Kim, a peasant girl through whom Lian ultimately learns about the painful failings of Mao's teachings-and of life.