Popular Asian Biography Books

Find biography books written by authors from Asia for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (132)

81.
Reflections from Prison: 20 Years and 20 Days

Reflections from Prison: 20 Years and 20 Days by Shin Young-bok EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / South Korea flag South Korea
Description:
Reflections from Prison is the collected letters and essays written by renowned Korean thinker Shin Young-Bok during his 20 years and 20 days as a political prisoner on a life tariff under Korea's military dictatorships. The letters range from postcards, to tiny characters squeezed onto his daily ration of two sheets of toilet paper. The writings themselves are not overtly political since all the letters went through censorships Yet he does not hide the harshness of prison life at the rock bottom of society. They provide a window onto his personal suffering during imprisonment a life sentence,... continue

82.

Reflections of an Extraordinary Era by Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / India flag India
Description:
An inspirational and vivid behind-the-scenes biography of the Gandhi family and the tumult of India's independence by Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi. The granddaughter of both Gandhiji and Rajaji, Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee's childhood was peopled by freedom fighters and leaders who laid the foundation for an independent India. She is seventy-eight now, but there was a time when, as a sprightly little girl growing up in Delhi in the 1940s, Tara bore witness to World War II, the tumultuous run-up to India's freedom, its tragic partition and Gandhi's assassination in 1... continue

83.

Rental Person Who Does Nothing : A Memoir by Shoji Morimoto EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
Need a rental person who does nothing? Shoji Morimoto provides a fascinating service to the lonely and socially anxious. After an old boss told him that he contributed nothing and that it made no difference whether he showed up to work or not, he wondered if a person who ‘does nothing’ could still have a place in the world. With a tweet, his Rental Person service was born. - Have a deep secret you desperately need to reveal, so deep that you can’t tell a friend or family member? - Have you spent a long time home alone, and want to know what it’s like to have somebody with you at your apartment... continue

84.

Resistance : A Childhood Fighting for East Timor by Naldo Rei EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / Timor-Leste flag Timor-Leste
Description:
Naldo Rei was just six months when Indonesia invaded East Timor om December 1975. He spent the first three years of his life in the jungle, where his family had fled for safety. An unforgettable true story of courage and survival.

85.

Revolution in World Missions : One Man's Journey to Change a Generation by K. P. Yohannan EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / India flag India
Description:
Step into the story of missionary statesman K.P. Yohannan and experience the world through his eyes. You will hang on every word - from the villages of India to the shores of Europe and North America. Watch out: His passion is contagious!

86.

Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje EN

Rating: 3.5 (3 votes)
Country: Asia / Sri Lanka flag Sri Lanka
Description:
In the late 1970s Ondaatje returned to his native island of Sri Lanka. As he records his journey through the drug-like heat and intoxicating fragrances of that "pendant off the ear of India, " Ondaatje simultaneously retraces the baroque mythology of his Dutch-Ceylonese family. An inspired travel narrative and family memoir by an exceptional writer.

87.

Samurai! by Saburo Sakai, Martin Caidin, Fred Saito EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
Saburo Sakai was Japan's greatest fighter pilot to survive World War II. A veteran of more than two hundred dogfights, Sakai reportedly shot down sixty-four Allied planes, but he is best known for flying his crippled Zero nearly 600 miles to safety while partially paralyzed and nearly blind from multiple wounds.

88.

Six récits au fil inconstant des jours by Fu Shen FR

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
Le premier chapitre "Félicité de la vie conjugale" décrit la rencontre de Chen Fou avec sa femme Yun, Mais rapidement elle tombe malade; Le récit continue avec le deuxième chapitre "Les petits agréments de l'existence" qui parle des petits rien de la vie, on peut y décerner un certain épicurisme. Le troisième chapitre "Les chagrins de l'existence" est l'un des moins positifs, il raconte la fin de vie de Yun et les difficultés financières. Le dernier chapitre "Le plaisi... continue

89.

Sky burial by Xinran EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
As a young girl in China Xinran heard a rumour about a soldier in Tibet who had been brutally fed to the vultures in a ritual known as a sky burial: the tale frightened and fascinated her. Several decades later Xinran met Shu Wan, a Chinese woman who had spent years searching for her missing husband who had been serving as a doctor in Tibet; her extraordinary life story would unravel the legend of the sky burial. For thirty years she was lost in the wild and alien landscape of Tibet, in the vast and silent plateaus and the magisterial mountain ranges, living with communities of nomads moving w... continue