Read Around Asia Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Asia.
Best books from Asia (1972)
101.
Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh : Remembering 1971 by Yasmin Saikia EN
Country: Asia / 
Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Description:
Bangladeshi women recall the sexualized violence of the war of 1971, fought between India and what was then East and West Pakistan.
102.
Country: Asia / Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Description:
A strong and courageous novel that deftly tackles psychosis. In Melbourne, Australia, a woman in her late thirties is diagnosed with her third episode of psychosis, amounting to schizophrenia. What follows is a frenzied journey from home to a community house to hospital and out again. Sanya, the protagonist, finds herself questioning the diagnosis of her sanity or insanity, as determined and defined by a medical model which seems less than convincing to her. Having studied psychology herself, she wonders whether, even if the diagnosis is correct to some extent, the treatment should be differen... continue
103.
Khwabnama by Akhteruzzaman Elias EN
Country: Asia / Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Description:
In this magnum opus, which documents the Tebhaga movement, wherein peasants demanded two-thirds of the harvest they produced on the land owned by zamindars, Akhtaruzzaman Elias has created an extraordinary tale of magical realism, blending memory with reality, legend with history and the struggle of marginalized people with the stories of their ancestors.
104.
Meyebela : My Bengali Girlhood by Tasalimā Nāsarina EN
Country: Asia / Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Description:
This groundbreaking book throws open a window on a world unknown to most Westerners. Taslima Nasrin revisits her early years — from her auspicious birth on a Muslim holy day to the threshold of womanhood at fourteen — in a small rural village during the years East Pakistan became Bangladesh. Set against the background of the fight for independence, Nasrin’s earliest memories alternate between scenes of violence and flight and images of innocent pleasures of childhood in her extended family. A precocious child, Nasrin’s acute awareness of the injustice and suffering endured by her mother and ot... continue
105.
The Startup Wife : A Novel by Tahmima Anam EN
Country: Asia / Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Description:
*"A whip-smart, funny, and searing look at the wild world of startups." —Good Morning America Book Club Buzz Pick *Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR In this “wise and wickedly funny novel about love, creativity, and the limitations of the tech-verse” (Vogue) newlyweds Asha and Cyrus find themselves running one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. Meet Asha Ray. Brilliant coder and possessor of a Pi tattoo, Asha is poised to make a scientific breakthrough when she is reunited with her high school crush, Cyrus Jones. Before she knows it, Asha has abandoned her lab, exchang... continue
106.
Black Ice by Mahmudul Haque EN
Country: Asia / Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Description:
Abdul Khaleq teaches at a rural college nearing collapse in newly independent Bangladesh. When a writer friend asks him to chronicle his childhood, Abdul retreats to an enchanting world in the suburbs of Calcutta. He remembers the girl who spoke to fish and birds, the girl he first loved. He also recalls the stream of visitors who came to his parents' door in those days, some bearing want, some malice, and others, generosity and wisdom. He plummets into despondency when memories return him to a time when Hindu-Muslim tensions in undivided Bengal eclipsed his innocence. Abdul's nostalgia enrage... continue
107.
Hacia un mundo sin pobreza by Muhammad Yunus ES
Country: Asia / Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Description:
"Hay cerca de mil trescientos millones de personas que viven en este planeta bajo el umbral de la pobreza. Con nuestro banco hemos empezado a disminuir esa cifra. No soy un banquero convencional; soy más bien un prestamista de esperanza." Muhammad Yunus. Yunus es una rara síntesis de racionalismo occidental y filosofía oriental. Vende ideas antiguas por siempre va buena fe, confianza, responsabilidad, solidaridad. Su teoría funciona en Bangladesh. Y si marcha bien allí, no hay más que imitarla.
108.
Daughter of the Agunmukha by Noorjahan Bose, Nūrajāhāna Bosa EN
Country: Asia / Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Description:
How does a girl from a tiny Bangladeshi island end up reading Tagore, Marx and de Beauvoir and become a leading feminist campaigner? This is the riveting personal story of Noorjahan Bose, born in 1938 in present-day Bangladesh to a farming family, near the mouth of the ferocious River Agunmukha--Fire Mouth River. Abused by male relatives and raised by a mother who was herself a child bride, Noorjahan struggled for her education and autonomy. Nurtured joyfully and creatively by her mother, and mentored by local activists, she found her way into the progressive movements that would one day take ... continue
109.
Country: Asia / Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Description:
A love story unravels in the tumultuous years leading up to the war for Bangladeshi Independence, revealing the irreconcilable fissures of land and life.
A city is hellbent on revolution. Passionate and impetuous, Shelley Majumder is a university student at a time of political discord in Dhaka in the late 1960s. Frustrated by the oppression of West Pakistani rulers, the Bengali people are rising up, taking Shelley with them. As he is forced to navigate the chaos of an uprising, where his every choice and action weighs heavy with consequence, Shelley's life is thrown further into disarray... continue
110.
Shurjo's Clan by Iffat Nawaz EN
Country: Asia / Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Description:
During the hours of daylight, young Shurjomukhi's family is like any other in Dhaka, going through the motions of school, work, and domesticity in a nation still in the flush of youth. But every night, once darkness falls over their asymmetrical house, they switch over to the Unknown world. Death does not exist in the Unknown side and the family is joined for dinner by Shurjo's freedom fighter uncles, who were martyred in the tea gardens of Sylhet at the start of the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war, and her grandmother who killed herself by jumping into a well in the aftermath of 1947. These di... continue