Read Around Asia Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Asia.
Best books from Asia (1978)
471.
IndiaDescription:
'Anita Desai is a magnificent writer' - Salman Rushdie 'Every new work from her is a gift' - Kamila Shamsie 'Rosarita is transcendent . . . a testament to Desai’s enduring genius as a writer' - The Guardian 'Tantalising' - Financial Times From three times Booker-shortlisted author Anita Desai, Rosarita is a beautiful, haunting novel that explores memory, grief, and a young woman’s determination to forge her own path. A young student sits on a bench in a park in San Miguel, Mexico. Bonita is away from her home in India to learn Spanish. She is alone, somewhere she has no connection to. It is bl... continue
472.
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh EN
Description:
At the heart of this epic saga, set just before the Opium Wars, is an old slaving-ship, The Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its crew a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts. In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed villager, from an evangelical English opium trader to a mulatto American freedman. As their old family ties are washed away they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais or ship-brothers. An unlik... continue
473.
Churchill's Secret War : The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II by Madhusree Mukerjee EN
Description:
A dogged enemy of Hitler, resolute ally of the Americans, and inspiring leader through World War II, Winston Churchill is venerated as one of the truly great statesmen of the last century. But while he has been widely extolled for his achievements, parts of Churchill's record have gone woefully unexamined.As journalist Madhusree Mukerjee reveals, at the same time that Churchill brilliantly opposed the barbarism of the Nazis, he governed India with a fierce resolve to crush its freedom movement and a profound contempt for native lives. A series of Churchill's decisions between 1940 and 1944 dir... continue
474.
Ambedkar's India by B.R. Ambedkar, EN
Description:
AMBEDKAR’S INDIA is a collection of three of B.R. Ambedkar’s most prominent speeches on caste and the Indian Constitution. “In the fight for Swaraj, you fight with the whole nation on your side. In fighting caste system, you stand against the whole nation – and that too, your own.” “Annihilation of Caste” is one of Ambedkar’s best works in putting together how caste as a system has been eating up the roots of a rich cultural melting pot like India. “Bhakti in religion could lead to salvation. But in politics, Bhakti is a sure road to eventual dictatorship.” “The Grammar of Anarchy” reflects Am... continue
475.
Night Theater by Vikram Paralkar EN
Description:
A surgeon must bring a dead family back to life in this fabulist debut novel set in rural India, called “otherworldly” and “a haunting contemplation of life, death, the liminal space in between, and the dogged search for resurrection” (Kirkus Reviews, starred). Fleeing scandal in the city, a surgeon accepts a job at a village clinic. He buys antibiotics out of pocket, squashes roaches, and chafes at the interventions of the corrupt officer who oversees his work. But his outlook on life changes one night when a teacher, his pregnant wife, and their young son appear. Killed in a violent robbery,... continue
476.
The Association of Small Bombs : A Novel by Karan Mahajan EN
Description:
National Book Award Finalist Winner of the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award Winner of the American Academy of Arts & Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award Winner of the Bard Fiction Prize One of the New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best Books of the Year One of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book of the Year PEN Center USA Literary Award Finalist for Fiction Simpson Family Literary Prize Finalist Shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature Longlisted for the FT/Oppenheimer Emerging Vo... continue
478.
Panty by Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay EN
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'An unnerving, ominous and beautiful meditation on the loneliness of modern life.' - The Guardian
479.
Victory City by Salman Rushdie EN
Description:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic tale of a woman who breathes a fantastical empire into existence, only to be consumed by it over the centuries—from the transcendent imagination of Booker Prize–winning, internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie Salman Rushdie is one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of the Year • “Victory City is a triumph—not because it exists, but because it is utterly enchanting.”—The Atlantic A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Chicago Public Library, Polygon, The Globe and Mail, Bookrepor... continue
480.
Samskara : A Rite for a Dead Man by U.R. Ananthamurthy EN
Description:
Samskara is one of the acknowledged masterpieces of modern world literature, a book to set beside Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North. Taking its name from a Sanskrit word that means “rite of passage” but also “moment of recognition,” it begins when Naranappa, an inhabitant of a small south Indian town and a renegade Brahmin who has scandalously flouted the rules of caste and purity for years, eating meat, drinking alcohol, marrying beneath him, mocking God, unexpectedly falls ill and dies. The question of whether he should be buried as a Brahmi... continue