Read Around Asia Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Asia.
Best books from Asia (1978)
571.
The Wandering by Intan Paramaditha EN
IndonesiaDescription:
The most ingenious and unusual novel you will read all year, where you choose your own story You’ve grown roots, you’re gathering moss. You’re desperate to escape your boring life teaching English in Jakarta, to go out and see the world. So you make a Faustian pact with a devil, who gives you a gift, and a warning. A pair of red shoes to take you wherever you want to go. You’re forever wandering, everywhere and nowhere, but where is your home? And where will you choose to go? To New York, to follow your dreams? To Berlin or Amsterdam? Lima or Tijuana? Or onto a train that will never stop? The ... continue
572.
Description:
"A wonderful exercise in humanism . . . [by] a prodigious and impressive storyteller".—Jakarta Globe An epic saga of "families and friends entangled in the cruel snare of history" (Time magazine), Home combines political repression and exile with a spicy mixture of love, family, and food, alternating between Paris and Jakarta in the time between Suharto's 1965 rise to power and downfall in 1998, further illuminating Indonesia's tragic twentieth-century history popularized by the Oscar-nominated documentary The Act of Killing. Leila S. Chudori is Indonesia's most prominent female journalist. Ho... continue
573.
Description:
Aus dem Indonesischen von Martina Heinschke. Die Erzählung beginnt mit der Nachricht von einem brutalen Mord. Margio, ein stiller Junge, zwanzig Jahre alt, als Treiber bei der Wildschweinjagd allseits geschätzt, hat überraschend seinen Nachbarn getötet, nicht mit einer Waffe - er hat ihm vielmehr die Kehle durchgebissen. Der Roman kreist um die Hintergründe der Tat. Sprachlich präzise, dicht und mit ungewöhnlichen Metaphern lässt Eka Kurniawan Margios Welt entstehen: schwierige Familienverhältnisse, die Beziehungen zwischen den Nachbarn, die Bindung an die Großeltern, Margios Geschick bei der ... continue
574.
Cigarette Girl by Ratih Kumala EN
Description:
Pak Raja is gravely ill. On his deathbed, he calls the name of a woman who isn’t his wife: Jeng Yah. His three sons, the heirs to the Djagad Raja Clove Cigarette dynasty, are thrown into an uproar and their mother is consumed by jealousy. Racing against time, Lebas, Karim and Tegar go to the most remote corners of Java to fi nd Jeng Yah before death comes to claim their father. The journey takes them on a winding path as they uncover business and family secrets. Lebas, Karim, and Tegar discover the origins of Djagad Raja Clove Cigarettes and how it came to be the number one kretek in Indonesia... continue
577.
Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) by Jesse Q. Sutanto EN
Description:
Vera Wong is back and as meddling as ever in this follow-up to the hit Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.… Ever since a man was found dead in Vera's teahouse, life has been good. For Vera that is. She’s surrounded by loved ones, her shop is bustling, and best of all, her son, Tilly, has a girlfriend! All thanks to Vera, because Tilly's girlfriend is none other than Officer Selena Gray. The very same Officer Gray that she had harassed while investigating the teahouse murder. Still, Vera wishes more dead bodies would pop up in her shop, but one mustn't be ungrateful, even if one is sl... continue
578.
Heren van de thee by Hella S. Haasse NL
Description:
Een Nederlandse theeplanter isoleert zich aan het eind van de negentiende eeuw steeds verder op zijn afgelegen theeplantage op Java.
580.
Birth Canal by Dias Novita Wuri EN
Description:
This dazzling novella from a rising star of Indonesian literature explores generational legacies, lost loves, the damage that war does to men, and the damage that men do to women. In today’s Jakarta, an unnamed man tells the story of his lifelong friend Nastiti, and what happened on the day she vanished. In the Dutch East Indies’ Semarang, a young Indo-Dutch girl, Rukmini, is captured by the Japanese military and is forced into prostitution. Years later, Arini travels to the Netherlands to share her mother’s dark past with a researcher. After the American occupation of Japan in WWII ends, a fo... continue