Read Around Asia Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Asia.
Best books from Asia (1978)
581.
Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash by Eka Kurniawan EN
IndonesiaDescription:
Vivid, bawdy, comic, and arresting, the exciting new novel by the Indonesian phenomenon, Eka Kurniawan Told in short, cinematic bursts, Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash is gloriously pulpy. Ajo Kawir, a lower-class Javanese teenage boy excited about sex, likes to spy on fellow villagers in flagrante, but one night he ends up witnessing the savage rape of a beautiful crazy woman by two policemen. Deeply traumatized, he becomes impotent. His efforts to get his virility back all fail, and Ajo Kawir turns to fighting as a way to vent his frustrations. He gets such a fearsome reputation as a ... continue
582.
Красота-это горе by Эка Курниаван RU
Description:
Эпический роман индонезийца Эки Курниавана — удивительный синтез истории, мифов, сатиры, семейной саги, романтических приключений и магического реализма. Жизнь прекрасной Деви Аю и ее четырех дочерей — это череда ужасающих, невероятных, чувственных, любовных, безумных и трогательных эпизодов, которые складываются в одну большую историю, наполненную множеством смыслов и уровней. Однажды майским днем Деви Аю поднялась из могилы, где пролежала двадцать один год, вернулась домой и села за стол… Так начинается один из самых удивительных романов наших дней, в котором отчетливы отголоски Николая Гого... continue
583.
Indigenous Species by Khairani Barokka EN
Description:
A young girl is abducted and smuggled aboard a boat bound upstream on an Indonesian river, through a landscape scarred by ecological destruction and historical greed. As her captors take her ever deeper into the jungle, her uncertain fate is compounded by the sense of her environment as a place of violence, destruction and jeopardy. But it is also a place from which she herself is indigenous, and if she can root herself back into its landscape and languages, she may yet save herself.
Khairani Barokka addresses issues of pollution, consumerism, and habitat destruction with a poet's sen... continue
584.
The Killing Sea by Richard Lewis EN
Description:
From an author who has lived through the tsunami of 2004 comes the harrowing tale of two teens caught up in the disaster.
585.
586.
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi EN
IranDescription:
When a radical Islamist in Nafisi's English class at Tehran University questions her decision to teach 'The Great Gatsby', she decides to let him put Gatsby on trial. When she is fired for refusing to wear a veil, she resumes her classes at home with a small group of female students.
587.
The Girl from the Garden by Parnaz Foroutan EN
Description:
An extraordinary new writer makes her literary debut with this suspenseful novel of desire, obsession, power and vulnerability, in which a crisis of inheritance leads to the downfall of a wealthy family of Persian Jews in early twentieth-century Iran. For all his wealth and success, Asher Malacouti—the head of a prosperous Jewish family living in the Iranian town of Kermanshah—cannot have the one thing he desires above all: a male son. His young wife Rakhel, trapped in an oppressive marriage at a time when a woman’s worth is measured by her fertility, is made desperate by her failure to concei... continue
588.
My Life as a Traitor by Zarah Ghahramani EN
Description:
It was part youthful zeal and part teen crush that led Zarah Ghahramani to join a student protest movement. But dabbling in student politics was to lead to disaster when one day she was bundled into a car and taken to Tehran's most notorious prison: Evin. Far from her comfortable middle-class home, Zarah had to find refuge from her ruthless interrogators in a windowless concrete cell. Day after day she was humiliated and viciously beaten until all she wanted was simply to die, her spirit broken. In My Life as a Traitor, Zarah tells the story of her horrifying ordeal and her eventual release, a... continue
589.
Women Without Men : A Novel of Modern Iran by Shahrnush Parsipur EN
Description:
A modern literary masterpiece, Women Without Men creates an evocative and powerfully drawn allegory of life in contemporary Iran. Internationally acclaimed writer Shahrnush Parsipur follows the interwoven destinies of five women including a prostitute, a wealthy middle-aged housewife and a schoolteacher as they arrive by different paths to live together in a garden in Tehran. Shortly after the 1989 publication of Women Without Men in her native Iran, Parsipur was arrested and jailed for her frank and defiant portrayal of women's sexuality.
590.
Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji EN
Description:
From "a striking new talent"(Sandra Dallas, author of Tallgrass) comes an unforgettable debut novel of young love and coming of age in an Iran headed toward revolution. In this poignant, eye-opening and emotionally vivid novel, Mahbod Seraji lays bare the beauty and brutality of the centuries-old Persian culture, while reaffirming the human experiences we all share. In a middle-class neighborhood of Iran's sprawling capital city, 17-year-old Pasha Shahed spends the summer of 1973 on his rooftop with his best friend Ahmed, joking around one minute and asking burning questions about life the nex... continue