AFGHANISTAN
Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner
Amir’s life is transformed when
he comes to terms with his past friendship with his friend and servant Hassan.
It’s a story of fierce cruelty and redeeming love.
Yasmina Khadra
Swallows of Kabul
Khadra illustrates the effects of
repression on a pair of Kabul couples in this harrowing novel of life under the
Taliban.
Asne Seierstad
Bookseller of Kabul
After living for three months
with the Kabul bookseller, this Norwegian journalist offers this portrait of a
nation recovering from war.
CHINA
Jung Chang
Wild Swans
Jung Chang recounts the gripping
story of three generations of women in her family during the political upheavals
of the 20th century.
Sijie Dai
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
This novella tracks the lives of
two teens sent to a small village to be “re-educated” during the Cultural
Revolution.
Jin
Ha Waiting
To marry the woman he loves Lin
Han returns each summer for eighteen years to Goose Village to divorce his wife
given to him in an arranged marriage.
Xianjian Gao
Soul Mountain
This Nobel laureate author bases
this novel on his own experience when he was diagnosed with cancer while
preparing to flee Beijing as a counterrevolutionary.
Gail Tsukiyama
Women of the Silk
Eight year old Pei Chung, left at
a silk factory by her father, begins work and slowly begins to thrive on her new
independence.
INDIA
Sara Banerji
Shining Hero
This exotic novel of sibling
rivalry is set in contemporary India but weaves in mythology and epic poetry.
Monica Ali
Brick Lane
At 18 Nazneen, an unspoiled girl
from an Indian village, begins life in London after her father arranges her
marriage to 40-year old Chanu.
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Out of India
This compilation of 15 unrelated
tales woven together with humor and compassion presents a view of the many
different Indias.
Jhumpa Lahiri
Interpreter of Maladies
Set in Cambridge this collection
of stories recounts the lives of recently transported Indian families as they
adjust to their new culture.
Jhumpa Lahiri
The Namesake
This finely wrought drama
illuminates the lives of an immigrant family who settle in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
Rohinton Mistry
A Fine Balance
Set during Indira Ghandi’s time
this novel honestly and poignantly depicts ordinary life of individuals who
often find themselves innocent victims of the system.
Rohinton Mistry
A Family Matter
Mistry reveals the conflicts
within an Indian family in America as they attempt to blend their old world with
the new ways.
Manil Suri
The Death of Vishnu
In a Bombay apartment house,
Vishnu, a houseboy living in the ground floor hallway, interacts with the
various individuals who inhabit the building.
Rupa Bajwa
The Sari Shop
Bajwa dramataically illustrates
the class gap in contemporary India through the fortunes of Ramchand, a lowly,
disaffected clerk in a popular sari shop.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Never Let Me Go
Told by a Hailsham alumna this is
an account of a boarding school where students are cloned to resist
disease.
Arthur Golden
Memoirs of a Geisha
Golden weaves a tale of the life
and lives of a geisha living in Kyoto.
Yasunari Kawabata
Snow Country
This haunting novel of wasted
love is a classic of Japanese literature by a Nobel Prize winner.
Yukio Mishima
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
This fictionalized account of the
actual torching of a Kyoto temple is considered to be one of the author’s
masterpieces.
T.R. Reid
Confucius Lives Next Door
In this breezy homily, Reid, an
NPR commentator, describes the five years he spent in Japan with his young
family when he was a reporter.
Jeff Talarigo
The Pearl Diver
This novel of beauty and
sensitivity follows the harsh fate of a 19-year-old pearl diver who is diagnosed
with leprosy.
Michelle DeKretser
The Hamilton Case
Set in Sri Lanka before its
independence in 1948, this haunting character study is an elusive murder mystery
as well as an exploration into colonialism.
Shyam Selvadurai
Cinnamon Gardens
Set in the fragrant and
lush city of Colombo in 1927 the novel traces the lives of three young daughters
as they grow up within the walls of the exclusive Cinnamon Gardens.