Historical Fiction Asia

As young widow Rehana Haque awakes one March morning, she might be forgiven for feeling happy. Her children are almost grown, the city is buzzing with excitement after recent elections. Change is in the air. But no one can foresee what will happen in the days and months that follow. For this is...

Korean Sun-hee and her brother, Tae-yul, must study Japanese language and culture in school. The symbols of their beloved Korea - like its flag and the rose of Sharon tree - can never be displayed or mentioned in public. When the emperor of Japan decrees that all Koreans must take Japanese names, Sun-hee and Tae-yul become Keoko and Nobuo. But as World War II explodes all around them, Sun-hee and Tae-yul wage their own war to stay true to their family, their country, and themselves.

Twelve-year-old Ji-li Jiang has brains, friends, and a bright future. Then Mao Zedong launches China’s infamous Cultural Revolution. Soon school is suspended and students are getting caught up in the fervor of Mao’s extreme politics. When Ji-li’s family is accused of capitalist crimes, all of her beautiful dreams burst like soap bubbles. Because Ji-li’s grandfather was a landlord, her family is harassed and humiliated. Their home is searched, and they live in constant fear. Nonetheless, Ji-li remains loyal to her beloved Chairman Mao....

Often considered the highest achievement in Korean fiction, The Nine Cloud Dream poses the question: Will the life we dream of truly make us happy? Written in 17th-century Korea, this classic novel's wondrous story begins when a young monk living on a sacred Lotus Peak in China succumbs to the temptation of eight fairy maidens. For doubting his master's Buddhist teachings, the monk is forced to endure a strange punishment: reincarnation as the most ideal of men.

All the Light We Cannot See meets The Nightingale in this literary WWI-era novel and epic love story of a brilliant young doctor who races against Einstein to solve one of the universe's great mysteries. In Russia, in the summer of 1914, as war with Germany looms and the Czar's army tightens its...

The farmers of Paradise County have been leading a hardscrabble life unchanged for generations. The Communist government has encouraged them to plant garlic, but selling the crop is not as simple as they believed. Warehouses fill up, taxes skyrocket, and government officials maltreat even those who have traveled for days to sell their harvest. A surplus on the garlic market ensues, and the farmers must watch in horror as their crops wither and rot in the fields. Families are destroyed by the random imprisonment of young and old for supposed crimes against the state. Meanwhile, a blind minstrel incites the masses to take the law into their own hands....

The English Governess at the Siamese Court, written in 1870, vividly recounts the experiences of one Anna Harriette Leonowens as governess for the sixty-plus children of King Mongkut of Siam, and translator and scribe for the King himself. Bright, young, and energetic, Leonowens was well-suited to her role and her writings convey a heartfelt interest in the lives, legends, and languages of Siam's rich and poor.

""It’s easy to see why this quick and endearing read was so popular in Korea and beyond; U.S. readers are in for a treat."" — Library Journal In this million-copy international bestseller from Korea, the owner of a corner store takes in an unhoused man who does a good deed, a kind soul...

""Absolutely riveting. A stay-up-all night read about two very different women who discover just how strong they can be—and just how much they'll dare—during the brutal Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II. This story of endurance and sisterhood will have you turning...

A Best Book of the Year: Barack Obama · NPR · The Washington Post · The Philadelphia Inquirer · Esquire · Kirkus Reviews · Chicago Public Library · Electric Literature Malala Yousafzai’s Fearless Book Club Pick for Literati ""Dazzling...Riveting."" —New York Times Book Review...

“Fantastically original doesn’t begin to describe this exhilarating globe-spanning, decade-hopping masterpiece. Lee has achieved the impossible—from a fractured century of agonies and betrayals, she has woven a novel of immense beauty and regeneration.” — Junot Díaz, author of The...

Best friends Tamanna and Yasmine cannot believe their good fortune when a school is set up in their Afghan village; however, their dreams for the future are shattered when the Taliban burn down the school and threaten the teacher and students with death. As Tamanna faces an arranged marriage to an older man, and the Taliban target Yasmine’s Western-educated family, the girls realize they must flee.

In a country where patriarchal favoritism and the primacy of sons survived multiple revolutions and an ideological earthquake, this epic novel is first and foremost about women, with the female body serving as the book’s central metaphor. The protagonist, Mother, is born in 1900 and married at seventeen into the Shangguan family. She has nine children, only one of whom is a boy—the narrator of the book. A spoiled and ineffectual child, he stands in stark contrast to his eight strong and forceful female siblings.

From the author of A Most English Princess comes a rich novel about young Princess Alix of Hesse—the future Alexandra, last Empress of Imperial Russia—and her sister, Princess Ella. Their decision to marry into the Romanov royal family changed history. They were granddaughters of Queen...

From two-time Newbery Medalist and living legend Lois Lowry comes a moving account of the lives lost in two of WWII's most infamous events: Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima.

"A haunting, evocative tale that left me both richly satisfied and deeply unsettled – yet another Tanabe triumph. Captivating, suspenseful, and full of surprises." —Fiona Davis, national bestselling author of The Masterpiece A faraway land. A family’s dynasty. A trail of secrets that could...

After the furious battles around Dak To and the horrific fight for Hill 875, Youth in Asia is a new novella of young Americans trapped in the jungles of Vietnam's Central Highlands in a war they did not understand. Youth In Asia relives the friendships, loyalties and betrayals of young men in combat, and for those that survive, the memories they carried home.

Though Japan has been devastated by a century of civil war, Risuko just wants to climb trees. Growing up far from the battlefields and court intrigues, the fatherless girl finds herself pulled into a plot that may reunite Japan -- or may destroy it. She is torn from her home and what is left of her family, but finds new friends at a school that may not be what it seems. Magical but historical, Risuko follows her along the first dangerous steps to discovering who she truly is.

Đời xưa, chuột vốn là một giống linh thiêng ở trên Trời. Trời giao cho nó giữ chìa khóa kho lúa của Trời. Nhưng chuột không phải là một loài đáng tin cẩn, nhận được giữ chìa khóa, cứ tự do đến mở kho rủ nhau vào ăn rả rích hết bao nhiêu là lúa. Sau Trời biết, lấy làm giận lắm, mới không cho ở trên ấy nữa, mà đuổi xuống dưới hạ giới để sai giữ chìa khóa lẫm thóc của nhân gian. Nhưng chứng nào tật ấy, chuột lại rủ nhau vào lẫm thóc của người rả rích ăn no nê. Đến nỗi người phải có câu than rằng: "Chuột kia xưa ở nơi nào ? Bây giờ ăn lúa nhà tao thế này ?"

A captivating and intimate debut novel interwoven with folktale and myth, Wendy Chen’s Their Divine Fires tells the story of the love affairs of three generations of Chinese women across one hundred years of revolutions both political and personal. In 1917, at the dawn of the Chinese...