The Best Asian Literature, Historical Fiction and Audiobooks  - ASIA BOOKS -

In 1938, 20 year old Stephen is sent from Hong Kong to Tarumi, a small Japanese fishing village to recover from tuberculosis. There Stephen becomes fascinated by the mysterious past of the family’s caretaker Matsu. His friendship with Matsu and Stephen’s discovery of the love affair of his father makes him doubt if he wants to return to Hong Kong.

This book is about the telephone scam in which the caller tries to get money from his victims, mostly the elderly. Hitoshi defrauds (by using Daiki’s phone) Daiki’s mother by pretending he is  er son Daiki. The scam succeeds but when Daiki’s mother shows up and really thinks Hitoshi is her son, Hitoshi has no choice as to start his life as Daiki.

One day the body of the young girl Emili is found by four classmates, who saw the suspect. Fifteen years later, the 

incident still unsolved, Emili’s mother wants each of the four now young women to do penance for the fact that they never identified the killer of her daughter. Produced as a crime series under the title Hokusai.

Yuki Oyama abandoned her son when he was only two years old. Yuki Set left Japan of to New York to become a successful artist. But when she meets an older man who becomes her lover Yuki starts questioning the decisions she made and her life turns upside down.

Kokoro (meaning heart) is a story about the friendship between a university student and an older man, Sensei. Sensei lives an isolated life and has a mysterious past, full with secrets ,that he initially does not want to share with the student. But later he writers a letter to the student (the narrator) in which he explains the tragic events of the past.

Famous writer Kunihiko Hidaka is found murdered in his  office at his home by his wife and his best friend, Osamu Nonoguchi, who is also a writer although not as successful as his now dead friend. 

Police Detective Kyochiro Kaga gradually discovers that the two writers were not best friends at all. But Osamu has a solid alibi for the night of the murder and what is the story behind the death of Hidaka’s first wife?

Set in 1929 in Japan, Chiyo Sakamoto is nine when she is sold to a geisha boarding house in Kyoto. Her sister Satsu, who is less attractive than Chiyo is forced into prostitution. Although desperately wanting to return home, she gradually acquiesces in her fate as she learns the rigorous art of the geisha and learns to compete with her rivals for the admiration of men and the money that goes with it. Over the years Chiyo becomes one of the most wanted Geisha’s: Geisha Sayuri. But then the war breaks out and in order to survive Sayuri has to take a calculated risk.

In 1950 a young Buddhist monk set fire to the Golden Pavilion temple in Kyoto. The Temple was built before 1400 and the destruction shocked Japan. Although fiction Mishima's book is based on this event. 

Mizoguchi, an buddhist acolyte, suffering from a stutter, is fascinated by the beauty of Kyoto’s famous Golden Temple. But as his obsession with the temple grows he also sees that its structure is not completely perfect. The frustration with the temples imperfection leads Mizoguchi to a destructive act. 

Mikage Sakurai, the narrator of Kitchen, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Distracting her thoughts from grieving, Mikage spends a lot of time in the kitchen; cleaning and preparing food. She befriends one of her grandmother's friends, Yuichi and ends up staying with him and his transgender mother, Eriko. Now living together they all share the loss of beloved ones.

In Moonlight Shadow Satsuki loses her boyfriend Hitoshi in an accident ("The night he died my soul went away to some other place and I couldn't bring it back”) In that same accident the girlfriend of Hiirage (Hitoshi’s brother) was killed. Both in their own way Satsuki and Hiirage try to overcome their loss. Hiiragi by wearing his girlfriend’s schooluniform everywhere he goes and Satsuki by meeting and befriending a mysterious woman, named Urara.

Originally published in 1970 and awarded with the Pulitzer Prize in 1971, this history book gives a detailed account of the relations between the United States and Japan in de period from the Japanese invasion of Manchuria to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. More info at Blackstone Audio publishers.

This novel (originally published in 1964) is semi-autobiographical (Oe’s son was born mentally handicapped) and accounts how Bird comes to terms with the birth of his brain damaged son. While his wife is in hospital giving birth, Bird is fantasising about a journey to Africa and because his handicapped son will shatter his dreams Bird encourages the doctors to let the baby die. In his escape from responsibility for the child, he turns to alcohol and women, his marriage fails and he is fired from his job.

In 1994 Kenzaburo Oe was awarded with The Nobel Prize for Literature.

Obasan describes the story of a Japanese family in Canada during World War II from the perspective of the 5 year old Naomi.

After Pearl Harbor Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry were relocated and dispersed and their property was confiscated. Although this book is fiction, the author, born in 1935 in Canada, and her Japanese-Canadian family were forced to move to British Columbia during the Second World War.

Naomi is a sheltered and beloved when Pearl Harbor changes her life. Separated from her mother, she watches bewildered as she and her family become persecuted and despised in their own country. Surrounded by hardship and pain, Naomi is protected by the resolute endurance of her aunt, Obasan, and the silence of those around her. Only after Naomi grows up does she return to question the haunting silence.