Fiction from around the world

I live in Asia and in my book club we like reading Asian fiction.

Our favourites over the last year or so:

The Rice Mother - based in Sri Lanka and Malaya, starting in the 1920s and takes you over several generations up to present day Kuala Lumpur.
A family saga type thing, well written. Covers WWII and the Japanese Occupation, Malaya's independence from Britain and the founding of present day malaysia.

The Ginger Tree - set around the turn of the 20th century, a scottish woman is sent to Peking to marry a british diplomat, her husband is away a lot and she finds the European socialites difficult to relate to. She ends up having an affair with a Japanese nobleman and gets pregnant. Her husband predictably throws her out and her lover sends her to Japan to have her baby. It's written in the form of letters to her mother and later her friend.

I really liked Reading Lolita in Tehran; yes very much a window into a different culture and experience.

I just read Pachinko which is about Korean immigrants in Japan over the war years and beyond. I didn’t wholeheartedly love it, but it was a really interesting read about the social historical side of things and I enjoyed it.

I love Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga, set in post colonial Rhodesia in the 1960s, it is a really affecting coming of age novel with big themes.

Louis De Bernieres South American trilogy is great - he was very influenced by Gabriel Garcia Marquez so Hundred Years of Solitude or Love in the Time of Cholera if you haven’t read them.

A bit different, British author, but This Thing of Darkness is an excellent book about the voyage of Fitzroy and Darwin on the Beagle, if you want far flung adventure.

I really enjoyed Amitav Ghosh's The Glass Palace. Really exceptional writing based around India/Myanmar although I read it years ago - I have some of his others but just haven't had the right headspace I.e. A few weeks in the sun with little distraction.

I also adore Louis de Bernieres but he is British even if his books evoke other worlds and can be harrowing in parts. He is also I find, loved or hated.