Historical Fiction Asia

A blind obsession. A driving ambition. A relentless, unrestrained, single-minded pursuit of a shiny metal. These are the symptoms of a condition known as gold fever, and, like Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, American mining engineer Captain Humbert Reynolds has got it bad. Possible side effects include: temporary insanity, a propensity for violence, and death.

First-hand reports of the most riveting anti-terror encounters in the wake of the 2016 surgical strikes, the men who hunted terrorists in a magical Kashmir forest where day turns to night, a pair of young Navy men who gave their all to save their entire submarine crew, the Air Force commando who wouldn't sleep until he had avenged his buddies, the tax babu who found his soul in a terrifying Special Forces assault on Pakistani terrorists, and many more. Their own stories, in their own words. Or of those who were with them in their final moments.

Hyderabad, India. 1798. Beatrice Sinclair, a grieving young widow facing financial destitution, has travelled from Hampshire to Hyderabad to visit her brother, an employee of the British East India Company. There, she is astonished to discover that he has married a beautiful Indian girl and lives with his wife's extended family in a dilapidated palace, the Jahanara Mahal - famed for the theft of a fabled diamond many years ago. As an outsider in an unfamiliar world, Bee faces many challenges - not least of all building a new and meaningful life after the heartbreak she has endured.

The three tales in this audiobook are adapted from stories told by the peasants in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. They are drawn from some books I found in shops when I visited the former USSR in 1988 as part of a citizen diplomacy group. I was intrigued by these folktales, since my paternal grandmother lived for some time in Odessa in the Ukraine. Also, I found these stories share a common theme - the poor peasant is able to succeed despite obstacles against an unfair ruler.

The Chandaria family - emigrants from the Indian enclave of Nairobi - have flourished in America. Premchand, the father, is a doctor who has worked doggedly to grow his practice and give his family security; his wife, Urmila, runs a business importing artisanal Kenyan crafts; and their son, Sunil, has been accepted to a PhD program in philosophy at Harvard. But the parents have kept a very important secret from Sunil: his cousin, Bimal, is actually his older brother. When this hidden history is revealed by an unforeseen accident, and the entire family is forced to return to Nairobi.

Introducing the Wu family: father Nan, mother Pingping, and son Taotao. We meet them as they arrange to fully sever ties with China in the aftermath of the 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square, and to begin a new, free life in the United States.

Brushstrokes in Time, written by Sylvia Vetta, is a memoir of fictional Chinese artist, Little Winter, written for her American daughter. It takes the story of Communist China beyond the death of Mao and for the first time in fiction shows the birth of the radical art movement, The Stars, in 1979. Her haunting love story connects us to this time of hope for freedom of expression in China, and to a man frustrated by "being kept in small shoes".

France, 1918. In the final days of the First World War, Pauline Deng runs away from her uncle’s home in Paris to evade a marriage being arranged for her in Shanghai. To prevent the union, she needs the help of her cousin Theo, who is working in the French countryside as a translator for the Chinese Labour Corps.

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....

William Ping’s millennial life revolves around eating at restaurants, posting online about eating at restaurants, then overanalyzing it. This changes unexpectedly when a dinner with his Chinese girlfriend’s family goes sideways and his insecurity about his biracial identity and his ignorance of his own Chinese heritage overflow. During a much-needed break from the dinner table, Will is visited in the men’s room by a sarcastic, bullying spirit named Mo.

It is 1917, and Korea has yet to be divided into North and South. With the threat of famine looming, a young girl named Jade is sold by her family to Miss Silver's courtesan school in cosmopolitan Pyongyang, an act of desperation that will cement her place in the lowest social status. Jade flees to Seoul, where she forms a deep friendship with an orphan boy called Jung Ho, who scrapes together a living begging on the streets. As Jade becomes a sought-after performer with unexpected romantic prospects, Jung Ho is swept up in the revolutionary fight for independence.

The inspiration behind the Academy Award-winning Studio Ghibli film, The Boy and the Heron — Anime master Hayao Miyazaki's favorite childhood book and a beloved Japanese classic, this uplifting coming-of-age story brings philosophy, history and wonder together, available in English for the first time.

Tras el suicidio de su hermana en la tumba del emperador, la seguridad de Lin Shui en la Ciudad Prohibida pende de un hilo. Ahora, como princesa de una dinastía derrotada y concubina favorita del nuevo emperador, verá cómo las envidias y amenazas crecen a su alrededor. Pero su vulnerabilidad pasa a un segundo plano cuando las muertes empiezan a sucederse y los asesinatos no hacen sino confirmar la sospecha obsesiva que la atormenta.

Born just 15 months apart, Subhash and Udayan Mitra are inseparable brothers, one often mistaken for the other in the Calcutta neighborhood where they grow up. But they are also opposites, with gravely different futures ahead. It is the 1960s, and Udayan - charismatic and impulsive - finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement, a rebellion waged to eradicate inequity and poverty; he will give everything, risk all, for what he believes. Subhash, the dutiful son, does not share his brother’s political passion; he leaves home to pursue a life of scientific research in a quiet, coastal corner of America.

When Ran, the Shadow Warrior, is dispatched to investigate rumors of an invasion massing to the north, he signs on as protection for a trade caravan. But once underway, the caravan is attacked by an overwhelming force of slavers who take Ran and several others captive. Dragged into the bowels of the earth as slave labor for a despot-in-exile eager to reclaim his throne, Ran must make a desperate escape with his friends if he has any hope of uncovering the truth about the invasion above ground.

In Tienkuo: The Heavenly Kingdom, author Li Bo has drawn on his knowledge of East Asian civilization to transport listeners to 19th-century China. There a massive civil war is tearing the Qing dynasty apart.

Where once new ideas and beliefs were accepted, now the country's military dictator, the Shogun, is shutting his country down to any outside influences. Father Joaquim Martinez, who left Portugal to make Hizen Province, Japan, his home, has been quietly tending to the lives of his villagers, but everything is about to be thrown into turmoil, as the Shogun has outlawed Martinez's beliefs. Those who won't recant or accept banishment, face a death sentence.

In this incredible true story, Judy, the heroine of the book narrates her own version of her life. Her amazing life started precariously as a young pup living rough on the streets of Shanghai where any food and comfort was in short supply. She had the great good fortune to be rescued from the streets by a young Chinese girl called Lee Ming and a few days later a chance meeting with some British sailors visiting her dog pound changed her life for ever.

"The war keeps us together." Plain-faced Toan is an American general's translator, and slim, model-handsome Minh is the general's driver. Toan spends long drives staring at Minh: he's never seen another Vietnamese guy with such a stylish haircut and chiseled face. Minh returns his interest, sometimes. Even if a refined, good-looking guy like Minh is way out of simple Toan's reach. "I wish I could be myself." Minh has a secret. His father kicked him out of the house when he found him with another boy. And Minh has another secret: he's a communist spy, counting down the days until the attack ...

काळाप्रमाणेच संघर्षही सतत वाहतच असतो. त्याला खंड असा नसतोच. असलीच, तर भरती असते, पूर असतो. जेव्हा जेव्हा खाणारी तोंडं भरमसाट वाढतात, गर्दी होते. तेव्हा तेव्हा संघर्ष बळावून उठतो. जेव्हा उपलब्ध अन्नात, भूमीत वाटेकरी निर्माण होतात, तेव्हा संघर्ष उचल खातो. जेव्हा अस्थिरता निर्माण होते, एखादी जात धोक्यात येते, बाहेरून परकं कोणी येतं आणि बंदिस्त टोळीत घुसू पाहतं. तेव्हा संघर्ष उतू जातो.