The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic by Ramesh Menon [in AsianWeek]
30 May, by in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian, Repost
A brand new rendition of the 300 B.C.E epic poem – one of South Asia’s most important literary texts – about the perfect man, Rama, and the perfect woman, Sita, his wife.
Review: "New and...
A resonating, breathtaking first novel that chronicles the relationship of two boys, born and raised in Kabul, Afghanistan – both motherless, both nursed by the same woman and both lives inextricably linked, even in...
Xinran: The Voice of the Good Women of China
The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices is one of those books you just can’t put down. Part memoir, part history, part tragedy, part social documentary, Good Women...
Touching remembrances of a little girl's mother when she herself was a little girl. And yes, it's one of those books that puts a real lump in the...
Just in time for the spring wedding season ...
A memorable debut novel (big month for debuts, no?) about the Vietnamese live-in cook for the legendary American expats Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, a young man with a complicated past...
Debut novel about a djinn – a spirit or sprite, sometimes known as a genie (notice author's name) – and a certain, searching "I" who the djinn watches and, shall...
A toothsome tale set in L.A.'s richly diverse Arab American community, interspersing a love story about a hapa-Iraqi American chef who falls in love with
an exiled Iraqi professor. What a major relief to read something about...
Hahn is unflinching in her exploration of life – from murdering mothers to searching daughters to waiting wives, to necrophilia to fairy tales to deformed bodies ….
Review: 
Another quirky tale – a love story of sorts – from Japan’s favorite Gen-Xer, this time about two extremely different cousins who spend a summer together by the seashore.
Review: 
Another debut novel, this time about a married math teacher, his illicit affair with his teenage tutee, and what happens when he confesses all to his wife. Be ready to be surprised…
Review:...
An almost comic tale about an immature, overprivileged, married professor who falls in love with a much younger woman on her wedding day, set on the eve of the horrific Rape of Nanjing when...
Already a bestseller in India and Australia, this debut novel by LeHunte (who is hapa of South Asian and British parents) centers around the family of Aakash, a sage and healer who...
A British graduate student esconsced in a new life based in Santa Barbara, California, embarks on a labyrinthine worldly journey in search of lost ancient Sufi manuscripts believed to have been smuggled out of Iran.
Review: <a...
The youngest of three gorgeous sisters is confronted by a man who claims to be the love-child of the oldest sister. Family secrets, family expectations, family bonds are all challenged.
Review: 
Read the real and complete Kamasutra here for the first time! The first and only translation of the Kamasutra, published in 1883 and widely attributed to the 19th-century explorer and scholar Sir Richard Francis Burton, is...
Memorable volume of collected plays by one of the most hard-working, prolific, talented, tenacious – not to mention incredibly charming – playwrights of our generation: Red, Scissors, A Beautiful Country, and Wonderland.
Review: <a href="http://bookdragonreviews.wordpress.com/files/2009/05/2002-11-29-new-and-notable.pdf"...
It’s no surprise that Hollywood has apparently snapped up film rights to this sweeping historical saga, filled with all the exotica you ever tried to avoid – the geisha, the samurai, the...
Get out of the way, Arthur Golden. Here’s the genuine voice who wants to set the story straight after Golden betrayed her confidence in his tawry, overexoticized rip-off, Memoirs of a Geisha. Oh, do NOT get...
From the author of the National Book Award-winner, Waiting, another spare, disarming, amazing novel about trying to survive life in post-Mao China. Jian Wan, a graduate student in literature, cares for his hospitalized mentor, a professor,...