Best Recent Asian and Asian American Fiction (2024)

"A hero once believed to be the chosen one must find a new path with the help of a band of unlikely allies in the sequel to The Art of Prophecy, an epic fantasy ode to martial arts and magic"-- Provided by publisher.

"The Cleric Chih accompanies a beautiful young bride to her wedding to the aging ruler of a crumbling estate situated at the crossroads of dead empires. The bride's party is welcomed with elaborate courtesies and extravagant banquets, but between the frightened servants and the cryptic warnings of the lord's mad son, they quickly realize that something is haunting the shadowed halls. As Chih and the bride-to-be explore empty rooms and desolate courtyards,...

"A surreal novella about the intensity and eroticism of girlhood friendships, the ecstasy of desire and disgust, and matriarchal mythmaking. Seven, who works as a cleaner at a chiropractor's office, reencounters Cecilia, a woman who has obsessed her since their school days. Their chance meeting spurs a series of intensely vivid and corporeal memories, and also leads to a bus ride during which each claims dubiously not to be following the other. In...

"Los Angeles, 1946: It's been two years since Aki Ito and her family were released from Manzanar detention center and resettled in Chicago with other Japanese Americans. Now the Itos have finally been allowed to return home to California--but nothing is as they left it. The entire Japanese American community is starting from scratch, with thousands of people living in dismal refugee camps while they struggle to find new houses and jobs in over-crowded...

With her life in disarray after her Appa's extramarital affair and subsequent departure, Ji-won, plagued by horrifying yet enticing dreams of bloody rooms full of eyes, is overcome by hunger and rage that can only be sated by deceit, manipulation and murder as victims accumulate around her college campus.

Manchuria, 1908. A young woman is found frozen in the snow. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes involved, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and men. Bao, a detective with a reputation for sniffing out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman's identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they've remained tantalizingly out of reach. Until, perhaps, now. Meanwhile, a...

"Equal parts fantastical - a pair of talking dolls help twins escape a stifling home, a heart boils on the stove as part of an elaborate cure for melancholy - and true to life - a mother and daughter try to heal their rift when the daughter falls unexpectedly pregnant, a woman reexamines her father's legacy after his death - the stories in this collection are hopeful and heartbreaking, full of danger and full of joy. Chung is a master at capturing...

"Helen Zhang hasn't seen Grant Shepard once in the thirteen years since the tragic accident that bound their lives together forever. Now a bestselling author, Helen pours everything into her career. She's even scored a coveted spot in the writers' room of the TV adaptation of her popular young adult novels, and if she can hide her imposter syndrome and overcome her writer's block, surely the rest of her life will fall into place too. LA is the fresh...

"A young woman struggles to find her voice through her painting, confronting a society hostile to women claiming their place in the world"-- Provided by publisher. In 1950s Bombay, Jaya Malhotra studies medicine at the direction of her father, a champion of women’s education who assumes the right to choose his daughters’ vocations. A talented painter drawn to the city’s dynamic new modern art movement, Jaya is driven by her desire to express...

"A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing. A chef escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world's troubles. There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound. Her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global elite, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch, and her own body. In this atmosphere of hidden...