This presentation focuses on providing a brief overview of the prominent authors and works which fall under the term Asian Literatures in English. The purpose is to acquaint the aspirants of the National and State Level Eligibility Tests with these significant authors and their work.

1. Asian Literatures in English:
Texts and Authors
Prepared by:
Prakruti Bhatt,
Research Scholar,
Department of English,
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

2. Amy tan
● Best known for her novel The Joy
Luck Club (published in 1989)
● Other notable works:
1. The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991)
2. The Bonesetter’s Daughter (2001)
3. The Valley of Amazement (2013)
4. Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s
Memoir (2017)
5. The Moon Lady (1992) [children’s
fiction]
6. Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat
(1994) [children’s fiction]
7. Mother Tongue (1990) [Essay]

3. Tan’s writing style
● Her short fiction is grounded in a Chinese
tradition of “talk story” (gong gu tsai), a folk
art form by which characters pass on values
and teach important lessons through
narrative. Other writers, such as Maxine
Hong Kingston, employ a similar narrative
strategy.
● “Mother Tongue” explores Amy Tan’s
relationship with the English language, her
mother, and writing. This nonfiction
narrative essay was originally given as a talk
during the 1989 State of the Language
Symposium; it was later published by The
Threepenny Review in 1990.

4. Maxine hong kingston
● Awarded the National Book Award
for her 1980 novel China Men.
● Her The Woman Warrior: Memoirs
of a Girlhood among Ghosts (1976)
won the National Book Critics Circle
Award for Non-fiction.
● Other notable works:
1. No Name Woman [Essay] (1976)
2. Through the Black Curtain (1987)
3. Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace
(2006)
4. I Love a Broad Margin to My Life
(2011)

5. Haruki murakami
● First novel: Hear the Wind Sing (1979)
● Notable Works include:
1. Norwegian Wood (1987)
2. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994-95)
3. Kafka on the Shore (2002)
4. 1Q84 (2009-10)
5. First Person Singular (2020) [short
story collection]
6. Underground (1997) [non-fiction]
● Was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize in
2006 for his novel Kafka on the Shore
● Employs Magic Realism in his works
● Most of his works are a mix of fantasy
and reality, which he uses to explore
themes like loneliness and self-
discovery

6. Kazuo ishiguro
● “known for his lyrical tales of regret
fused with subtle optimism.”
● In 2017 he won the Nobel Prize for
Literature for his works that “uncovered
the abyss beneath our illusory sense of
connection with the world.”
● His The Remains of the Day (1989) won
him the Booker Prize in the same year.
● First novel: A Pale View of Hills (1982)
● Other notable works:
1. An Artist of the Floating World (1986)
2. The Unconsoled (1995)
3. When We Were Orphans (2000)
4. The Buried Giant (2015)
5. Klara and the Sun (2021)
6. Nocturnes: Stories of Music and
Nightfall (2009) [short story collection]

7. Mohsin hamid
● First Novel: Moth Smoke (2000)
● The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007)-
shortlisted for the Booker Prize as well as
for the Commonwealth Writers Prize in
2008
● Other notable works:
1. How to get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
(2013)
2. Discontent and Its Civilizations:
Dispatches from Lahore, New York &
London(2014) [book of essays]
3. Exit West(2017) - shortlisted for the
Booker Prize
● “his self-consciously ‘modern’ writing style
offers a vision of Pakistani modernity
which breaks with the stereotype (that has
prevailed since 9/11) of the region as
fundamentally traditional, backward
looking, essentially anti-modern.”

8. Taslima nasrin
● Bangladeshi-Swedish writer, physician,
feminist, secular humanist, and activist.
She is known for her writing on women's
oppression and criticism of religion; some
of her books are banned in Bangladesh.
● gained global attention by the beginning
of 1990s owing to her essays and novels
with feminist views and criticism of what
she characterizes as all "misogynistic"
religions.
● Lajja (Shame) - published in 1993
[banned by the government due to its
controversial subject matter]
● French Lover (2002)
● Her memoir-divided into four parts:
1. Amar Meyebela [My Girlhood] (2002)
2. Utal Hawa [Wild Wind]
3. Ka [Speak Up]
4. Sei Sob Ondhokar [Those Dark Days]

9. Shehan karunatilaka
● Won the 2022 Booker Prize for his
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
(published the same year)
● Won the Commonwealth Book Prize
for his debut novel Chinaman: The
Legend of Pradeep Mathew
● Please Don't Put That in Your Mouth
(2019) [children’s fiction]
● Shri-Lankan Civil War

10. Michael ondaatje
● Won the Booker Prize in 1992 for
The English Patient
● Other notable works:
1. Coming Through Slaughter (1976)
2. Running in the Family (1982)
[memoir]
3. In the Skin of a Lion (1987)
4. The Dainty Monsters (1967) [poetry
collection]
5. The Collected Works of Billy the Kid:
Left-Handed Poems (1970)
6. Secular Love (1984)
7. The Cinnamon Peeler (1989)
8. Handwriting: Poems (1998)

11. Kahlil gibran
● key figure in the Romantic
movement that transformed Arabic
literature in the first half of the
twentieth century.
● The Prophet (1923) translated into
more than 100 languages:
❖ Book of 26 poetic essays
❖ Mystic discussions on topics like
love, marriage, reason and passion,
etc.
● Influenced by the works of William
Blake and Friedrich Nietzsche; as
well as the Bible.

12. Bahaa taher
● Awarded the International Prize for
Arabic Fiction in 2008 for Sunset
Oasis (published in 2007)
● Notable works include:
1. East of the Palms (1985)
2. Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery
(1991)
3. The Point of Light (2001)

13. references
● Hamid, Mohsin. “Mohsin Hamid - Literature.” British Council, 2017, literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/mohsin-hamid. Accessed
21 Aug. 2023.
● Rafik, Farah, and Farah Rafik. “Remembering Bahaa Taher, Egypt’s Prominent Novelist | Egyptian Streets.” Egyptian Streets, 1
Nov. 2022, egyptianstreets.com/2022/10/31/remembering-bahaa-taher-egypts-prominent-novelist. Accessed 21 Aug. 2023.
● The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Haruki Murakami | Biography, Books, and Facts.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 July
1998, www.britannica.com/biography/Haruki-Murakami. Accessed 21 Aug. 2023.
---. “Kazuo Ishiguro | Biography, Books, and Facts.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Aug. 2023, www.britannica.com/biography/Kazuo-
Ishiguro. Accessed 21 Aug. 2023.
---. “Khalil Gibran | Biography, Poems, Art, and Books.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 July 1998, www.britannica.com/biography/Khalil-
Gibran. Accessed 21 Aug. 2023.
---. “Maxine Hong Kingston | Biography, Books, and Facts.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Aug. 2023,
www.britannica.com/biography/Maxine-Hong-Kingston. Accessed 22 Aug. 2023.
---. “Michael Ondaatje | Biography, Books, and Facts.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 July 1998, www.britannica.com/biography/Michael-
Ondaatje. Accessed 21 Aug. 2023.
---. “Taslima Nasrin | Bangladeshi Feminist Writer.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 21 Aug. 2023, www.britannica.com/biography/Taslima-
Nasrin. Accessed 21 Aug. 2023.
● The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Amy Tikkanen. “Amy Tan.” Britannica, 13 July 2023,
www.britannica.com/biography/Amy-Tan. Accessed 21 Aug. 2023.
● The International Booker Prize. “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka Wins the Booker Prize 2022.” The
Booker Prizes, 17 Oct. 2022, thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/the-seven-moons-of-maali-almeida-by-shehan-
karunatilaka-wins-the-booker. Accessed 21 Aug. 2023.