I love historical fiction books but most that I’ve read are set in North America or Africa. Any suggestions for ones set in Asia or South America? Preference for ones with young women as the main characters but open to anything.
by Alternative-Can1276
24 Comments
For South America have a look at some of the books by Isabel Allende. I particularly enjoy “Eva Luna” and “House of the Spirits”.
You could also read “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan
{{Shogun by James Clavell}} – Feudal Japan
{{A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles}} – Bolveshik Russia
{{The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco}} – Medieval Italy
{{Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh}} – Colonial India
Noble House by Clavell.
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women – medieval China
8 Lives of a Century Old Trickster – 20C North Korea
Brotherless Night – Civil War Sri Lanka
Anything by Lisa See! Just finished both The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane and Island of Sea Women and loved them.
Four Reigns by Kukrit Pramoj
It is a novel told by the perspective of a girl from a noble family sent to live in the Royal Court of Siam (now Thailand).
*The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds* and *When the Future Comes Too Soon*, both by Selina Siak Chin Yoke
Conqueror series by Conn Iggulden , about the Mongol conquests
I really liked all of these:
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
Memoirs of A Geisha
Pachinko
If Mexico settings are okay, Silivia Moreno Garcia has several good books that mix Mexican history with different genres. “Mexican Gothic” and “The Daughter of Dr. Moreau” are really good.
100 Years of Solitude
The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds by Selina Siak Chin Yoke is a great book (and its sequel) that follows one woman and her family from the 1800s through to WW2 in Malaya. The setting is incredibly well written and gives lots of historical details.
Any of Tan Twan Eng’s books are also excellent – set in Malaya during the early to mid 1900s.
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is really good.
{{The Great Reclamation by Rachel Heng}} – Set in Singapore, during the decades between British colonialism and the end of the 20th century.
As a borderline (in a couple of ways) suggestion: Guy Gavriel Kay’s River of Stars.
This is fantasy instead of purely historical, but the world it is set in is closely based on the later period of Song Dynasty China, with parallels to some of the major events from that period. There is a young female main character (the courtier Lin Shan), but she is not the only protagonist.
It’s a fictional world but historical fiction style, Throne of the Five Winds (Hostage of Empire series).
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. A classic.
These recommendations are a mixture of historical fiction and fiction written in the past that is now historical . Asterix for women main characters
Amitav Ghosh: Ibis Trilogy(1840s India, China, etc,)
– Sea of Poppies
– River of Smoke
– Flood of Fire
Amitav Ghosh – other works
– Glass Palace (Burma/Myanmar, Malaya, etc.)*
– Calcutta Chromosome (mixture of SciFi and historical fiction)
Vikram Seth
– A Suitable Boy (set in India, 1951-1952)*
Eileen Chang
– Love in a Fallen City (1940s Hong Kong)*
– Lust, Caution (1930s and 1940s China)
Ding Ling
– Miss Sophia’s Diary (1920s China)*
Xiao Hong
– Tales of Hulan River
Lao She
– Camel Xiangzi (also translated as Rickshaw Boy) – Beijing in 1929s
– Teahouse – Beijing, 1890s to 1940s
Ruthanne Lum McCunn
– The Moon Pearl – rural Guangdong in the 19th century*
The Far Pavillions
Then she became the sun
Khan series by Conn Iggulden
Ancient Egypt series by Wilbur Smith
For Latin America:
100 Years of Solitude by Márquez
The President by Miguel Ángel Asturias
House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
House of the Butterflies by Julia Álvarez
The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes
For Asia
Mater 2-10 can’t remember author
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Kitchen God’s Wife-Amy Tan
My Name is Red-Orhan Pamuk
The Bungalow by Sarah Jio! Main character is a young woman serving as a nurse during WWII in the South Pacific.
The Poppy War Trilogy by RF Kuang. Called historical fantasy. It’s basically Chinese history starting at the Sino-Japanese war. It does not gloss over the atrocities of war though.