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Daunt Books Children's Short Story Competition 2013

Asia

• Subcontinent
• East Asia
• Southeast Asia

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  Burmese Days by George Orwell

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  Inspired by the 5 years George Orwell spent serving on the Indian Imperial Police Force in Burma, this is the story of the unlikely friendship between Flory, a white timber merchant, and Dr Veraswami. Corruption, racism and imperialism come under Orwell's steely gaze when Flory is asked to step up for his Indian friend.

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  Tokyo Year Zero by David Peace

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  The first book in the Tokyo Trilogy, set in 1946, sees Detective Minami tracing the murderer of two young women in a Tokyo beaten and broken by the war. A punchy read where thrilling psychological complexities mingle with a well-researched historical background formative in shaping modern Japan.

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  Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong

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  A semi-autobiographical novel about Chen Zen, a young student from Beijing who moves to Mongolia in the late 1960s. Through his experiences, Zen imparts a cultural history of the nomadic people, their conflict with the Chinese farmers and their relationship with the grassland wolf. The style is unusual and the characters weakly drawn, nonetheless this book is strangely gripping, fiercely evocative and deeply informative.

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  An Atlas of Impossible Longing by Anuradha Roy

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  A passionate love story based around a family house in Bengal where each character is consumed by an inappropriate love: a widower for his cousin, a little girl for an orphaned boy of unknown caste. Beautifully-written, delicate and achingly tense.

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  The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

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  This is the most controversial book since 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' and certainly more dangerous after the Ayatollah issued a fatwa on the author. Although it doesn't reach the astonishing heights of 'Midnight's Children', many readers will enjoy Rushdie’s rich imagination and comedy.

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  Improper Stories by Saki

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  A collection of eighteen deliciously disturbing tales by Saki, the Edwardian master of the short story. Saki's sharp satire pierces the polite veneer of country house parties, hunting meets and evenings round the pianola. Wild beasts stampede through the drawing room, servants suffer murderous delusions and sinister children plot revenge on their elders. These witty, macabre and sometimes bizarre stories cut through the social conventions of the Edwardian upper classes.

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  The Hunters by James Salter

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  Here writer's writer, James Salter, tells the story of an ambitious fighter pilot posted to Korea. Based on his own experiences, this is a thrilling war story written with lyricism and luminosity of a poet.

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  Three Generations by Yom Sang-seop

  Price: £13.99    Add to Basket

  This beautifully-produced classic of Korean fiction is a family saga set in the time of Japanese invasion, both an insight into a traditional way of life and the brutal effect of Japanese rule; essential reading for anyone interested in Korea.

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  Chowringhee by Sankar

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  Originally written in the 1960s, this Bengali classic is an evocative, multi-charactered, good old-fashioned story which describes the hundreds of staff and guests at the monumental Shahjahan hotel in Calcutta. Sankar perfectly captures the colonial hangover, the greed, the contradictions and the decadence of Nehru's India.

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  Staying On by Paul Scott

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  Separate from Paul Scott's Raj Quartet but still with many of the same characters, this moving novel explores the lives of British people who remain in India after the handover. Both a tender love story and a portrait of the end of an Empire.

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  The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott

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  The first book in Paul Scott's Raj Quartet about the end of the British Raj in India. The year is 1942 and a young English girl is brutally raped. On the head of her Indian boyfriend falls a devastating weight of anger, racism and violence, and we recognise that their relationship is a metaphor for the growing Anglo-Indian hostilities. A masterpiece which weaves accurate historical fact into a beautifully-written love story.

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  Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai

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  Growing up in a middle-class, Tamil family in Colombo, young Arjie must come to terms with his homosexuality as well as the tumultous events in a racially divided and violent city. A moving and evocative story.

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  In the City by the Sea by Kamila Shamsie

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  Hasan is a typical, eleven year old Pakistani boy with a passion for cricket, but a childhood full of love and laughter is brought to a sudden end when his politician uncle is arrested for treason. A charming, exuberant and beautifully-written novel with a serious political undertone.

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  Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie

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  Massive in scope and power, this novel tells the story of Hiroko, a woman marked by the shadow of three birds during the Nagasaki bomb, her husband Sajjad and their son, all now living in a post-9/11 Pakistan. Longlisted for the Orange prize, this is a gripping, approachable and moving story that deals with international politics from all corners of the world and spanning five decades.

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  The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

  Price: £18.99    Add to Basket

  A hefty but spectacular Japanese classic which tells a story of love, betrayal and death set in the Imperial Court of the 11th century. One of the earliest novels in history, the author, Lady Murasaki, was a lady-in-waiting at the court of the contemporary Heian dynasty.

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  Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

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  It is the Cultural Revolution and two boys from intellectual families are sent to be 're-educated' by the State. They are kept in good spirits by their good-natured friendship, the appearance of a pretty, local seamstress and the discovery of a suitcase full of highly subversive Western, nineteenth century literature. A delightful and clever novel about the awakening of passion, set against a fascinating historical backdrop.

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  Animal's People by Indra Singh

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  Crippled by the effects of a toxic gas leak, Animal walks on all fours, scavenging for survival amidst his Indian slum. Yet, when a free clinic is opened in the town by an American doctor he grabs every opportunity to exploit the situation. An unforgiving and unromantic story that deftly combines narrative power with moral indignation and is brought to life by its obscene, self-serving, incredibly likeable hero.

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  Black Orchids by Gillian Slovo

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  A love story between an English woman and a Sri Lankan man that begins in Ceylon pre-independence and moves to postwar England. A moving exploration of race and identity.

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  The Guest by Hwang Sok-yong

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  An ambitious, violent novel narrated by Ryu Yosop, a Korean-American minister who returns to his homeland after forty years to try and attempt reconciliation. Hwang Sok-Yong speaks with a uniquely balanced voice of the atrocities committed by the US military and the two scourges of Christianity and Communism.

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  Q & A by Vikas Swarup

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  Ran Mohammad Thomas, an ill-educated, desperately poor young man from the slums, has won one billion rupees on India's Who Wants to be a Millionaire and no one can believe it. But Ran hasn't cheated; in a wonderful series of coincidence that leads him to tell the story of his life, he knows the answers to every question. A heart-warming love story and part-joyful, part-brutal vision of modern India and life for a orphaned boy growing up in the slums. The basis for the film 'Slumdog Millionaire'.

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  Selected Short Stories by Rabindranath Tagore

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  A selection of stories from Indian poet, musician and Nobel Laureate Tagore which brilliantly evoke Bengali life and customs.

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  Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan

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  This ambitious novel from Amy Tan is narrated by Bibi, a Chinese woman who has just been killed in a freak accident in Burma. Like the fishermen of the title, who take fish because they wish to save them from drowning, this is a story about greed and self-justification.

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  Diary of a Mad Old Man by Junichiro Tanizaki

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  This is the diary of an old man, weak and decrepit, and his growing sexual obsession with his beautiful daughter-in-law. Constantly frustrated by the limitations of his physical self, this is a creepy, sometimes unbearable, but often hilarious monologue.

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  Pushman and Other Stories by Yashihiro Tatsumi

  Price: £12.99    Add to Basket

  The first in a three part collection of Yashihiro Tatsumi's remarkable graphic stories about Japanese urban life. We don't think we could describe it better than Chip Kidd, who wrote ""What a revelation this book is. I'd no idea that long before writers like Haruki Murakami and Kenzo Kitakata, the work of Yoshihiro Tatsumi had so expertly peeled away the laquered layers of Japanese social and sexual surfaces to reveal the elemental heart beneath, and with such fearless depth of feeling."

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  Certainty by Madeleine Thien

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  A man mourns the sudden death of his wife, while her father is reminded of the time he spent in Japanese-occupied Borneo, another time of great sadness and loss. A beautifully written, exquisitely layered series of love stories.