Asian Short Stories

Trapped in the clutches of a Zombie apocalypse, the City of Chicago, the murder capital of the U.S., unleashes the ultimate weapon, capitalism, by paying $1,000 for every Re-Killed Zombie brought to city hall, ushering in "The Great Zombie Gold Rush". Zombies never have a chance in a world where people realize 75 Zombies pays off their student loans, 40 Zombies buys them a Tesla, 5 Zombies wipes out their Visa debt...

Embrace the shadows, dear reader. In this anthology of 50 short stories, we invite you to immerse yourself in a world of spine-tingling suspense, macabre tales, and haunting encounters. Brace yourself for a collection that will leave you breathless, disturbed, and questioning the very fabric of reality. Within these pages, you will encounter the rich tapestry of Thai culture woven with elements of suspense, crime, horror, fear, and the supernatural. From sprawling cityscapes to remote villages, each story transports you to a unique setting, where Thais and foreigners grapple with their ...

Sarai wasn’t like the other go-go dancers. She knew that a few thousand pounds a year would be enough to take care of her whole family, but Sarai wasn’t dancing just to send money home every month. She had discovered that selling tickets for the illegal Thai Lottery was more dangerous than she could ever have imagined, and now she owed a great deal of money. Thai Lottery is the story of the lengths a girl will go to when a debt becomes a matter of life and death, and of the westerners who have bought their own tickets to a more personal lottery. They come to Thailand looking for ...

From the bustling streets of America to the quiet mountain towns in rural China, this captivating collection of short stories spans continents and cultures, weaving a tapestry of universal human experiences. Each tale offers a unique glimpse into lives shaped by love, betrayal, and the search for identity. These stories, by turns humorous and poignant, explore the intricate threads that connect us all—the joy of friendship, the pain of betrayal, the challenges of coming of age, and the bittersweet realities of leaving one's homeland. With its rich diversity of settings and emotions, this ...

John LeBrock is the greatest MMA fighter on Earth. He takes on all opponents and destroys them with ease. He is rich, good-looking, and oozes charisma. He wants for nothing, and life is good. John will soon find out that a seemingly perfect life can change in the blink of an eye. The MMA world champion will be given the opportunity to travel through a cosmic doorway that leads to the other side of the universe to a strange but beautiful world called Azura.

In a quiet suburb of New Delhi, two next-door neighbors develop a friendship: one, a young woman engaged to be married, and the other, Nadine: a woman in her 60s living with her second husband. We follow these two women through their phone calls and visits together, diving deeper into Nadine's storied past: With her larger-than-life personality and proclivity to defy society's conventions, her insight weighs heavily on her young friend, about to face a major turning point of her own.

It's Christmas 1999 and the Reliable Man has taken time off from his usual work to spend the holidays with his buddy Ed Cleveland in Los Angeles. But before they get a chance to hit the hot nightspots there is another party going down at the airport ...

In the title story of Souvankham Thammavongsa's debut collection, a young girl brings a book home from school and asks her father to help her pronounce a tricky word, a simple exchange with unforgettable consequences. Thammavongsa is a master at homing in on moments like this—moments of exposure, dislocation, and messy feeling that push us right up against the limits of language.

THIS IS A SHORT STORY It's 1987 and Bill Jedburgh is still an inspector in the Royal Hong Kong Police recently transferred to G4, the VIP Protection Unit. When he and his colleagues are assigned to protect a visiting dignitary from London matters very nearly go wrong and Jedburgh meets some interesting characters who will influence him later in life.

An incident at a TSA security check point sows chaos and rumors, creating a chain of events that impacts twelve young Asian Americans in a crowded and restless airport. As their disrupted journeys crisscross and collide, they encounter fellow travelers—some helpful, some hostile—as they discover the challenges of friendship, the power of courage, the importance of the right word at the right time, and the unexpected significance of a blue Stratocaster electric guitar.

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, was an Irish writer known also by the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo. His book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, comprises two parts, the first being the "Kwaidan Proper" and the second, "Insect-Studies", which consists of an essay each on ants, butterflies and mosquitos. According to the author, most of the folk tales and ghost stories in the first part were translated from old Japanese texts. The themes encompass resurrection, sacrifice, magic, and the realm of dreams.

THIS IS A SHORT STORY It’s 1998 and Bill Jedburgh, formerly of the Royal Hong Kong Police and now a gun for hire is on his way to Hua Hin with his new toy: an Accuracy International Arctic Warfare sniper rifle. All he wants to do is put the weapon through its paces and have a relaxing weekend with his girlfriend, but somehow he ends up in a pistol duel. Without his trusty Glock he has to quickly get familiar with the Ruger Mark II.

In these buoyant and inventive stories, Karen Tei Yamashita transfers classic tales across boundaries and questions what an inheritance - familial, cultural, emotional, artistic - really means. In a California of the '60s and '70s, characters examine the contents of deceased relatives' freezers, tape-record high school locker-room chatter, or collect a community's gossip while cleaning the teeth of its inhabitants.

They say a man without options can be dangerous. In the far flung future of Bangkok, a young man’s every move is dictated by his boss, the evil Minister of Defense. When a terrifying secret is revealed beneath the capital city millions of lives hang in the balance. He must choose between his loyalty to his country and his ideals, with either choice having drastic consequences for those he loves. Don’t miss Rising, by A. L. Lorentz, for the best of science fiction world building in exotic locales right here on Earth. If you enjoy Rising’s ancillary tale be sure to read what happens to ...

These nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories from Mia Alvar, a remarkable new literary talent, vividly give voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere - and sometimes turning back again.

Best friends since second grade, Fiona Lin and Jane Shen explore the lonely freeways and seedy bars of Los Angeles together through their teenage years, surviving unfulfilling romantic encounters, and carrying with them the scars of their families' tumultuous pasts. Fiona was always destined to leave, her effortless beauty burnished by fierce ambition—qualities that Jane admired and feared in equal measure. When Fiona moves to New York and cares for a sick friend through a breakup with an opportunistic boyfriend, Jane remains in California.

This fantasy and science fiction teen anthology edited by Samira Ahmed and Sona Charaipotra contains a wide range of stories from fourteen bestselling, award-winning, and emerging writers from the South Asian diaspora that will surprise, delight, and move you. So listen on, for after all, magic has no borders.

For Jack Cho, a fortysomething gay man, being able to marry someone he loves is so unfamiliar it’s terrifying. Then a wedding invitation from a college friend brings about a collision with those fears--and his own secret history. Jack and his new boyfriend, Caleb, are attending the wedding of Jack’s estranged straight friend Scott. No sooner do the guests start to mingle than questions arise

Much like Lee Chang-dong’s internationally renowned films (Burning, Secret Sunshine, and Poetry), these brilliant, unsettling tales, originally published in Korea in the 1980s and now translated into English for the first time, investigate themes of injustice, betrayal, and terror—on both an intimate and national scale. Lee writes deeply and hauntingly about conflicts between family, the powerful and the vulnerable, conformists and rebels.

Jie’s superior senses have made her the perfect lookout. Now, as the adopted daughter of the Black Lotus Clanmaster, she wants to prove her pointed ears aren’t a liability when she’s tasked to infiltrate a rebel lord’s castle. In this prequel novelette to Songs of Insurrection, Jie must decide between her duty to the emperor and her sense of compassion toward the downtrodden. No matter her choice, it will have explosive consequences for her, the realm, and the upcoming war.