Asian Short Stories

Samrat Upadhyay's thrilling new collection brings stories of thieves, lovers, political prisoners, fractured families, and of Nepali-Americans attempting to navigate the strange customs of the United States. It reaffirms Upadhyay's brilliant contributions to the international literature of exile.

These eight original tales by Chitra Soundar task two clever boys, Prince Veera and his best friend, Suku, with outwitting the kingdom's greediest, wiliest subjects.

Ali Park would be cute, hell, even dateable, if she didn’t annoy me all the time. Everything was a competition between me and her. I was the number one student in the finance major, she was number two. Everyone knew it. Since freshman year, we’d been bitter rivals, always getting high marks in class, signing up for the same extracurricular activities, and having an enough recommendations from professors and employers to fill a book. If you looked at our resumes side by side, they’d be similar. Only a .005 gpa separated us from number one and two. I didn’t have to look to know that ...

A young girl is haunted by a Death God. Her only hope is a rum-drinking, bar-fighting paranormal investigator with a bad attitude...After dropping out of Harvard, Kana Cold started a business as a paranormal investigator. Most of her cases were hoaxes, much to Kana’s disappointment, until one case involving a little girl and her powerful demon - a Death God - opened the door to the real Paranormal Underground...changing Kana’s life forever.

Josie Tucker is in a pickle. She's a rising food critic in the blogosphere, but she can't eat. Her testy stomach is always in knots - is it anxiety, a food allergy, or something else? With a Boston blueblood matron funding her adventures, and a trio of loyal friends, Josie finds herself in scrape after bizarre scrape, barely escaping by the skin of her neck.

From a Hong Kong movie idol fleeing a sex scandal to an obedient daughter turned Stanford pretender, from a Chinatown elder summoned to his village to a Korean American pastor with a secret agenda, the characters in the collection illustrate the conflict between self and society, tradition and change. In "What We Have Is What We Need", winner of the Atlantic's Student Writing Contest, a boy from Mexico reunites with his parents in San Francisco. When he suspects his mother has found love elsewhere, he fights to keep his family together.

In the fifteen masterful stories that make up this collection, Jai Chakrabarti crosses continents and cultures to explore what it means to cultivate a family today, across borders, religions, and race.

In 16 remarkable stories, Chaya Bhuvaneswar spotlights diverse women of color - cunning, bold, and resolute - facing sexual harassment and racial violence, and occasionally inflicting that violence on each other.

In stories charged by the complexities of mother-daughter relationships, grief, exes, and the profundities of friendship, She Is Haunted features injured ballerinas, cloned dogs, and competitive call centers in settings as far ranging as future and present Australia, New York City’s Chinatown, and suburban California.

Thailand: Me Love You Long Time Traveling to Bangkok, Thailand is every man’s dream. Cheap beer and beautiful beaches—not to mention some of the most beautiful women in the world. Women that will do anything, anytime you want—all at an affordable low price. This story is about a guy who goes to Bangkok (Nana Plaza) to explore GoGo bars, Thai massages and short (time) Asian passion. Warning: for mature readers only—depicting scenes of graphic sex: cunnilingus, blowjobs, anal, ménage, girl-on-girl, protein swapping and other things too taboo and risqué to mention on this write-out. ...

The electric, unsettling, and often surreal stories in Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go explore the alienated, technology-mediated lives of restless Asian and Asian American women today. A woman escapes into dating simulations to forget her best friend’s abandonment; a teenager begins to see menacing omens on others’ bodies after her double eyelid surgery; reunited schoolmates are drawn into the Japanese mountains to participate in an uncanny social experiment; a supernatural karaoke machine becomes a K-pop star’s channel for redemption. In every story, characters refuse dutiful, docile stereotypes.

Ocho escenas de Tokio reúne, por primera vez en castellano, nueve relatos de uno de los escritores con más talento de la literatura nipona del siglo XX.

Composed of several interconnected stories, each taking place in a year ending with the number six, ironically a number that in Chinese divination signifies “a smooth life,” Dear Chrysanthemums is a novel about the scourge of inhumanity, survival, and past trauma that never leaves. The women in these stories are cooks, musicians, dancers, protestors, mothers and daughters, friends and enemies, all inexplicably connected in one way or another.

Quiet As They Come is a beautiful and at times brutal portrait of a people caught between two cultures. Set in San Francisco from the 1980s to the present day, this debut collection explores the lives of several families of Vietnamese immigrants as they struggle to adjust to life in their new country, often haunted by the memories and customs of their old lives in Vietnam. While some are able to survive and assimilate, others are crushed by the promise of the "American Dream."

From the vulnerable and disenfranchised to the educated and privileged, the characters in this extraordinary collection embody the diversity of the Chinese diaspora past and present. In these deeply affecting stories, Jack Wang subverts expectations as he captures the hope, pain, and sacrifices of the millions who journey into the unknown to create better lives, and he explores the shifting boundaries of morality, the intimacies and failings of love, and the choices circumstances force us to make.

Akira Tanaka's past as an undercover agent in Tokyo's underworld has caught up with his present. Now he must find out who kidnapped his only daughter, and why. Can he rescue her before it's too late? The lives of a father, a daughter, and a yakuza's daughter are all intertwined in this fast-paced 7,500 word short story. This is the first in a series of thrilling adventures featuring Tanaka.

It's 2020, and children are stuck indoors as the novel coronavirus finds its way into India. A nationwide lockdown is announced, and amidst the growing crisis, Ajja and Ajji welcome their grandchildren and Kamlu Ajji into their house in Shiggaon. From stitching masks, sharing household chores, preparing food for workers to losing themselves in timeless tales, the lockdown turns into a memorable time for the children as they enter the enchanting world of goddesses, kings, princesses, serpents, magical beanstalks, thieves, kingdoms, and palaces, among others.

A parable that teaches the listener to reconsider preconceived notions or ideas before running with them.

Before her, I didn’t believe in love at first sight. Five years ago, if you told me that I’d meet my future wife in college, I would’ve laughed at you, but now she’s the only woman for me. When I first saw her, she took my breath away. It was like she was the only woman in the club that night. She looked so beautiful in her red mini dress. She was a slender woman, with long jet-black hair, and almond shaped eyes. Oh, those eyes. I got lost in them every time I looked into them. She had a killer smile and like a moth to the flame I was drawn to her. I didn't what to say to her, but ...

Una preciosa colección de cuentos de realismo mágico venidos del Japón tradicional, zen e intimista. Cuentos de tradición oral que han pasado a lo largo de los siglos de la boca de las abuelas a los sueños de sus nietos y nietas, siempre de corte fantástico, siempre con enseñanzas profundas y siempre portando la esencia de la identidad japonesa a través de su tradición.