New and Notable Fiction

Red Poppies

By Alai, translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin (Houghton Mifflin Co.)

A sweeping saga of Tibet before the Chinese occupation, told through the privileged view of the self-proclaimed “renowned idiot son” of a Tibetan chieftain.

Talking in the Dark: Stories

By Laura Glen Louis (Harcourt Brace, 2002 paperback release of last year’s hardback)

A remarkable collection of disturbing short stories about lost love, betrayal, unrequited passions, obsession and ultimate sacrifices. Louis’s characters may not inhabit lengthy pages, but the memory of them will haunt readers for a good long time.

Wild Ginger

By Anchee Min (Houghton Mifflin Co.)

A tragic coming-of-age melodrama about two girls, Maple and Wild Ginger, brainwashed by Mao and the Cultural Revolution; packaged in a surprisingly slim volume.

Family Matters

By Rohinton Mistry (Knopf)

The much awaited follow-up to the best-selling A Fine Balance. A family saga of sorts, set in a Bombay apartment (really, it’s getting to be a genre of its own!), about an elderly, Parkinson’s Disease-ridden man and his less-than-ideal offspring, including two middle-aged stepchildren, a younger daughter, her husband and their two sons.

Video: Stories

By Meera Nair (Pantheon Books)

Debut collection filled with diverse, disturbing, haunting, entertaining miniatures of Indian life.

Rouse Up, O Young Men of the New Age

By Kenzaburo Oe, translated by John Nathan (Grove)

A semi-autobiographical novel about a famous writer obsessed with literature, William Blake, and dealing with parenting a mentally disabled child.

When the Emperor was Divine

By Julie Otsuka (Knopf)

Quite possibly one of the best titles dealing with the Japanese internment crisis. An unforgettable first novel written with haunting imagery about an unnamed family’s experience in the American concentration camps of World War II, their survival and their return to a shattered home. The clarity of the sparse prose is astonishing.

One Man’s Bible

By Gao Xingjian, translated by Mabel Lee (HarperCollins)

The follow-up to Gao’s Nobel Prize-winning Soul Mountain. At the request of his naked, white German lover in the relative freedom of a Hong Kong hotel room in 1996, Gao’s fictionalized counterpart recounts a version of his life during the Cultural Revolution — the oppression, the fear, the propaganda, the hopelessness, the survival.