Literature

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Sample pages from Xu Bing's "Book from the Ground: From Point-to-Point."

Always a Pioneer, Artist Xu Bing Now Takes the Novel Beyond the Written Word

The Chinese artist's latest work is a literally iconic work of fiction.

Detail from "Ferdowsi encounters the court poets of Ghazna," from the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp, ca. 1532, attributed to Aqa Mirak (Aga Khan Trust for Culture). Featured on the cover of "The World of Persian Literary Humanism" by Hamid Dabashi (Harvard University Press, 2012).

New York

Interview: Hamid Dabashi, Humanist

Learn about his new book prior to Nov. 29 author talk.

L: "Northern Girls" by Sheng Keyi (Penguin Group Australia, 2012). R: The author (Feng Tang).

New York

Book Excerpt: 'Northern Girls' by Sheng Keyi

One of China's leading new novelists puts a human face on the phenomenon of mass migration.

L: Author Hualing Nieh as a young girl in mainland China. R: Hualing (R) with Hong Kong documentary filmmaker Angie Chen (R), director of 'One Tree Three Lives,' about Hualing's life and career.

Interview: International Writing Head Christopher Merrill on a World-Class Legacy

The current director of the University of Iowa's International Writing Program reflects on the "incalculable good" Hualing Nieh contributed to world literature.

L: The World of Persian Literary Humanism' by Hamid Dabashi (Harvard University Press, 2012). R: The author (Golbarg Bashi).

New York

Book Excerpt: Hamid Dabashi

What does it mean to be human? Explore this age-old question through the creative subversions of Persian literary traditions.

Chinese author and 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature winner Mo Yan arrives for a press conference at a hotel in Gaomi in China’s Shandong province, October 12, 2012. (Ed Jones/AFP/GettyImages).

China's Online Community Reacts to Mo Yan's Nobel Prize

Mo Yan's Nobel Prize inspires mixed responses among China's Internet community.

Chinese writer Mo Yan, the 2012 Nobel Literature Prize winner, attending the premiere of a TV series in Ningbo, in eastern China's Zhejiang province, in July 2010. (STR/AFP/GettyImages)

Found in Translation: Mo Yan

What the prize means for the new Nobel Laureate.

Hong Kong

'Mockingbird' Lands in Hong Kong

Harper Lee's classic comes to Asia Society's stage.

New York

Crime, Caste, and Corruption

Tarun Tejpal on his brutal look at Delhi life.

Author and journalist Tarun Tejpal talks to an audience during the Kathmandu Literary Jatra in Kathmandu on September 16, 2011. (Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images)

Interview: Author and His 'Assassins'

Inside a brutal new novel about Delhi's underbelly.

Texas

Women Hold Up Half the Sky

Pulitzer winner Sheryl WuDunn discusses documentary that educates on women's issues.

Texas

New Books, New Perspectives

Authors on Asia focuses on new books by some of the world’s leading journalists, historians, biographers, and policy experts.

Texas

Afghanistan: Messy Reality on the Ground

Author Rajiv Chandrasekaran discusses his new book, Little America.

Pearl S. Buck's 'The Good Earth' was published in 1931 and awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1932. Buck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938.

Re-Reading Pearl Buck's 'The Good Earth'

The 1931 novel has its faults, but it deserves a spot on the bookshelf of anyone heading to the Chinese countryside for the first time who wants to know a bit about the history of Chinese peasant life, writes Maura Cunningham.