Remarkable Books by Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Authors

What if you could enter the mind of the person you love the most? Blisteringly smart, thought-provoking, and shocking, Immaculate Conception offers us a portrait of close friendship — achingly tender and twisted — that captures the tenuous line between love and possession that will haunt you long after you turn the final page.

A bold and inventive novel about real romance in the virtual workplace — bringing Castillo’s trademark wit and sharp cultural criticism to an irresistible story about the possible future of love.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Wife comes a suspenseful story about a vacation in the Hamptons that goes terribly wrong for three friends with a complicated history.

A witty and thought-provoking mystery that reimagines the spy story to explore the nature of relationships in a digital age: The follow-up to Jane Pek’s “thoroughly modern twist on classic detective fiction,” The Verifiers (New York Times Book Review).

An epic story of modern China that weaves a riveting family memoir with vital reporting by the New York Times diplomatic correspondent. Wong tells a moving chronicle of a family and a nation that spans decades of momentous change and gives profound insight into a new authoritarian age transforming the world. A groundbreaking book, At the Edge of Empire is the essential work for understanding China today.

From the #1 bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, comes the inspiring new novel about a mother’s unshakeable love. Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It’s about the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children and the power of art to create change.

A beautiful, tender yet searing debut novel about intergenerational fractures and coming of age, following a young woman who immigrates to the United States from the Philippines and finds herself adrift between familial expectations and her own burning desires.

From New Yorker writer Michael Luo comes a masterful narrative history of the Chinese in America that traces the sorrowful theme of exclusion and documents their more than century-long struggle to belong.

In this dazzling debut, Stegner Fellow Jemimah Wei explores the formation and dissolution of family bonds in a story of ambition and sisterhood in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

An utterly transporting debut novel about the unexpected relationship between an artist and the 130-year-old woman she cares for — two of the last people living in a flooded San Francisco of the future, the home neither is ready to leave.

An award-winning writer retraces her dysfunctional, biracial, globe-trotting family’s journey as she reckons with ethnicity and belonging, diversity and race, and the complexities of life within a multicultural household.

From acclaimed fashion designer Prabal Gurung comes a captivating, courageous literary memoir, a testament to the transformative power of creativity, and a celebration of the power of femininity and individuality. A defiant anthem for the soul, Walk Like a Girl is an invitation to rewrite your story. To shatter the mold into which society has tried to cast you. When we learn to embrace the power of vulnerability, the beauty of imperfection, and the infinite possibilities within each of us, we begin to see the extraordinary power within ourselves, waiting to be unleashed.

The paths of four family members diverge drastically when the U.S. government begins detaining Vietnamese Americans, in this “rich, gripping novel that lands squarely as a mirror of our contemporary moral squalor” (Los Angeles Times). Moving and finely attuned to both the brutalities and mundanities of racism, My Documents is a strangely funny and touching portrait of American ambition, fear, and family.

In his groundbreaking leadership book, John Wang, a top empowerment coach to Asian American professionals across Fortune 500 companies, offers research-backed guidance for Asian Americans to embody their most confident selves in business, relationships, and their everyday lives.

A young woman is drawn into a dangerous game after being invited to the maze-like home of her childhood friend, a rumored witch, in this gothic horror set in 1986 Philippines.

From the author of Gold Diggers, a biting examination of millennial adulthood, the often fraught conversations around fertility and reproduction, and the painful quest to forge an identity.

Part memoir, part manifesto, Chamorro climate activist Julian Aguon’s No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies is a collection of essays on resistance, resilience, and collective power in the age of climate disaster; and a call for justice — for everyone, but in particular, for Indigenous peoples.

From the award-winning author of Goodbye, Vitamin: How far would you go to shape your own destiny? An exhilarating novel of American identity that spans three generations in one family and asks: What makes us who we are? And how inevitable are our futures?

Tasked with finding the reincarnation of a great lama — a spiritual teacher who may have been born anywhere in the vast Mongolian landscape — the young monk Chuluun sets out with his identical twin, Mun, who has rejected the monastic life they once shared. Their relationship will be tested on this journey through their homeland as each possesses the ability to hear the other’s thoughts.

House of Many Gods is an epic and inventive story that follows Ana, a Hawaiian physician, and Nikolai, a Russian filmmaker, across decades and continents. When Nikolai comes to Kaua’i to unearth the ecological horrors that are afflicting the islands, he meets Ana and suddenly their lives become intertwined in a way neither thought possible. It is an unforgettable novel of loss and remembrance, of the search for family and identity, and ultimately, of the redemptive power of love.

A collection of over 200 breathtaking photos celebrating the history and cultural impact of the Asian American social justice movement, from beloved photographer Corky Lee who sought to change the world, one photograph at a time. Asian American writers, artists, activists, and friends of Lee reflect on his life and career and provide rich historical and cultural context to his photographs, including a foreword from writer Hua Hsu and contributions from artist Ai Weiwei, filmmaker Renée Tajima-Peña, writer Helen Zia, photographer Alan Chin, historian Gordon Chang, playwright David Henry Hwang, and more.

The heartfelt memoir of a trans pageant queen from the Philippines who went back into the closet to model in New York City. But as her star rose, her sense of self eroded. She craved acceptance as her authentic self yet had to remain vigilant in order to protect her dream career. Finally, Geena realized that living her truth was the only way to step into her full power. A dazzling testimony from an icon who sits at the center of transgender history and activism, Horse Barbie is a celebratory and universal story of survival, love, and pure joy.

Nestled in New York’s Hudson Valley is a luxury retreat boasting every amenity. The catch? For nine months, you cannot leave the grounds while you dedicate yourself to the task of producing the perfect baby. For someone else. Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines, is in desperate search of a better future when she commits to being a “Host” at Golden Oaks. But now pregnant, fragile, consumed with worry for her family, Jane is determined to reconnect with her life outside.

A forbidden affair erupts volcanically amid a decadent tropical wedding in this outrageous comedy of manners from the iconic author of Crazy Rich Asians.

A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifying, funny, and wholly original, Martyr! heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction.

From the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies: These eight stories take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand, as they explore the secrets at the heart of family life.

Iranian-American multimillionaires Ali and Homa Milani have it all — a McMansion in the hills of LA, a microwaveable snack empire, and four spirited daughters. On the verge of landing their own reality TV show, the Milanis realize their deepest secrets are about to be dragged out into the open before the cameras even roll. Each of the Milanis — even their aloof Persian cat Pari — has something to hide, but the looming scrutiny of fame also threatens to bring the family closer than ever. Dramatic, biting yet full of heart, Tehrangeles is a tragicomic saga about high-functioning family dysfunction and the ever-present struggle to accept one’s true self.

From a wry, insightful, and very funny new voice, here is one woman’s peripatetic search for home, from Kashmir to England to Saudi Arabia to Michigan to Rome and, finally, to Los Angeles.

In this exhilarating novel, two friends — often in love, but never lovers — come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. Spanning thirty years, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: To be loved and to love.

The much-anticipated follow up to the groundbreaking anthology Disability Visibility: Another revolutionary collection of first-person writing on the joys and challenges of the modern disability experience, and intimacy in all its myriad forms.

Know My Name will forever transform the way we think about sexual assault, challenging our beliefs about what is acceptable and speaking truth to the tumultuous reality of healing. It also introduces readers to an extraordinary writer, one whose words have already changed our world. Entwining pain, resilience, and humor, this memoir will stand as a modern classic.

From bestselling author R. O. Kwon, an exhilarating, blazing-hot novel about a woman caught between her desires and her life. Vital, bold, powerful, and deeply moving, Exhibit asks: How brightly can you burn before you light your life on fire?

From the indie rockstar of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity.

The dramatic real life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China’s 1949 Communist revolution — a heartrending precursor to the struggles faced by emigrants today.

In a stunning collection that announces the arrival of an incredible talent, Kristiana Kahakauwila travels the islands of Hawai’i, making the fabled place her own. Exploring the deep tensions between local and tourist, tradition and expectation, façade and authentic self, This Is Paradise provides an unforgettable portrait of life as it’s truly being lived on Maui, Oahu, Kaua’i and the Big Island.

When a young woman is found dead on her college campus, her sister doesn’t believe it was an accident — and her search for answers leads her closer to home than she ever would have imagined in this thrilling debut novel from an exciting new talent.

A riveting debut novel set in contemporary Seoul, South Korea, about four young women making their way in a world defined by impossible standards of beauty, after-hours room salons catering to wealthy men, ruthless social hierarchies, and K-pop mania.

In her award-winning book The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston created an entirely new form — an exhilarating blend of autobiography and mythology, of world and self, of hot rage and cool analysis. First published in 1976, it has become a classic in its innovative portrayal of multiple and intersecting identities — immigrant, female, Chinese, American.

The award-winning author of The Leavers offers a visionary novel of friendship, art, and ambition that asks: What is the value of a meaningful life? Moving from the predigital 1980s to the art and tech subcultures of the 1990s to a strikingly imagined portrait of the 2040s, Memory Piece is an innovative and audacious story of three lifelong friends as they strive to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised.

Full of Ozeki’s signature humor and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.