Asian Magical Realism

I realized that in Asia, magical and supernatural beliefs are steeped in our day-to-day lives. It’s so normalized that we or I, didn’t even think about it. So, I wanted to read more books in this category where magic occurs in everyday life

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created by jethpage

last updated August, 2026

23 books

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The Library of Flowers (Deluxe Edition)

L.C. Chu

Bestiary

K-Ming Chang

A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing

Alice Evelyn Yang

Where the Wild Ladies Are

Aoko Matsuda

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

Shehan Karunatilaka

She Weeps Each Time You're Born

Quan Barry

The Fortunes of Jaded Women: A Novel

Carolyn Huynh

Man Tiger

Eka Kurniawan

Beauty Is a Wound

Eka Kurniawan

The Night Tiger

Yangsze Choo

Princess Bari

Hwang Sok-yong

Lonely Castle in the Mirror

Mizuki Tsujimura

Red Sorghum

Mo Yan

The Full Moon Coffee Shop (The Full Moon Coffee Shop, #1)

Mai Mochizuki

Salamanca

Dean Francis Alfar

The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic

Nick Joaquín

Water Moon

Samantha Sotto Yambao

The Lake of Tears

Veeraporn Nitiprapha

Memories of the Memories of the Black Rose Cat

Veeraporn Nitiprapha

The Stolen Bicycle

Wu Ming-Yi

The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth

Veeraporn Nitiprapha

Midnight’s Children

Salman Rushdie

The Ghost Bride

Yangsze Choo

Comments

j.bateman

This is a great list (and would make a great quest imo.) I think anything by Murakami would fit in nicely as well.

jethpageOP

Thanks! They would, but I decided not to include them for now, as more people are familiar with them

ayzrules

Lovely list! I’m from an East Asian background and in my experience I feel like there’s definitely a lot of cultural customs i know of that attribute magic to day to day life, it’s so fun to find books that reflect that!

jethpageOP

Thank you! And yes, it’s so woven to day to day life, sometimes we don’t think about it

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