Learning World History Through Fiction!
This list brings together fiction from around the world that documents significant historical events or periods of time. Titles in this list aren't necessarily "historical fiction" but do have an important historical element to them.
I find fiction is an easy media to help educate me about world history I never learned in school. These titles aim to bring to light historical events that may not be taught in schools!
As always, I'm open to any and all suggestions! 🤠
created by ErinYeager
last updated August, 2026
Comments
Need this to be a Quest
💯 I'm desperate for more global, historical fiction based quests!
SAME my favorite genre
Growing up, the only history I learned was US history from colonial America to the end of WWII. Even then, the history I've been taught has had a very US centric point of view. Now that I'm an adult, I've come to realize how little I really know about the rest of the world and have tried to pick up where my education left off.
Sometimes I struggle to jump into nonfiction history I don't know about because it can feel impersonal and be hard to grasp all the working pieces. For me, fiction set in a historical setting has been a great place to get that foundation to start to learn more.
This list is made to help share history from around the world in a media that might be a bit easier to digest. I'm aiming to have fiction from all of the countries, but this is what I've been able to find so far!! 🙂
Love this list idea, but just wanted to note that Persepolis is memoir, not fiction. ❤️
Awesome list omg!!!!! I highly rec In The Time of The Butterflies by Julia Alvarez for a historical fiction based on the Mirabel sisters, who worked to resist the authoritarian Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. Another book about Trujillo that’s apparently supposed to be good is The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa!
OMG AZY THANK YOU!! Also both of those recommendations look really good, I'll get them added here and into my tbr! I hadn't yet found fiction from the Dominican Republic, so this is great 🙂🫂
Yayayay omg glad it’s helpful! ❤️❤️
Capitalists Must Starve would fit super well I think! It is biographical fiction about real a Korean labor rights activist!
This is an insanely ambitious list idea! I’m so impressed. I’d like to recommend The Josephine B Triology (which is historical fiction but skews literary imo). I’m going to go through my finished books and will drop more recs later 😎
The Kite Runner would be a good one for this list!
This is such a great list and the way I was able to learn a lot of non-western history as well. If I may suggest The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan for WWII Japanese occupation of Malaya
AHHH, THIS IS SUCH A COOL LIST!!! I'm going to have so much fun looking through this.☺️💕 (I've been working on a history of travel in fiction one, I'm struggling😂)
Edit: May I recommend When Sleeping Women Wake by Emma Pei Yin? Set during the Japanese occupation of HK in the early '40s!
(Also maybe The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean. It's set in HK from 1930s/40s to the 1970s, looking at the Japanese occupation and British colonialism alongside local myths. It is a fantasy though, focusing on ghosts, so not sure it's what you're looking for)
Edit #2: Also Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien and How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee. I shall now leave (not expecting all to be added! Choose whichever you want if you want any!) 🫡
What a wonderful list! Might I recommend Clear by Carys Davys (might've spelled that wrong). I didn't know much about the Clearances but this book opened the door for me!
