As the year rolls along and May comes to a close, we want to remind you to celebrate AANHPI Month by sharing some of our favorite Grove Atlantic books by Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander authors. Journey alongside generations of a mysteriously afflicted family in rural India or piece together the reasons behind a seemingly random murder in New Zealand in this diverse selection of literary fiction, thrillers, memoirs, and more.

 

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

New York Times bestselling novel The Covenant of Water follows three generations of a family from Kerala, India that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. It is a shimmering evocation of a bygone India, a hymn to progress in medicine, and a humbling testament to the struggles of past generations.

It’s epic. It’s transportive . . . unputdownable!”—Oprah Winfrey

 

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Now an HBO Limited Series!

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, The Sympathizer follows a communist double agent caught between building a new life in Los Angeles and reporting back to his superiors in Vietnam during the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Nguyen does not shy away from the realities of the Vietnam War; giving us a blistering exploration of identity and America, a gripping spy novel, and a powerful story of love and friendship.

“His book fills a void in the literature, giving voice to the previously voiceless.”—Philip Caputo, New York Times Book Review

 

Orphan Bachelors by Fae Myenne Ng

Orphan Bachelors is an extraordinary memoir of San Francisco’s Chinatown and of a family building a life in a country bent on their exclusion. In this powerful remembrance, Ng skillfully weaves together the history of one doomed family; an elegy for brothers estranged and for elders lost; and insights into writing between languages and teaching between generations.

“Beautifully written, powerfully informative and never boring . . . Orphan Bachelors is a revelation.”—Washington Post

 

Chinese Prodigal by David Shih

A memoir in essays, Chinese Prodigal explores what it means to be “Asian American” in a post–Civil Rights America in the wake of Vincent Chin’s death. A work of rare subtlety, Shih offers a new vocabulary for understanding a racial hierarchy too often conceived as binary and masterfully captures the intimate costs of becoming an American. It is a moving testimony of a son, father, and citizen stepping outside the identities imposed on him.

“An insightful window into the complicated, difficult relationship between Asian Americans and the place they call home.”—Collin Chung, International Examiner

 

My Nemesis by Charmaine Craig

Sparks fly when writer Tessa develops a friendship with Charlie. The only problem is Charlie’s wife, Wah, whose traditional femininity and subservience is looked down upon by Tessa. Tensions rise until a martini-fueled outburst and its consequences force Tessa to consider how much she is limited by her own perceptions. Compassionate and thought-provoking, My Nemesis is a brilliant story of seduction, envy, and the ways we publicly define and privately deceive ourselves today.

“Taut, bristling and psychologically profound.”—Economist

 

Medusa of the Roses by Navid Sinaki

Sex, vengeance, and betrayal in modern day Tehran—Navid Sinaki’s bold and cinematic debut is a queer literary noir following Anjir, a morbid romantic and petty thief whose boyfriend disappears just as they’re planning to leave their hometown for good. Steeped in ancient Persian and Greek myths, and brimming with poetic vulnerability, subversive bite, and noirish grit, Medusa of the Roses is a page-turning wallop of a story from a bright new literary talent.

“A lurid summer read that oozes with sex, death and cinema . . . [Medusa of the Roses] checks all the boxes.”—Jim Ruland, Los Angeles Times

 

Keep an eye out for these upcoming books!

Carved in Blood by Michael Bennett

Out July 15, 2025.

The third installment of the Hana Westerman series has Hana asking in on an investigation after her ex-husband is the victim of a seemingly random act of violence. When evidence points to a local gang leader from her past, Hana rejoins the force, acknowledging that she now has unfinished business.

“Bennett writes about Māori culture and history with generosity and care.”—Shelf Awareness

 

The Unveiling by Quan Barry

Out October 14, 2025.

From the award-winning author of We Ride Upon Sticks comes a genre-bending novel of literary horror following Black film scout Striker and a group of survivors stranded on a remote island along the Antarctic Peninsula. As the polar ice thaws in the unseasonable warmth, the group’s secrets, prejudices, and inner demons will also emerge, including revelations from Striker’s past that could irrevocably shatter her world. With her signature lyricism and humor, Quan Barry offers neither comfort nor closure as she questions the limits of the human bonds that connect us to one another, affirming there are no such things as haunted places, only haunted people.

 

Ravishing by Eshani Surya

Out November 11, 2025.

In this visceral yet undeniably tender story, two Indian American siblings on opposite sides of a predatory beauty tech company must contend with their harsh new realities when a vicious truth is revealed. Ravishing shines a light on the dark side of the beauty industry and provides an illuminating portrait of the complexities of growing up brown, chronic illness, and our relationship to ourselves.

 

Expand your TBR and pick up these novels by authors from Japan, India, China, and more.

Those Opulent Days by Jacquie Pham

A classic historical murder mystery centered around the glamor, violence, wealth, and opium of 1920’s French-colonial Vietnam, Those Opulent Days follows four childhood friends, and the people that surround them, throughout an evening that one of them won’t survive. As we get closer to discovering the murderer, Pham highlights the true villain: colonialism, the French occupation of Vietnam, and the massive economic differences that catapult the wealthy into the stratosphere while the poor starve on the streets.

“[A] tense and unique dispatch from a key period in Vietnamese history.”—Publishers Weekly

 

Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata

From the bestselling author of Convenience Store Woman comes a version of Japan where sex between married couples is considered taboo and children are born via artificial insemination. Except for Amane. It follows Amane as she attempts to escape from the indoctrination by her mother to normalize sex and eventually moves with her husband to a mysterious new town called Paradise-Eden to try to purify herself of her “strangeness”.

“Murata’s blunt and bizarre humor is on full display, as is her incisive commentary on contemporary Japan. This nightmarish fable is impossible to shake.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

 

Radical by Xiaolu Guo

In this provocative memoir, Xiaolu Guo creates an intercultural feminist lexicon after a year-long sojourn in New York. Using Chinese radicals (or bushou), the individual pictograms that makeup complex characters, she examines how the same concepts translate (or do not) across cultures, illuminating the integral role language plays in forming our sense of self. Radical is an expression of one artist’s fascination with Western culture and her nostalgia for Eastern landscapes, and an attempt to describe the space in between.

“Guo writes movingly . . . [her] pursuit of space is a radical act and must come at a personal cost, but for her it is essential for living.”—Christiana Bishop, New Statesman (UK)

 

Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai

Sampath Chawla, born in a time of drought into a family not quite like other families and in a town not quite like other towns, has not amounted to much—until one day he climbs a guava tree in search of peaceful contemplation and becomes unexpectedly famous as a holy man. A syndicate of larcenous, alcoholic monkeys terrorizes the pilgrims who cluster around Sampath’s tree, spies and profiteers descend on the town, and none of Desai’s outrageous characters goes unaffected as events spin increasingly out of control.

“So fresh and funny and delicious that it defies comparison.”—The Times (London)

 

Heart Sutra by Yan Lianke

At the Religious Training Center on the campus of Beijing’s National Politics University, disciples of China’s five main religions—Buddhism, Daoism, Protestantism, Catholicism, and Islam—gather for a year of intensive study and training. In this hallowed yet jovial atmosphere, the institute’s two youngest disciples—Yahui, a Buddhist jade nun, and Gu Mingzheng, a Daoist master—fall into an uneasy acquaintanceship that might bloom into something more. Illustrated throughout with beautiful original papercuts and animated by Yan Lianke’s characteristically incisive sense of humor, Heart Sutra is a stunning and timely novel that highlights the best and worst in mankind and interrogates the costs of division.

“Yan’s storytelling has a luminous, irrepressible quality.”—Lily Meyer, NPR

 

Love in the Big City by San Young Park

Funny, transporting, surprising, and poignant, Love in the Big City tells the story of a young gay man searching for happiness in the lonely city of Seoul. A brilliantly written novel filled with powerful sensory descriptions and both humor and emotion, Park expertly explores millennial loneliness as well as the joys of queer life.

“A shimmering addition to the recent genre of novels chronicling queer millennial malaise.”—Bobby Finger, New York Times Book Review

 

Pyre by Perumal Murugan

Saroja and Kumaresan are young and in love, and hope to build a happy life together in Kumaresan’s family village after their quick marriage. But they are harboring a terrible secret: Saroja is from a different caste than Kumaresan, and if the villagers find out, they will both be in grave danger. In evocative prose, Perumal Murugan masterfully conjures a moving tale of innocent young love pitted against chilling violence.

“With flashes of fable, [Pyre] tells a story specific and universal: how flammable are fear and the distrust of others.”—International Booker Prize Judges

 

A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe

From the winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature is the story of Bird, a frustrated intellectual in a failing marriage whose Utopian dream is shattered when his wife gives birth to a brain-damaged child.

“In writing novels there is no substitute for maturity and moral awareness. Kenzaburo Oe has both.”—Alan Levensohn, Christian Science Monitor

 

Sunbirth by An Yu

Out August 5, 2025.

The sun is shrinking, and hard times have fallen on Five Poems Lake, a small village surrounded by impenetrable deserts. When the Beacons begin to appear—ordinary people with heads replaced by searing, blinding light, like miniature suns—two sisters wonder if they may hold the answer to their salvation, or if they are just another sign of impending ruin. With a richly surreal sensibility and anchored by searching curiosity and wisdom, Sunbirth honors the unique relationship held between sisters and asks how much we can ever know about the deepest mysteries of the world.

“This confirms Yu’s mastery of the mesmerizing and strange.”—Publishers Weekly