Taiwan

Wild Kids, by Chang Ta-Chun (2000). This book gathers in translation two novellas from one of Taiwan's most celebrated and popular contemporary authors. Both stories are written in the blunt, engaging voice of a teenage delinquent dealing with adult hypocrisy and set adrift amid the rapid cultural changes taking place in 1980s Taiwan.

Lessons in Essence, by Dana Standridge (2006). Middle-aged Teacher Li trades the traffic and alarming headlines of daily life in contemporary Taipei for the mountains of Yangmingshan in order to write a traditional scholarly treatise on beauty. This is an ambitious, closely observed, good-humored first novel by an author who spent more than 12 years living in Taiwan.