8. Representative Texts and Authors
from Asia
Asia, the largest continent in the world, has
a vast literary tradition in terms of scope
and length of existence. Literature in the
Eastern hemisphere prospered and
mirrored the developments in religion, war,
and politics.
11. CHINA
One of the world’s cradles of civilization, has
started its unbroken literary tradition in the
14th century BCE. The preservation of the
Chinese language (both spoken and written),
has made the immeasurable prolonged
existence of their literary traditions possible. It
has retained its reputation by keeping the
fundamentals of its identity intact.
12. CHINA
Poets like Du Fu, Li Po, and Wang Wei
of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the finest
era of Chinese literature, has produced
world-renowned literary works.
13. DU FU
He is also known as Tu Fu.
According
critics, he
to many literary
was the greatest
Chinese poet of all time. He
wrote the poem “The Ballad of
the Army Cats” which is about
conscription—and with hidden
satire that speaks of the
noticeable luxury of the court.
14. LIPO
He is also known as Li Bai, a
Chinese poet who is a competitor
of Du Fu as China’s greatest poet.
He was romantic in his personal
life and his poetry. His works are
known for its conversational tone
and vivid imagery. He wrote the
poem “Alone and Drinking under
the Moon” that deals with the
ancient social custom of drinking.
15. WANG WEI
He was a poet, painter,
musician, and statesman during
the Tang dynasty (the
ages of the Chinese
golden
cultural
history).
He was the established founder
of the respected Southern school
of painter-poets. Many of his best
poems were inspired by the local
landscape.
16. MO YAN
He was a fictionist who won the
2012 Nobel Prize for Literature.
His first novel was “Red
best-
Sorghum”, and still his
known work.
It tells the story of the Chinese
battling Japanese intruders as well
as each other during the 1930s. It
relates the story of a family in a
rural area in Shandong Province
during this turbulent time.
19. KOREA
Korea’s literary tradition is greatly influenced by
China’s cultural dominance.
As early as the 4th century CE, Korean poets
wrote literary pieces in Classical Chinese poetry
then transformations happened at the 7th
century. Hangul, Korean’s distinct writing system
and national alphabet, is developed in the 15th
century that gave new beginnings of Korean
literature.
20. KOREA
In contemporary times, the Korean War has
made a significant mark on Korean literature.
literary
In 1950, the themes present in the
works are about alienation, conscience,
disintegration, and self- identity.
21. Ch’oe Nam-Seon
He was considered a
historian,
poet, and
in the Korean
He was
prominent
pioneering
publisher
literature.
leading member
also a
of the
modern literary movement
and became notable in
modern Korean
pioneering
poetry.
22. Ch’oe Nam-Seon
One of his works, the poem
"The Ocean to the Youth” made
him a widely acclaimed poet.
The poem aimed to produce
cultural reform. He sought to
bring modern knowledge about
the world to the youth of Korea.
23. Yi Kwang-su
He was one who
also the
the modern
launched
movement together with
literary
Ch’oe
Nam-Seon. He was a novelist and
wrote the first Korean novel “The
Heartless” and became well-known
because of it.
24. Yi Kwang-su
It was a description of the
crossroads at which Korea
found itself, stranded between
tradition and modernity, and
undergoing conflict between
social realities and traditional
ideals.
25. JAPAN
It has a rich and unique literary history
even though it has been influenced by the
Chinese language and Chinese literature.
26. JAPAN
It has a world-renowned poetic genre
called haiku ( a short descriptive poem with
17 syllables) and the diverse forms of theatre
Noh (traditional Japanese theatrical form
and one of the oldest extant theatrical forms
in the world) and Kabuki (traditional
Japanese popular drama with singing and
dancing performed in a highly stylized
manner).
28. JAPAN
In contemporary times, Western influences
take part in the Japanese literature, specifically in
the pioneering
translations of
of modernJapan ese novels,
the poetry, and reinventions of
traditional Japanese poetic forms like haiku and
tanka. Playwrights like Abe Kobo and Mishima
Yukio are Japan’s notable literalists.
29. ABE KOBO
He was a Japanese novelist
and playwright and also known
pseudonym of Abe
the best-
by the
Kimifusa.
known
He wrote
play "Tomodachi"
(Friends) which is a story, with
dark humor, reveals the
relationship with the other, and
exposes the peculiarity of human
relations in the present age."
30. ABE KOBO
He also won the 1967
Akutagawa Award. He also won
the 1951 Akutagawa Award for
his short novel Kabe (“The Wall”).
31. Kimitake Hiraoka
He is also known by the pen
20th century. He was one
important Japanese novelist of
of
name Mishima Yukio, the most
the
the
finalists of the 1963 Nobel Prize for
Literature and won numerous awards
for his works. He wrote the novel “The
Temple of the Golden Pavilion” and
won Yomiuri Prize from Yomiuri
Newspaper Corporation for the best
novel.
32. Kimitake Hiraoka
“The Temple of the Golden
Pavilion”, translated into the English
language by Ivan Morris, based on
Golden Pavilion)
the burning of the Reliquary (or
of Kinkaku-Ji in
Kyoto by a young Buddhist acolyte in
1950.
33. Ryūnosuke Akutagaw
He was a Japanese writer and
regarded as the Father of the
Japanese short story. He wrote the
short story “Rashomon” that
recounts the encounter between a
servant and an old woman in the
dilapidated Rashōmon, the southern
gate of the then-ruined city of Kyoto,
where unclaimed corpses were
sometimes dumped.
35. Haruki Murakami
He
novelist
was a Japanese
who won the
international award Jerusalem
Prize. He also won the Gunzou
Literature Prize for his first
novel “Hear the Wind Sing”.
36. Haruki Murakami
It featured episodes in the life of
an unnamed protagonist and his
friend, the Rat, who hang out at a bar.
The unnamed protagonist
and muses about life and
reminisces
intimacy.
Murakami’s work has been translated
into more than fifty languages.