Asian literature offers some of the most beautiful prose ever written. We pick the classics all books fans should read.
亚洲文学中涌现出了许多动人篇章,英国《电讯报》特挑选书迷应当阅读的史上十佳亚洲小说:

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1、The Dream of the Red Chamber
《红楼梦》

Cao Xueqin (printed 1791)
作者:曹雪芹(1791年出版)

With a cast of more than 400 characters, this episodic novel written in the vernacular rather than classical Chinese tells of two branches of an aristocratic family with a tragic love story at its humane heart.
史诗般的《红楼梦》并非用文言文写的,而是采用通俗的白话文。全书中有400多个人物,以一个权贵家族的两个分支为主线,描述了一个凄美的爱情故事,人文气息浓厚。

2、A Fine Balance
《微妙的平衡》

Rohinton Mistry (1995)
作者:罗欣顿·米斯特里(1995年出版)

Set during the Emergency of 1970 (a period marked by political unrest, torture and detentions), Mistry is critical of then-prime minister Indira Gandhi. Four characters from very different backgrounds are brought together by rapid social changes.
故事发生在20世纪70年代,当时的社会背景政局动荡、酷刑监禁滥用。米斯特里对时任印度总理英迪拉·甘地持批判态度。书中四个人物虽背景迥异,但他们却因为剧烈的社会变革而走到了一起。

3、Rashomon
《罗生门》

Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1915)
作者:芥川龙之介 (1915年出版)

The author of more than 150 modernist short stories, but no full-length novels, Ryunosuke published Rashomon in a university magazine when he was just 17.
本书作者芥川龙之介一生写了150多篇现代主义短篇小说,但未涉足长篇。芥川龙之介仅在17岁的时候就在大学杂志上发表了小说《罗生门》。

4、The Thousand Nights and One Night
《一千零一夜》

Anonymous (First published in English 1706)
作者:不详 (1706年英文首版)

Wiley Scheherazade diverts the sultan from her execution with the poetic and riddlesome adventures of Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sinbad and mystical creatures. Packing in crime, horror, fantasy and romance, it influenced authors as diverse as Tolstoy, Dumas, Rushdie, Conan Doyle, Proust and Lovecraft.
《一千零一夜》中有众多冒险故事:阿拉丁、阿里巴巴、辛巴达和一些其他神灵等,而山鲁佐德也因为他们的冒险故事而避免了杀身之祸。这些故事充满犯罪、惊悚、奇幻和浪漫色彩,对托尔斯泰、大仲马、拉什迪、柯南道尔、普鲁斯特和洛夫克拉夫特等众多作家都产生了深刻影响。

5、Heat and Dust
《热与尘》(又译作《印度之恋:一个英国女人的印度寻情之旅》)

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1975)
作者:露丝·普拉瓦尔·杰哈布瓦拉 (1975年出版)

In this compelling novel by the only person to have won both the Booker Prize and an Oscar, a woman travels to India to learn the truth about her step-grandmother and her life under the British Raj of the 1920s.
杰哈布瓦拉是唯一获得布克奖和奥斯卡奖两项殊荣的人。这本引人入胜的小说讲述了这样一个故事:一个女人前往印度,了解其继母在20世纪20年代英国殖民统治下生活的真相。

小编注:布克奖(The Man Booker Prize,或Booker Prize,又简称the Booker),是英语文学最重要的年度书奖之一,从1969年开始颁发,每年颁发一次。

6、All About H Hatterr
《H·哈特尔大全》

G V Desani (1948)
作者:G·V·德萨尼 (1948年出版)

It’s the glorious mash-up of English and Indian colloquialism that makes this book, about the son of a European merchant and a Malayan lady, such a wild, whimsical delight. Anthony Burgess admired its “creative chaos that grumbles at the restraining banks”.
一名欧洲商人和马来女子所生的儿子是本部小说的主角,书中巧妙地融合了英语和印度俚语,文笔精彩。安东尼·伯吉斯称赞这本书中“虽一团糟糕但生气勃勃,魅力涌动四溢”。

7、The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
《奇鸟行状录》

Haruki Murakami (1994)
作者:村上春树 (1994年出版)

This labyrinthine and hallucinogenic novel gets going when Toru Okada’s cat disappears in suburban Tokyo. He consults a pair of psychic sisters who appear to him in dreams and reality. But although Murakami’s plot meanders, it never loses its pace or its humanity.
冈田亨的猫在东京郊区走失,小说借此拉开了序幕。冈田亨既而向一对亦真亦幻、拥有特异功能的姐妹询问猫咪的下落……村上春树的小说虽然情节曲折,但不失节奏之美和人文之美。

8、Spring Snow
《春雪》

Yukio Mishima (1969-71)
作者:三岛由纪夫 (1969年-1971年间出版)

Before committing ritual suicide in November 1970, Mishima posted this tetralogy of novels (named after a dry lunar plain once believed awash with water) to his publisher. It’s a saga of 20th-century Japan, in which a law student imagines a school friend constantly reincarnated.
三岛由纪夫把这篇四部曲发给了出版商,随后便在1970年11月剖腹自杀。长篇小说《春雪》以20世纪的日本为背景,小说中有一名学法律的学生不停地想象着自己的朋友一次次转世。

9、Midnight's Children
《午夜的孩子》

Salman Rushdie (1980)
作者:萨尔曼·拉什迪 (1980年出版)

Magic realism meets postcolonial India in the ambitious, colourful and clever novel which was awarded the “Booker of Bookers” Prize. Hero Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947: the second of India’s independence and is endowed with an extraordinary talent.
本书充满魔幻现实主义色彩,作品野心勃勃、丰富多彩、情节精巧,荣获“布克中的布克奖”。故事发生的背景在后殖民时代的印度,主人公萨利姆·西奈随1947年8月15日的午夜钟声降临人世、禀赋非凡,而此时也正是印度独立的一刻。

10、The God of Small Things
《微物之神》(又译作《卑微的神灵》) 

Arundhati Roy (1997)
作者:阿伦德哈蒂·罗伊 (1997年出版)

This intense and exquisitely written tale of fraternal twins unfolds against a backdrop of communism, the caste system, and Christianity in Kerala from the Sixties to the Nineties. “Change is one thing,” writes Roy in her Booker Prize-winning debut, “Acceptance is another”.
《微物之神》张力十足、笔触细腻,讲述了印度西南部喀拉拉邦一对双胞胎兄妹的故事。故事发生在19世纪60年代到90年代之间,穿插了共产主义运动、种姓制度和基督教等内容。罗伊在小说中写道:“改变是一回事,接受改变是另一回事。”