How did Asian Literature get so popular on booktok? In this blog we will take a dive into this genre, take a look at what Asian Literature actually is and look at the current rise of literature from Asian countries.

What is Asian Literature?

When you think about Asian Literature, most people think about novels by authors from China, Japan and – more upcoming at the moment – South-Korea. But Asia is of course much bigger than just those three countries. Spanning from China and Japan in the East, to Mongolia and parts of Russia in the North, to Iran and the Arabian Peninsula to the West as well as India, Thailand and Singapore in the South. Just like other continents, it’s way too oversimplified to put all those countries under one monolithic name.

However, the most popular Asian titles you see in the book store are by authors from China and Japan. These type of books became popular as the Western world became fascinated by the Asian world. Often those books are pretty stereotypical, but thinking about another life in another country simply fascinates.

Even in the 20th Century, Asian books were already very popular. Think about literary fiction by authors like Haruki Murakami (Japan) and Kazuo Ishiguro (Japan). Or classics like the 11th Century book The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (Japan), or the 18th Century story Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin (China). It’s not just a trend we saw during COVID, it’s a trend that’s here to stay.

The rise of Asian books during COVID

During COVID booktok came into its own, which came hand in hand with the rise of people who started reading again or people who found time to read more. And with that, Asian Literature was on the rise again. Most popular on booktok are the cozy Japanese books, like Before The Coffee Gets Cold (Japan), but also literary fiction like the books by Mieko Kawakami (Japan). A whole other niche is manga and graphic novels, which also rose in popularity during the pandemic.

Why Asian books are so popular

That makes us wonder why Asian books are so popular. I personally think there are three reasons. The first one is that people want to diversify their reads, especially with the real world situations going on in Ukraine, Russia, Palestine and Israel. We want to educate ourselves. We want to read more diversely to learn more, to discover new books from new authors from countries we don’t usually read from. That includes Asian Literature. Reading around the world is a trend on booktok and I think it will become even more popular.

The second reason is that we are looking for comfortable and cozy reads. Japanese books flourish with cats or cups of coffee on the cover. They also often have covers with plants or blossoms, which fits with our desire for a life with less social media.There is also the trend of books that are set in a book store or library like Days at the Morisaki Bookshop or What You Are Looking For Is in the Library.

The third reason is that a lot of the most popular Asian books – especially Japanese – are about everyday life, written in a dreamy or magical-realistic way. The plot is often not the most important thing in these books: it’s the characters. Books about working hard in a big Japanese city like Convenience Store Woman or Crying in H-Mart are popular. I think a lot of readers can relate to these stories, because they are about universal themes like capitalism, mental health and finding yourself in a chaotic world.

The Rise of popularity of South Korean and Indian authors

Books like The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to be Calm in a Busy World (South Korea) and the poetry of Rupi Kaur (India) were already very popular, but during COVID the real rise of South Korean and Indian books happened. Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor (India) was a massive worldwide hit. We also saw the cozy book trend from Japan in South Korean books such as Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum. We also had the influence of magical realism in DallerGut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee. There were books to not only escape the pandemic, but also books to talk about your mental health, like I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee.

The future of Asian literature

Reading more diverse is a trend that is here to stay. Asian books have already proven that they have long been popular among readers around the world. During the rise of booktok in the pandemic, this only became more apparent. In the future, I think we will see many more books by Asian authors translated into English. Mainly countries like South Korea and India at the moment, but I think there will be more translations from Thailand, Vietnam, Nepal and other Asian countries in the future.