28 Canadian books to read during Asian Heritage Month 2025 and beyond
May is Asian Heritage Month in Canada. CBC Books is highlighting books across genres by writers of East Asian, South Asian, Western, Central and Southeast Asian descent.
Julie Chan Is Dead by Liann Zhang
In Julie Chan is Dead, Julie Chan and her identical twin sister Chloe VanHuusen are polar opposites and barely communicate after being separated at a young age. But when Chloe, a popular influencer, mysteriously dies, Julie steps in to take her place and is thrust into a glamorous world with millions of followers. However, she quickly learns that Chloe's seemingly flawless life was far from it, and as she uncovers the sinister cause behind her death, it casts Julie as the next target.
Liann Zhang is a second-generation Chinese Canadian writer who was a former skincare content creator. She holds a psychology and criminology degree from the University of Toronto and splits her time between Vancouver and Toronto. Julie Chan is Dead is Zhang's debut novel.
Sucker Punch by Scaachi Koul
In Sucker Punch, Scaachi Koul candidly recounts the painful events that turned her life upside down, from her marriage falling apart to her mother's cancer diagnosis, and everything in between. With her signature humour, Koul reflects on navigating struggle — shifting from her belief that fighting is the only way out — to exploring when to fight and when to let go in the face of life's unexpected challenges.
Koul is a writer from Calgary who currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her debut book, One Day We'll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter, was a New York Times Editors' Choice and a finalist for the Leacock Medal for Humor and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. She is currently a Senior Writer at Slate and co-hosts the Ambie Award-winning podcast Scamfluencers. Koul also co-hosted the Emmy-nominated Netflix series Follow This, and her work has been published in The New Yorker, This American Life, New York Magazine and The Cut. She has also appeared in documentaries such as Quiet On Set and Pretty Baby.
A Palace Near the Wind by Ai Jiang
In the first science-fantasy novella of the Natural Engines series, the threat of human intervention is a constant worry for the Feng family. A Palace Near the Wind follows Liu Lufeng, the eldest daughter of the Feng people, who live within nature with faces and limbs that look more like trees. Destined to be married off to a human king as all of the arranged marriages before her, Lufeng devises a plan to kill him, only to discover her people's true histories. Faced with the reality of loss and oppression, Lufeng must rebel against the human forces that seek to eradicate her.
Ai Jiang is a Chinese Canadian writer of speculative fiction and a 2022 finalist of the Nebula Award for Best Short Story. Her other short novels include Linghun and I Am Ai. She is currently based in Toronto.
All You Can Kill by Pasha Malla
All You Can Kill, is an absurdist story set at a wellness resort that specializes in solving couples' martial issues with erotic therapy. But the main characters of the novel are not a couple — which incites humorous, yet uncomfortable moments. As horror and surrealism seeps into the narrative, Pasha Malla creates a world and a story that reminds us how strange people can be.
Pasha Malla is the author of several books of poetry and fiction including The Withdrawal Method, which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize and longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, People Park, which was shortlisted for the Amazon First Novel Award, and Kill the Mall. Originally from Newfoundland, he now lives in Ontario and has taught at York University, University of Toronto, the University of Guelph, Brock University and McMaster University.
All Our Ordinary Stories by Teresa Wong
In the graphic memoir All Our Ordinary Stories, Teresa Wong uses spare black-and-white illustrations and thought-provoking prose to unpack how intergenerational trauma and resilience can shape our identities. Starting with her mother's stroke a decade ago, Wong takes a journey through time and place to find the origin of her feelings of disconnection from her parents.
The series of stories carefully examine the cultural, language, historical and personality issues that have been barriers to intimacy in her family.
Wong is the Calgary-based author of the graphic memoir Dear Scarlet, which was on the Canada Reads longlist in 2020 and a finalist for the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize. Her work has appeared in The Believer, The New Yorker, McSweeney's and The Walrus. CBC Books named her a writer to watch in 2019.
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
In The River Has Roots, a mysterious family known as the Hawthorns live in an enchanted world. The family care for enchanted willows and honour an ancient and magical compact. But when a daughter of the family decides to seek her own path to find love and happiness, the fate of the entire world just might be at risk.
Amal El-Mohtar is a Ottawa-based author, editor and critic. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, NPR Books, among others. El-Mohtar's short stories Seasons of Glass and Iron won Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards. Her novella This Is How You Lose the Time War co-written with Max Gladstone has been translated into over ten languages.
Spiral by Bal Khabra
Two different worlds collide in Spiral, when Elias Westbrook, a famous hockey player always in the spotlight, agrees to fake date Sage Beaumont, an aspiring, less assuming ballerina hoping to join the Aurora Ballet Theatre. As they spend more time together, the two opposites begin to realize that their feelings for each other are more than just for show.
Bal Khabra is a Vancouver-based writer. Her debut novel is Collide.
Where the Jasmine Blooms by Zeina Sleiman
In Where the Jasmine Blooms, Yasmine returns to Lebanon to escape a messy divorce and reconnect with her cultural roots, having been raised in Toronto. During her visit, she reunites with an old lover and uncovers long-hidden political secrets within her family, all while grappling with the effects of grief, displacement and war.
Zeina Sleiman is an Edmonton-based Palestinian Canadian writer and educator. With over a decade of experience in post-secondary education, she has contributed to research focused on creating barrier-free communities. Sleiman, a former mentee in the Writers' Union of Canada's BIPOC Connect Program, was awarded the 2024 Silk Road Creative Arts Grant. Where the Jasmine Blooms is her debut novel. Sleiman is a finalist for the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize for her story My Father's Soil.
The Tiger and the Cosmonaut by Eddy Boudel Tan
Having built a new life in Vancouver with his boyfriend, Casper Han rarely returns to his hometown, a small remote town in B.C., in The Tiger and the Cosmonaut. But when a crisis forces him and his siblings to reunite, they are compelled to confront a long-avoided tragedy — the mysterious disappearance of his twin brother more than 20 years ago.
Eddy Boudel Tan is a writer based in Vancouver, where he co-founded the Sidewalk Supper Project. His previous works include the novels After Elias and The Rebellious Tide. Tan has been a finalist for the Edmund White Award, the ReLit Best Novel Award and the Ferro-Grumley Award and was named a Rising Star by Writers' Trust of Canada in 2021. His work has appeared in Joyland and Yolk, among others.
The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien
In The Book of Records, Lina grows up in "The Sea," a building that serves as a home for migrants from all over the world, while caring for her sick father. She forms friendships with her fascinating neighbours, including a Jewish scholar exiled for his radical views and a poet from the Tang Dynasty, whose stories captivate her. However, her seemingly perfect life takes a startling turn when her father reveals the true reason they came to live at "The Sea."
Madeleine Thien is a short story writer and novelist. She is the author of novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award in 2016 and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
Her debut novel, Certainty, published in 2006, won the Amazon First Novel Award, and was a Globe and Mail Best Book. Thien is also the author of Dogs at the Perimeter, which was a Globe and Mail Best Book, and the children's book The Chinese Violin. Her first work of fiction, Simple Recipes, won four awards in Canada and was a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
Meet Me at Blue Hour by Sarah Suk
In Busan, South Korea, there's a clinic one can go to to erase your memories. Yena Bae is a teenage girl and daughter to the clinic's owner and she misses her best friend Lucas. Meet Me at Blue Hour follows the unexpected reunion of the two best friends years after he moved away when Lucas brings his grandfather with Alzheimer's disease to the clinic in search of a cure. As the two childhood friends try to figure out what happened to their memories, their connection grows again, but can their relationship ever be the same as what it once was?
Sarah Suk is a YA writer living in Vancouver. Her other books include the young adult novels The Space Between Here & Now, Made in Korea and co-author of the middle grade novel Troublemaker with John Cho. In 2023, CBC Books named Suk one of the writers to watch.
Ghost Citizens by Jamie Chai Yun Liew
From the author of the Canada Reads 2025 runner-up, Dandelion, comes a work of nonfiction that delves into decolonization and what it means to be stateless. Ghost Citizens: Decolonial Apparitions of Stateless, Foreign and Wayward Figures in Law draws on Jamie Chai Yun Liew's experience as a legal scholar. Liew explains the category of statelessness both as a legal condition and a lived reality for racialized minority groups who constantly combat oppression and strive for justice.
Liew is a lawyer, law professor and podcaster based in Ottawa. Dandelion is her first novel, which won her the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award from the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop and was a finalist on Canada Reads 2025. Liew was named one of CBC Books writers to watch in 2022.
Fledgling by S.K. Ali
Fledgling: The Keeper's Records of Revolution is the first book in a YA science fiction duology set amidst two earths on the brink of self destruction. When the dutiful Raisa of Upper Earth is arranged to be married to Lein, the Crown Prince of Lower Earth, Raisa obliges in the hopes of preventing further war. Lein's cousin and recently imprisoned Nada has a different idea: stop the royal wedding and spark a revolution. As tensions rise between both worlds, the paths to tyranny or peace become more and more blurred.
S.K. Ali is a writer and teacher from Toronto. She is best known for her YA novels Saints and Misfits, Love from A to Z and is the co-editor of the middle grade anthology, Once Upon an Eid which won the Middle East Book Honor Award in 2020.
Restaurant Kid by Rachel Phan
Three decades after her family's restaurant opened, Rachel Phan's parents are considering retirement. In Restaurant Kid, Phan reflects on this milestone and shares her experience growing up as the daughter of Chinese immigrants, from living with parents who were building a new life to navigating the challenges of being the only Chinese girl at school.
Phan is a Toronto-based writer. Her work has been featured in HuffPost, CBC, the National Post and Maclean's. She holds a Master of Journalism from the Toronto Metropolitan University.
Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao
In the follow up to their New York Times bestselling YA novel Iron Widow, Zetian finds herself on the seat of power in Huaxia after enduring devastating loss and making drastic decision.
When revelations about an enemy who holds the fate of her loved ones in their hands come to light, Zetian must team up with a dangerous man and work together to depose their common enemy and stoke a revolution against the dark forces that plague their world.
Xiran Jay Zhao is a Vancouver-based author and social media creator. They are a first-generation Chinese immigrant who is passionate about Chinese history, cosplay and anime. Their debut novel Iron Widow, a YA fantasy featuring aliens, giant robots and a quest to battle evil, was a New York Times bestseller.
Magdaragat edited by C. E. Gatchalian, Teodoro Alcuitas, Patria Rivera
Magdaragat, which translates to seafarer, is an anthology of Filipino Canadian writing, such as short fiction, poetry and illustration, that showcases the expansive contributions and experiences diasporic Filipinos add to Canadian society. Featuring 43 writers, the anthology includes moments of joy, sorrow and sacrifice woven into the fabric of Filipinos past, present and future.
C.E. Gatchalian is a Filipino writer and editor from Vancouver and currently based in Toronto. His other works include the 2003 Lambda Literary Award finalist Motifs & Repetitions & Other Plays and Double Melancholy.
Teodoro Alcuitas is a Vancouver editor and the current publisher of Philippine Canadian News.
Patria Rivera is a Filipino Canadian writer and poet based in Toronto. Her other collections include Puti/White which was shortlisted for the 2006 Trillium Book Award for Poetry, The Bride Anthology and BE.
Batshit Seven by Sheung-King
In Batshit Seven, Glen "Glue" Wu has a general apathy toward his return to Hong Kong from Toronto. As a lacklustre, weed smoking, hungover ESL teacher, Glue watches passively as Hong Kong falls into conflict around him. He cares only for his sister, who is trying to marry rich, and for both an on-and-off-again relationship and the memory of a Canadian connection now lost. Government control hardens, thrusting Glue into a journey that ultimately ends in violence.
Batshit Seven won the 2024 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction prize.
Sheung-King's first novel, You Are Eating an Orange. You are Naked., was a finalist for multiple awards, including the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and the Amazon Canada First Novel Award. It was also longlisted for Canada Reads 2021. Sheung-King splits his time between Canada and China.
Celestina's House by Clarissa Trinidad Gonzalez
In Celestina's House, Celestina is desperate to get out of her family's house after a shocking betrayal made the atmosphere too tense to bear. When her Lolo gifts her a property in Manila's bohemian district, she feels at home, even though there are ghosts lurking. As time goes on, she gets a real chance at happiness, but voices from the past threaten to take it all away.
Clarissa Trinidad Gonzalez is a Filipina author based in Toronto. Celestina's House is her first book.
From the Lost and Found Department by Joy Kagawa
From the Lost and Found Department is a poetry collection that spans acclaimed writer Joy Kogawa's entire career. It is composed of poems newly written as well as poems from The Splintered Moon, A Choice of Dreams, Jericho Road, Woman In the Woods and A Garden of Anchors.
Kogawa is a celebrated Japanese Canadian writer currently based in Toronto. She is best known for her novel Obasan which is based on her family's experiences during the Second World War. Obasan won the Books in Canada First Novel Award (now known as the Amazon First Novel Award) in 1982. Her poetry collections include The Splintered Moon, A Choice of Dreams and Woman in the Woods. She is also the author of the memoir Gently to Nagasaki.
52 Weeks to a Sweeter Life by Farzana Doctor
52 Weeks to a Sweeter Life for Caregivers, Activists and Helping Professionals is a practical guide that offers weekly advice to helpers and activists struggling with exhaustion and burnout. Farzana Doctor uses her own experience as a social worker, community organizer and activist to discuss the challenges and necessity of setting boundaries and preventing overwork in a spirit of self and community care.
Doctor is an Ontario-based novelist, activist and psychotherapist of Indian ancestry. She is the author of several books, including the poetry collection Seven and the novels All Inclusive and Six Metres of Pavement, which won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award and was shortlisted for a 2012 Toronto Book Award. She was the recipient of the 2011 Dayne Ogilvie Prize from the Writer's Trust of Canada for an emerging lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender writer and the 2023 Freedom to Read Award.
Everything and Nothing At All by Jenny Heijun Wills
Everything and Nothing At All is an essay collection that discusses Jenny Heijun Wills' quest for belonging as a transnational and transracial adoptee, a pansexual and polyamorous person and a parent with a life-long eating disorder. Drawing on her life experiences, she creates a vision of family — chosen, adopted and biological all at once.
Everything and Nothing At All was shortlisted for the 2024 Hilary Weston Prize for Nonfiction.
Wills is a writer born in Seoul and raised in Southern Ontario. Her memoir Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related won the 2019 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Award for Nonfiction and the 2020 Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book. She currently lives in Winnipeg and teaches English at the University of Winnipeg.
The Legend of Meneka By Kritika H. Rao
The Legend of Meneka is an epic fantasy inspired by Hindu myths, like the celestial dancer. Despite being revered for their enchanting beauty, Meneka knows that a larger part of being a celestial dancer is being trained as a warrior. Seeking an escape from Lord Indra, king of heaven's control, she sets out to take down her latest mark, a dangerous human sage named Kaushika. Slowly but surely she begins to fall for him and Meneka is torn between the call of duty and the call of her heart.
Kritika H. Rao is a speculative fiction writer of novels including The Surving Sky and The Unrelenting Earth. She has lived in India, Australia, Canada and The Sultanate of Oman.
The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse by Vinh Nguyen
In the memoir, The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse, Vinh Nguyen retraces his family's journey from post-war Vietname to Canada. Canada accepted approximately 200,000 refugees from the region between 1975 and the 1990s. Born in Ho Chi Minh City, Nguyen was among those who fled Vietnam by boat along with his mother and siblings — but his father, who left separately, mysteriously vanished. Nguyen mixes his real-life experiences with research of this period, exploring how this moment in history resonates with experiences in the diaspora today.
Vinh Nguyen is a Toronto writer and educator whose work has appeared in Brick, Literary Hub, The Malahat Review, PRISM international, Grain, Queen's Quarterly, The Criterion Collection's Current, and MUBI's Notebook. He is a nonfiction editor at The New Quarterly, where he curates an ongoing series on refugee, migrant, and diasporic writing. His writing has been short-isted for a National Magazine Award and has received the John Charles Polanyi Prize in Literature. In 2022, he was a Lambda Literary Fellow in Nonfiction for emerging LGBTQ writers.
We Speak Through the Mountain by Premee Mohamed
We Speak Through the Mountain is a sequel novella to the post-apocalyptic Albertan book The Annual Migration of Clouds. Reid Graham is 19 years old and fighting against both the climate crisis-affected Rocky Mountains and her own chronic illness to make her way to Howse University, a supposed safe haven.
When she arrives, she finds it more and more difficult to forge connections and leave behind the guilt she has of leaving her community. When she is sent word from home, Reid is faced with an impossible decision and a crumbling reality.
Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction writer based in Edmonton. Her series Beneath the Rising received nominations for the Crawford Award, British Fantasy Awards, Locus Awards and Aurora Awards.
Her book The Annual Migration of Clouds won the 2022 Aurora Award for best novella. Her other books include The Butcher of the Forest and No One Will Come Back for Us.
Land of No Regrets by Sadi Muktadir
Nabil is the new transfer student at Al Haque Islamic Academy, where he struggles with new rigid rules and religious studies, longing for his regular teen life back in Scarborough. Land of No Regrets sees Nabil fall into the company of two other boys he catches doing something illicit. He and class clown Farid complete the foursome, who together discover the diary of a student back from when the school was an all-girls Catholic institution. Inspired to escape their madrasa, the boys' path toward freedom ultimately changes their lives forever.
Sadi Muktadir is a Toronto based writer and editor at Joyland Magazine. Land of No Regrets is his debut novel.
Catfish Rolling by Clara Kumagai
Catfish Rolling is a debut coming-of-age YA novel by Clara Kumagai with magical realism elements. There is a catfish that lives under Japan, and when it rolls the land rises and falls. Sora is 17 years old and living with her father after losing her mother to a powerful earthquake, which she blames on the catfish. The catfish doesn't just affect the land — it also affects time, leaving Japan divided into zones, with some moving fast and some moving slow. When Sora's father disappears, Sora must head into the abandoned time zones to find him.
Catfish Rolling is for ages 14 and up.
Clara Kumagai is from Vancouver and has lived in Japan and Ireland. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The Kyoto Journal, Cicada, Room and The Irish Times. Catfish Rolling is her debut novel.
Shadow Price by Farah Ghafoor
Shadow Price borrows its title from the finance term — "the estimated price of a good or service for which no market price exists." It's a poetry collection that explores what holds value in a capitalistic world.
Farah Ghafoor is a poet whose work has appeared in The Walrus, Prism International, Room, Ninth Letter and Hobart. Her poems have been taught at Iowa State University and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets and Best of the Net. She won the E.J. Pratt Medal and Prize in Poetry and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2022. Born in New York and raised in New Brunswick and Ontario, she currently works as a financial analyst in Toronto.
I Never Said That I Was Brave by Tasneem Jamal
I Never Said That I Was Brave recounts the lifelong friendship of two women who immigrated from Uganda to Canada as children. As adults, their dynamics are constantly shifting as they grow yet feel stifled by expectations of their South Asian community.
Tasneem Jamal is a Kitchener, Ont.-based writer who was born in Uganda. She also is the author of Where the Air is Sweet and was named one of CBC's writers to watch in 2014. Her work has appeared in Chatelaine, Saturday Night and the Literary Review of Canada. Jamal is The X Page Storytelling Workshop's writing coach and an editor at The New Quarterly.
