Ankara
- 1928
A novelist joins Atatürk’s war and watches Ankara, a dusty town, become a capital.
Anatolia
Troy
- 2018
Briseis, given to Achilles as a prize, sees the Trojan War from the Greek camp.
- 2011
- 1983
Izmir
- 2008
1922: the burning of Smyrna, port of Greeks, Armenians, Turks and Levantine merchants.
- 1962Şirince, Izmir
1900s–1922: a Greek villager near Smyrna, from Ottoman peace to the city in flames.
Trabzon
- 1956
“Take my camel, dear”: an aunt, a priest and a camel cross Turkey to Trebizond.
Beijing
- 2008Tiananmen Square, Beijing
1989: shot at Tiananmen, a student lies in a coma for ten years as Beijing changes.
- 1993San Li Tun, Beijing
1970s: a diplomat’s little daughter wages war in Beijing’s San Li Tun embassy compound.
- 1988also Tirana
Early 1970s: Albania’s alliance with Mao’s China begins to crack, seen from Tirana.
Shanghai
- 1984Lunghua, Shanghai
1941–1945: a British boy lost in Shanghai when the Japanese take it, then in Lunghua camp.
- 1933
Lhasa
- 1952
Two Austrians escape a British camp, cross Tibet on foot and settle in Lhasa for years.
- 1927
Hong Kong
- 1977
Smiley’s man in Hong Kong follows Soviet money through the colony and into Indochina.
- 1952
A Eurasian doctor and a married English journalist in Hong Kong, as China turns red.
Shandong
- 1986Gaomi, Shandong
1930s: a family of sorghum-wine makers in Gaomi and their war against the Japanese.
Tokyo
- 2007
- 1999
A young Belgian’s year in a great Tokyo company, from translator to toilet cleaner.
- 1987
Kyoto
- 1997Gion, Kyoto
1929–1950s: a fisherman’s daughter sold to a geisha house in Gion, through the war.
- 1962
Twin sisters parted at birth find each other again through a year of Kyoto’s festivals.
- 1956Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto
A stammering acolyte at Kinkaku-ji, obsessed with its beauty until he burns it.
Hiroshima
- 1965
- 1960
A French actress and a Japanese architect in Hiroshima, and her wartime love in Nevers.
- 1946
Nagasaki
- 1982
- 1887
A French naval officer takes a Japanese wife for a summer on the hills of Nagasaki.
Niigata
- 1948Yuzawa, Niigata
A Tokyo man and a hot-spring geisha in the snowbound mountains of Echigo.
Siberia
- 2011Lake Baikal, Siberia
Six months alone in a cabin on the shore of Lake Baikal: ice, taiga, books and vodka.
- 1999
From the Urals to the Pacific after the Soviet fall, among shamans, camps and dying towns.
- 1995
A boy summering on the Russian steppe learns France from his French grandmother’s tales.
Sakhalin
- 1895
Kolkata
- 2008
1838: opium fields up the Ganges, and a ship of convicts and migrants leaving Calcutta.
- 1985Anand Nagar, Kolkata
A Polish priest and a rickshaw puller in Anand Nagar, a slum of Calcutta.
- 1973
Mumbai
- 2003
- 1984
A man looks for a lost friend through the cheap hotels of Bombay, then Madras and Goa.
- 1981
1947–1977: a boy born in Bombay at the stroke of India’s independence, and his city.
Sundarbans
- 2004
A dolphin scientist and a translator among the islands, tides and tigers of the delta.
Kerala
- 1997Ayemenem, Kerala
1969: twins in Ayemenem, a forbidden love and a drowning on the river.
Saigon
- 1991Sadec, Saigon
1930: The Lover told again, with Sadec, the mother, the brothers and the Chinese man.
- 1984
- 1955Hotel Continental, Saigon
A British reporter, a young American and a Vietnamese girl in Saigon in the French war.
Hanoi
- 1990
A North Vietnamese soldier home in Hanoi writes his ten years of war and his lost love.
- 1988
A Hanoi girl, her mother’s street stall, and an uncle ruined by the land reform of 1956.
Tehran
- 2003
- 2000
Isfahan
- 1937also Kabul
Through Persia to Afghanistan in search of its Islamic buildings, by car and on horse.
Kabul
- 2007
1960s–2003: two wives of one Kabul man, through the Soviets, civil war and the Taliban.
- 2003
1975–2001: two boys and a kite contest in Kabul, a betrayal, a return under the Taliban.
Beirut
- 2013
An old woman alone in her Beirut flat translates one book a year, which no one reads.
- 1980
Mount Lebanon
- 1993
1830s: a boy of a Lebanese mountain village, between the emir, Egypt and the English.
Jerusalem
- 2002Kerem Avraham, Jerusalem
1940s: Oz’s childhood in Kerem Avraham, among books, refugees and his mother’s despair.
- 1971
- 1968
Aleppo
- 2013
1963–2005: an Aleppo family falls apart under the Baath, as the city decays.
Gwangju
- 2014
Lahore
- 1901Zamzama gun, Lahore
An Irish orphan of the Lahore bazaars takes the Grand Trunk Road with a Tibetan lama.
Mandalay
- 2000Mandalay Palace, Mandalay
1885: the British take Mandalay’s palace, and an orphan watches the king go into exile.
Empty Quarter
- 1959
Kampot
- 1950
Colombo
- 1982
1920s–1940s: Ondaatje’s parents and grandparents in Colombo society, and their ruin.