RUTH OZEKI is an award-winning filmmaker and novelist, whose work has been characterized by U.S.A. Today as "ardent and passionate...rare and provocative." Her first novel, My Year of Meats, was published in 1998 by Viking Penguin and has garnered widespread glowing reviews, awards, and a still-growing readership.
Charlie Chan Is Dead 2 (2004) At Home in the World: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction (Charlie Chan Is Dead, book 2) edited by Jessica Hagedorn
2013 Booker Prize (shortlist) : A Tale for the Time Being
Ruth Ozeki recommends
Contrapposto (2026) Dave Eggers "This book speaks to my heart. With wit, wisdom, and deep empathy, Contrapposto asks all the hard questions that haunt and enliven a creative life - about art and beauty, about commerce and class, about the cost of passion and the price of success."
Homebound (2026) Portia Elan "Homebound is a big, bold, ecstatic world - full of heart and wonder - where stories weave through time to connect us, and our faith in each other makes us human."
If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light (2026) Kim Choyeop "With nuance, delicacy, and psychological depth, Kim Choyeop conjures worlds that are different from ours - at once strange and poignantly recognizable. A stunning collection that lingers in the mind and heart."
Swallows (2025) Natsuo Kirino "A timely and engrossing drama about desire, precarity, and the uses of a woman's body. Kirino's psychologically compelling and sharp-witted storytelling draws us into her characters' lives, leaving us to answer: do our bodies have a price and who gets to decide?"
There are Rivers in the Sky (2024) Elif Shafak "An odyssey, an epic, a lament, and a tale of redemption, There Are Rivers in the Sky is a clarion call to honor the elemental forces that shape our memories, our histories, and our world. In short, a masterpiece."
Signal Fires (2022) Dani Shapiro "Signal Fires is an urgent and compassionate meditation on memory, time, and space. Shapiro has created a world that's as wrenching as it is wondrous."
The Complicities (2022) Stacey D'Erasmo "The Complicities is a subtle masterpiece. Imagine a voice - lyrical and low, intimate and insistent - whispering in your ear. Half-told truths simmer below the surface, like the uneasy murmuring of a conscience. Mesmerized, you listen. There is menace here in D'Erasmo's disquieted world, and terrible beauty, too. Things are not what they appear to be. We are not who we think we are, either, and yet we are complicit."
A Map for the Missing (2022) Belinda Huijuan Tang "An engrossing saga of a young mathematician caught between two countries, two cultures, two eras, and two loves. Set against the violent turmoil of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, this powerful debut explores the wrenching impact of political ideologies on individual lives in a way that is resonant and timely."
What Jonah Knew (2022) Barbara Graham "Profoundly entertaining and entertainingly profound. What Jonah Knew is a celebration of the vital and powerful ties that bind us - to our children, to our selves, and to each other - across space and time."
Nightcrawling (2022) Leila Mottley "With its powerful poetry and courageous, unsparing vision, Nightcrawling is more than just a magnificent debut novel. It is a bid, by this prodigiously gifted young writer, to heal a broken world."
Woman, Eating (2022) Claire Kohda "Absolutely brilliant - tragic, funny, eccentric and so perfectly suited to this particularly weird time. Claire Kohda takes the vampire trope and makes it her own in a way that feels fresh and original. Serious issues of race, disability, misogyny, body image, sexual abuse are handled with subtlety, insight, and a lightness of touch. The spell this novel casts is so complete I feel utterly, and happily, bitten."
Booth (2022) Karen Joy Fowler "Booth is a triumph! No one writes like Karen Joy Fowler. With wit, heart, and revelatory insight, she teases ghosts from their shadows, transforming the way we see the past, shedding new light on our troubled present."
Earthlings (2020) Sayaka Murata "A gem of a book... A gift to anyone who has ever felt at odds with the world."
Hollow Kingdom (2019) (Hollow Kingdom, book 1) Kira Jane Buxton "If you've ever thought that humans were the ones in charge, Kira Jane Buxton's groundbreaking novel will have you thinking otherwise. Full of unforgettable humor, insight and beauty, Hollow Kingdom enriches our human experience by inhabiting the minds (and bellies!) of our non-human animal companions and reminding us that we're not alone here on this earth."
Everything Here Is Beautiful (2018) Mira T Lee "Stunning and unforgettable. . . filled with voices that resonate and haunt. An intimately personal tale about family, self, and the risks we take to care for the ones we love."
Before Everything (2017) Victoria Redel "Before Everything is a riveting, timely story that explores the unsettlingly beautiful, emotionally charged landscape that is revealed when old friends embrace what they have never before admitted: the limits of mortality and the boundlessness of friendship."
The Wanderers (2017) Meg Howrey "Phenomenal. A transcendent, cross-cultural and cross-planetary journey into the mysteries of space and self. Howrey's expansive vision left me awestruck."
