2026 has already delivered some genuinely standout fiction from the region – from cyberpunk Seoul to famine-era Ireland. Five novels worth booking your next Karma holiday for!
1. Luminous
Shortlisted for this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award, this cyberpunk debut imagines a reunified Korea where androids and humans blur into one uneasy society; a detective investigating missing robots anchors a story about grief, memory and what survives a war.
2. The Fourth Princess
A gothic tale set in old Shanghai, following two orphaned women who navigate superstition and murder inside a fractured aristocratic household.
3. Railsong
A girl comes of age against India’s turbulent twentieth century, her family’s fortunes tracking a nation reinventing itself.
4. She Waits Where Shadows Gather
This debut draws on Filipino folklore for a gothic horror steeped in inherited fear and family secrets.
5. Rebel English Academy by Mohammed Hanif.
The Pakistani novelist behind A Case of Exploding Mangoes returns with a sharp, funny portrait of 1970s Pakistan, told through a chorus of restless voices.
