Asian literature

Asian literature is the literature produced in Asia.

Examples

East Asian literature

Chinese literature

Japanese literature

Korean literature

Taiwanese literature

Vietnamese literature

Southeast Asian literature

Burmese literature

Cambodian literature

Indonesian literature

Laotian literature

Malaysian literature

Philippine literature

Singaporean literature

Thai literature

South Asian literature

Assamese literature

Bangladeshi folk literature

Bhutanese literature

Gujarati literature

Indian literature

Kannada literature

Malayalam literature

Marathi literature

Odia literature

Pakistani literature

Sri Lankan literature

Tamil literature

Telugu literature

Tibetan literature

Central Asian literature

Kazakh literature

Kyrgyz literature

Mongolian literature

Pashto literature

Tajik literature

Turkmen literature

Uzbek literature

Uyghur literature

West Asian literature

Persian literature

Arabic literature

Jewish literature

Turkish literature

North Asian literature

Russian literature

Classical Chinese and Japanese literature

In Tang and Song dynasty China, famous poets such as Li Bai authored works of great importance. They wrote shī (Classical Chinese: 詩) poems, which have lines with equal numbers of characters, as well as cí (詞) poems with mixed line varieties. Early-Modern Japanese literature (17th–19th centuries) developed comparable innovations such as haiku, a form of Japanese poetry that evolved from the ancient hokku (Japanese language: 発句) mode. Haiku consists of three sections (all in a single vertical line in Japanese): the first and third segments each have five morae (which are not the phonological equivalent of syllables), while the second has seven. Original haiku masters included such figures as Edo period poet Matsuo Bashō (松尾芭蕉); others influenced by Bashō include Kobayashi Issa and Masaoka Shiki.

Classical Indian literature

Classical West Asian literature

Modern Asian literature

The polymath Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet, dramatist, and writer who was an Indian, became in 1913 the first Asian Nobel laureate. He won his Nobel Prize in Literature for notable impact his prose works and poetic thought had on English, French, and other national literatures of Europe and the Americas. He also wrote the Indian anthem. Later, other Asian writers won Nobel Prizes in literature, including Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1966), and Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan, 1994).