Books like When We Were Orphans
A detective in 1930s Shanghai investigates his parents' disappearance while the city descends into war, and his memories prove less reliable than he believes.
Explore books like this on the map12 books for readers of When We Were Orphans
A Pale View of Hills
A Japanese woman living in England recalls her life in postwar Nagasaki, and the gaps in her story conceal a truth she cannot bear to face.
The Remains of the Day
An ageing English butler reflects on a lifetime of service, repressed love, and the moral compromises of loyalty to a flawed master.
The Sense of an Ending
Tony Webster, retired and settled, receives a solicitor's letter about a small bequest from the mother of his university girlfriend, and it forces him to revisit his friendship with Adrian, the brilliant schoolfriend whose story he thought he understood.
The Moonstone
A sacred Indian diamond left to a young English heiress vanishes from her Yorkshire house on the night of her eighteenth birthday, and the people who were there tell the story of the hunt for it in turn.
The Go-Between
An old man in 1952 revisits the summer of 1900 when, as a 12-year-old houseguest, he carried secret messages between a Norfolk farmer and the daughter of the big house.
The Night Tiger
In 1930s British Malaya, Ren, an eleven-year-old houseboy, has forty-nine days to find his dead master's missing finger and bury it with him, while Ji Lin, a dance hall girl, comes across a severed finger by chance.
Half a Lifelong Romance
Shen Shijun, a young engineer in 1930s Shanghai, falls for Gu Manzhen, a colleague, and over the years their love is pulled apart by family and circumstance.
A Passage to India
An English woman, a Muslim doctor, and a British magistrate collide in colonial India, and a young woman's accusation in a cave exposes the fissures of empire.
Kim
Kimball O'Hara, an Irish orphan running wild in the streets of Lahore, becomes the disciple of a Tibetan lama searching for a sacred river, and is drawn into the Great Game of British spying.
Empire of the Sun
A young British boy survives the Japanese occupation of Shanghai during WWII, losing his innocence in an internment camp.
Martha Quest
Martha Quest, a restless, bookish girl on a farm in British Central Africa in the 1930s, leaves for the colonial town to find a life of her own.
The Good Soldier
A naive American narrator tries to tell the 'saddest story' of his friendship with Edward Ashburnham and the four-way adultery he failed to notice until it had ended them all.