Bernhard Schlink delves deep into the theme of "guiltiness" in many layers. This is indeed an epitome of literature which addressed the theme of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (Dealing with the past) in the context of German after WW2, along with the presentation of Oedipus complex through modern settings. The book was written in a straightforward way, narrating the story of Michael and Hanna throughout the post-war society in Germany.

After finishing the winning book from 4th Southeast Asian Writer Awards Chat Kobjitti, I give him a standing ovation. I know this is another redundant use of the word epitome but this is the one the masterpiece of modern thai literature. Chat create a story of a simple guy but expand it in a very intricate way, similar to the tragedy of common man. At the end of the story, I couldn't resist and was subdued by cartharsis.

This story was originally written by Bhavani Bhattacharya. Later, Chit Phumisak translated this into thai. At a first glance, it seemed like another story telling us about the social hierachy in indian society. Surprisingly, the allegory of riding a tiger was well demonstrated with the theme of beliefs, faith, and survival. Reading this not only makes me fascinated by Bhavani's though, but also make me indirectly understand Chit's thoughts concering politics his translation as well.

Natsumi creates a wonderful story of love across the era. Using the concept of "Taisho Roman" or intellectual movement in Japan during 1912-1916 which was influenced by european romanticism. The novel is divided in three parts telling us the story from different perspecive. The novel not only explores the gender roles in contemporary and 20th century Japan, but also presents the theme of earthquake in japanese culture as well.  This novel was later adapted to a song called "romance" by the band YOASOBI.

Only little did I know about the earthquake and tsunami in the indian ocean. But upon reading Haslinger's semi-autobiography about the time he was at Phi Phi Island or Koh Phi Phi in Phuket, southern Thailand, and witnessed the tsunami, I got to know more about the incident and the sufffer people must endure. The book was organized in different chapters, each chapter telling us either a story from Haslinger's perspective, or from his wife and his children's perspective. Moreover, his own documentation of the Phi Phi island after 1 years of the incident was also included.

Imagine it's another day of the sun and you want to drink a cup of coffee and smoke a cigarrette as usual, but no, the government does not allow it and you were summoned to the court to resolve the "crime" you've committed. Juli Zeh created a fascinating dystopian scenario in her novel, namely, health dictatorship. People are required to maintain good health as they are the citizens of "the method", the governing organization. But what if you want to have a bad health out of your own will? Will that be regarded as a crime? Even it didn't hurt the others. The topic was presented and intensively debated throughout the book.