Asian and Pacific Islander authors should always be uplifted no matter the month, but we thought it best to share some well-known and upcoming writers within the horror category. This time it’ll be a bit of a twist. Not all these authors are Americans. As American’s we want to uplift Asian voices from even outside our country.
Horror is timeless… and terrifying! Here are six authors that give us the chills!
Kōji Suzuki
Koji Suzuki didn’t always want to be a writer. He attended Keio University majoring in French. After, he handled odd jobs, one of which he landed as a teacher. He loved creating scary stories for his students. In 1990, he began writing his first full novel, Rakuen, which immediately won the Japanese Fantasy Novel award. Soon after, he began dabbling in the horror genre. Has anyone heard of the Ring? And so began the creepy adaptations that plagued our screens!
Suzuki has won a plethora of Japanese awards, but his most noticeable wins are the Shirley Jackson Award in 2012 and recently he won Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2021.
Here’s a list of some books you should check out as soon as possible:
S: Es (Ring Trilogy)
EDGE
Dark Water
Birthday
Hye-Young Pyun
Hye-Young Hyun earned her degree in creative writing and obtained a degree in literature from Hanyang University. After she began working in an office setting, it inspired her to write some of her stories with office workers appearing in them.
She’s won quite a few awards. Her most recent win was the 42nd Dong-in Literary Award in 2012 and the 48th Yi Sang Literary Award began publishing her work in 2000.
Here are some of the titles:
The Hole
The Law Lines
City of Ash and Red
Mariko Koike
Mariko Koike graduated from Tokyo’s Seikei University with a degree in Literature. She soon began working as an editor at a publishing firm. However, soon after she quit and began freelance writing. In 1978, she created a collection of essays, Chiteki akujo no susume (On Being an Intellectual Woman of the World) which became a huge success. Koike used this newfound fame to become a fiction writer where she began writing Mystery/horror novels in 1985. Although Koike is an established horror writer, she does dabble in other genres such as romance.
You can read her translated English work by Deborah Boliver Boehm.
Some of the awards she’s acquired is the 1989 Japan Mystery Writers’ Association Prize, for Tsuma no Onnatomodachi (My Wife’s Female Friend).
Check out these books:
The Graveyard Apartment
The Cat In The Coffin
Cassandra Khaw
Cassandra Khaw is a hot commodity as they write in different formats and at different lengths. You can find their work in video games, short stories, novels, and poetry. Cassandra Khaw is a Longd-based writer, but their roots and writer inspirations come from Southeast Asia. The topics they tend to lead into are intersectional cultures, mythological fusions, and bizarre urban architecture.
Khaw has been nominated for Breakable Things (Undertow Publications), Fiction Collection, 2022, Nothing But Blackened Teeth (Tor Nightfire), and Long Fiction, 2021.
Check out Khaw’s work below:
Nothing but Blackened Teeth
Breakable Things
The Salt Grows Heavy
Hammers on the Bones
Lopaka Kapanui
Lopaka Kapanui is a fellow Native Hawaiian storyteller, author, actor, cultural practitioner, former professional wrestler, and family man. He’s known to some as “The Ghost Guy” because he leads tourists into the spooky parts of the island of Oahu. He grew up hearing the ancient tales and ghost stories from his elders. These customs were passed on to him.
In 1994, he became acquainted with Glen Grant, a fellow ghost storyteller, who soon became a mentor of his. Grant was the creator of O’ahua’s first ghost tours setting spooky tours across Hawaii. After he had unfortunately passed, Lopaka continued the tradition and began listening to other people’s tales. He began creating his own stories that detail the true encounter of spooky stories.
Lopaka recently acquired the Hawaii State Legislature for the Hawaiian art of mo‘olelo, or storytelling.
Check out his spooky ghost stories:
Mysteries of Hawai’i: Na Mo’olelo Lapu
HAWAII’S NIGHT MARCHERS: A History of the Huaka’i Pō
Mysteries of Honolulu
Kiran Manral
Kiran Manral graduated from Mithibai College with a degree in English. She began working as an advertising copywriter and then joined the news service at Mumbai DSJ TV. Her hard work paid off, as she became a feature writer for the Times of India and Cosmopolitan India.
By 2000, she became a freelance journalist and a few years later, a blogger. Her blogs were entitled “Thirtysixandcounting” and “Karmickids.” At one point, these two respected blogs became extremely popular in India. In 2011, she began writing fictitious works, her first being Reluctant Detective. She’s written a plethora of genres, a variety from nonfiction, mystery and romance, and novella works.
She’s won a few different awards, one worth mentioning is she recently was among the 75 Iconic Indian women in STEAM by Red Dot Foundation and Beyond Black.
Want to read any of her works? Check it out:
The Face at the Window
More Things in Heaven and Earth
Horror is a genre I will never stop raging about. It’s a bundle of terror, mystery, and suspense that will keep you on your toes for days!
Want more author recommendations within the horror genre? Click here!
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