Asian literature

Asian literature is the literature produced in Asia.

Examples

 * East Asian literature
 * Chinese literature
 * Japanese literature
 * Korean literature
 * Mongolian literature
 * Taiwanese literature
 * South Asian literature
 * Indian literature
 * Pakistani literature
 * Bangladeshi folk literature
 * Sri Lankan literature
 * Bhutanese literature
 * Southeast Asian literature
 * Thai literature
 * Philippine literature
 * Malaysian literature
 * Indonesian literature
 * Burmese literature
 * Cambodian literature
 * Laotian literature
 * Singaporean literature
 * Vietnamese literature
 * Central Asian literature
 * Kazakh literature
 * Tajik literature
 * Uzbek literature
 * Kyrgyz literature
 * West Asian literature
 * Persian literature
 * Arabic literature
 * Jewish literature
 * Turkish 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.

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). Yasunari Kawabata wrote novels and short stories distinguished by their elegant and spartan diction such as the novels Snow Country and The Master of Go.