* The Kitchen God's Wife (1991)
* Snow Falling on Cedars (1994)
* The Fifth Chinese Daughter (1994)
* The Monkey King (1998)
* Home of the Brave (2001)
* The Song of the Lark (2003)
* The Man in the Middle (2005)
* The Housekeeper and the Professor (2009)
* In This House (2012)
* Where the Past Begins (2015)
Short Stories
* "The Moon-Watcher" (1995)
* "Mother of Pearl" (1996)
* "The White Lantern" (1997)
* "The Chinese Box" (1998)
* "The Color of Jade" (1999)
* "The Red Envelope" (2000)
* "The Fortune Cookie" (2001)
* "The Paper Daughter" (2002)
* "The Silk Stocking" (2003)
* "The Jade Bracelet" (2004)
Novellas
* The Ghost Bride (2011)
* The Year of the Snake (2014)
Children's Books
* The One-Inch Boy (2006)
* The Great Wall of China (2008)
* The Dragon's Child (2010)
* The Monkey King and the Eight Immortals (2012)
* The Four Dragons (2014)
Poetry
* I Have Arrived at the Castle (1977)
* Songs of Willow Frost and Other Poems (1980)
* Yellow Fish and Other Poems (1985)
* Mudfish (1989)
* The Wild Ginger: New and Selected Poems (1994)
Essays
* The Best American Essays 1996 (1996)
* I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You: A Book of Essays (2005)
* The Chosen and the Beautiful (2009)
* What I Remember Best: Essays (2013)
Translations
* Li Po and Tu Fu: Poems (1973)
* New Voices: An Anthology of Contemporary Japanese Poetry (1974)
* One Hundred Poems from the Japanese (1976)
* The Manyoshu: The Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkokai Translation of One Thousand Poems (1981)
* The Monkey King (1977)
* Out of the River: A Selection of the Poetry of Sei Shonagon (1984)
* Journey to the West (1982)
* Water Margin: Outlaws of the Marsh (1993)
* Three Kingdoms (1995)
* The Dream of the Red Chamber (1996)
* The Tale of Genji (1998)
* The Analects of Confucius (2000)
* The Tao Te Ching (2003)
* The I Ching (2004)
* The Art of War (2005)
* Dream of the Red Chamber (2007)