Crazy Rich Asians

Crazy Rich Asians is a novel by the American writer Kevin Kwan, published in 2013 by Doubleday. It is a satirical romantic comedy, and the first of a trilogy that continued with China Rich Girlfriend and Rich People Problems.

Nick Young takes Rachel Chu home for the summer, and neither of them is prepared for the difference between what she imagines and what is waiting. Singapore's wealthiest families are the book's subject, and they are presented from inside: the parties, the houses, the old money and the new, the way a family's standing depends on who its children marry. Around the central couple, Kwan assembles a cast that includes Nick's mother, Eleanor, who is working hard behind the scenes, his cousin Astrid, who is married to a man who cannot cope with her family's money, and the social world that runs on the terms the older generation has set. The novel uses the wedding of the decade as the point where the various interests collide, and Rachel spends much of the book working out whether she is being tested or simply discussed.

Kwan has said that he wanted to introduce a contemporary Asia to readers who had not been shown it, and the book drew on his own childhood in Singapore. A film adaptation followed in 2018.