GEOGRAPHICAL READER
THE GEOGRAPHICAL READER
Each title on this reading list has been selected for the geographical
setting or for the nationality of the author. It is for readers who want to
experience the culture of a place through reading. It is not intended as an
armchair travel guide so it will not include travel books or journals by
travelers passing through. It may contain a few titles by foreign residents
of a region, particularly if the works reveal customs of the place or
of the author's homeland. It is hoped that the reader will gain (or regain)
a "sense of place" through these readings.
Note: Progress has been slow on this project. I have been reading a lot, but
I haven't had time to work on this page for some time so only a few titles have been
added since September, 1998. The links were most recently updated in May 2018.
Several titles were added in November 2013, but some lack publication details and annotations.
AFRICA
Egypt
Naguib Mahfouz: This Nobel prize winning author has written several
novels set in Cairo.
Abd al-Hakim Qusim: Rites of Assent, Philadelphia, Temple University Press,
199r. Translated by Peter Theroux. Two novellas, Al-Mahdi and Good News from the
Afterlife, of rural life in Egypt.
Nawal Sa'dawi: God dies by the Nile; London, Zed Books, 1985.
Translated from the Arabic by Sherif Hetata. Village life in
Egypt is depicted in this short novel.
Mauritius
Nathacha Appanah: The last brother; Minneapolis, MN, Graywolf, 2011.
Translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan. Two boys are caught up in the WWII
detention Jewish exiles in Mauritius (at the time, a British possession). One is a refugee,
the other the son of a prison employee.
Namibia
See Arnon Grunberg: Tirza below under Netherlands.
South Africa
Damon Galgut: In a Strange Room; New York, Europa Editions, 2010. A young South
African loner travels across eastern Africa, Europe, and India. Not a translation,
original language is English.
ASIA
China
Zhang Jie: Heavy wings; New York, Grove Weidenfld, 1989. Translated
from the Chinese (Ch'en chung ti ch'ih pang; Beijing, People's
Literature Publishing House, 1980) by Howard Goldblatt. Life and
politics in the bureaucracy of Communist China is depicted through
events and relationships at the fictional "Morning Light Auto Works"
in Beijing.
Mo Yan: the Garlic ballads; New York, Viking, 1995. Translated from
the Chinese (T' ien-t' ang suan t' ai chih ko) by Howard Goldblatt.
Love, loyalty, and corruption in rural Communist China.
Dai Sijie: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress; New York, Random House, 2002.
Translated from the French (Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise) by Ina Rilke. Two
young men from the city living in exile in a remote village during China's Cultural
Revolution discover a hidden stash of forbidden western novels.
India
Arundhati Roy: The God of small things; New York, Random House, 1997.
Set in Kerala, on the southern tip of India, this tale weaves in and
out of the past while revealing the family that caused the separation
of a sister and brother who are fraternal twins.
Indira Ganesan: The Journey; New York, Knopf, 1990. A mother and
her two daughters journey from New York to their native Indian
island after the death of one of the daughter's "twin" cousin.
Indonesia
Hella S. Haasse: The Black Lake; Portobello Books, 2013. Translated from the Dutch
by Ina Rilke. This is the story of two boys growing up together in colonial Java in the
years just before World War II. One is the son of a Dutch planter, the other a native
son of a servant. The friendship is doomed when they have to make choices during
the colony's struggle for independence. (Original published in 1948.)
Iran
Sadegh Hedayat: The Blind owl; London, John Calder, 1957; London,
Pan/Picador, 1973. Translated from the Persian by D.P. Costello. This
is the haunting story of a miniaturist who always paints the same scene.
Is it a memory, dream, or hallucination? The Cyprus tree, the old man,
the stream, and the girl in the black dress....
Naveed Noori: Dakhmeh; Toby Press, 2003. A young man whose family fled Iran when he was
a child returns to discover that life in the Islamic Republic of Iran is not the way he
dreamed it. He finds himself in the notorious Evin prison.
Shahriar Mandanipour: Censoring an Iranian love story, a novel; translated from the Farsi
by Sara Khalili. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. An Iranian writer attempts to pen a love
story in present-day Iran, using various ruses to outwit the Ministry of Culture and Islamic
Guidance's furious attempts to censor the work.
Ali Hosseini: The Lemon Grove, a novel; Evanston, Ill., Curbstone Books, 2012. When an exile
returns from the USA to Iran to help his shell-shocked twin brother, he finds the country
devastated by revolution and the war with Iraq.
Japan
Kobo Abe: The ark Sakura; New York, Knops, 1988. Translated by
Juliet Winters. (Originally published as: Hakobune Sakura Maru.)
One of many books by this prolific (and much translated) author.
This novel concerns the resident of a secret community of survivors.
Yasunari Kawabata: Palm-of-the-hand-stories; San Francisco, North
Point Press, 1988. Translated, by Lane Dunlop and J. Martin Holman
Kawabata, a winner of the Nobel Prize, is well known in the West for
his novels (Snow country, Sound of the mountain, Thousand cranes).
These shorter works, some barely a page long, give us miniature views
of life as Kawabata saw it.
Morio Kita: The house of Nire, Tokyo, dodansha International, 1984.
Translated by Dennis Keene. (Originally published by Shinchosha in
1964 as: nireke no hitobito.) The saga of a Japanese family who run
a private mental hospital in Tokyo. This novel covers the period from
the end of World War I to the end of World War II.
Kenzaburo Oe: Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! New York, Grove Press,
2002. Translated from the Japanese by John Nathan. A writer struggles
with his relationship with his art and his family, particularly his
mentally disabled son. Set mostly in Tokyo.
Yuko Tsushima: Woman running in the mountains; New York, Pantheon,
1991. Translated from the Japanese by Geraldine Harcourt.
(Originally published in 1980 in Japan by Kodansha as: Yama o hashiru
onna.) The story of a young Japanese woman coping with raising an
illegitimate child while living with her parents.
Lebanon
Liyana Badr: A balcony over the Fakihani; Brooklyn, N.Y., Interlink
Books, 1993. Translated from the Arabic by Peter Clark with Christopher
Tingley; introduction by Barbara Harlow. Three novellas set in Beirut.
Told from the Palestinian point of view.
Hassan Daoud: The House of Mathilde; London, Granta Books, 1999. Translated
from the Arabic by Peter Theroux. Set in a Beirut apartment building during the
Lebanese Civil War (1975-76).
Saudi Arabia
Bahiyyih Nakhjavani: The Saddlebag, A Fable for Doubters and Seekers; Boston, Beacon
Press, 2000. Exotic, dark, comic, and spiritual tales emerge as, on a journey between
Mecca and Medina, a saddlebag passes from traveler to traveler. A merchant, a thief, a
bride-to-be, a bandit, a chieftain, a moneychanger, a slave, a pilgrim, a priest, a
dervish, and a corpse are its temporary "owners". Author is Persian born, educated in
England and the United States, and, at the time of publication of this book, lived and
taught in Belgium. This novel is included in my list because of it decidedly Middle
Eastern flavor.
Sri Lanka
Romesh Gunesekera : Reef; New Press, New York, 1995. Original Language:
English. Written in England, this novel traces the boyhood and
immigration to England of a Sri Lankan. A Booker Prize Finalist.
Tibet
Alai: Red Poppies, a novel of Tibet; Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 2002. Translated from
the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin. An epic novel of the reign of
Tibetan warlords during the rise of Chinese Communism.
Thailand
Sila Khoamchai: The Path of the tiger; Bangkok, Thai Modern Classics,
1994. First published in Thai in 1989 as: Thang Suea; Translated by
Phongdei Jiangphattanarkit. This brief novel pits a young hunter, lost
in the jungle, against a tiger.
Arkartdamkeung Rapheepha: The Circus of life; Bangkok, Thai Modern
Classics, 1995. First published in Thai in 1929 as: Lakhorn Haeng
Cheewit. Translated by Phongdei Jiangphattanarkit. This novel traces
the life of an aristocratic Thai who leaves Thailand to study in London
and Washington.
Chart Korpjitti: The Judgment; Bangkok, Thai Modern Classics, 1995.
First published in Thai in 1981 as: Khamphipharksa. Translated by
Phongdei Jiangphattanarkit. A man with a promising career as a monk
falls into despair and alcoholism after his father's death leaves him
to care for the father's deranged widow. Set in a rural Thai village
in the 1980's, this novel won the 1981 Book of the Year Award of the
Literary Council of Thailand and the 1982 SEA Write Award for Thailand.
Botan (Supa Sirisingh): Letters from Thailand; Chiang Mai, Silkworm Books,
2002. First published in Thai in 1969. Translated by Susan Fulop Kepner.
Observations on Thai culture and the Chinese community in Bangkok through
the eyes of a Chinese immigrant. The novel consists of a series of letters
written to his mother in China from 1945 through 1967.
Kepner, Susan Fulop, editor: The Lioness in Bloom: Modern Thai Fiction About
Women (Voices from Asia, 9); University of California Press, 1996. Short
stories and excerpts from Thai novels give varying snapshots of the status
of women in modern society.
Rattawut Lapcharoensap: Sightseeing, Stories. (written in English) Interesting
views of Thailand and Thai family relationships through the eyes of complex characters.
The author was born in the United States, raised in Bangkok, and educated in
Thailand and the USA.
Unidentified Middle Eastern
Abd al-Rahman Munif: Cities of salt; New York, Random House, 1987.
First published in Beirut, 1984, in Arabic as Mudan al-milh. Translated
into English by Peter Theroux. This novel chronicles the cultural
disruption caused by the American development of oil in an unnamed
Persian Gulf Kingdom. The first in a trilogy which includes this title,
The Trench, and Variations on Night and Day.
Hanan Al-Shaykh: Women of sand and myrrh; London, Quartet Books,
1989. Translated by Catherine Cobham. This novel by a Lebanese
woman explores the lives of four women in an Arab desert community.
OCEANIA
New Zealand
Keri Hulme: The Bone people; Penguin, 1983. A woman who lives in a
tower, a strange orphan boy, and the boy's foster father form a strangely
disturbing trio. Winner of the 1985 Booker Prize.
Janet Frame: Between My Father and the King: New and Uncollected Stories; Counterpoint, 2013.
These 28 stories of family and town life were written in mid twentieth century.
Philippines
Arlene J. Chai: The last time I saw Mother; New York, Fawcett
Columbine, 1995. A Chinese-Filipina is called home to Manila from
her home in Australia. She learns more about her family history.
This novel gives a picture of both modern Manila and of the period
of World War II in the Philippines.
EUROPE
Albania
Ismail Kadare: Broken April;New York, New Amstedam, 1990. Translated
from the Albanian. (Originally published in 1982, Librairie Artheme
Fayard.) A city couple on their honeymoon in the Albanian hill country
encounter a young mountaineer trapped in a cycle of obligatory murder
that passes though generations of families.
Ismail Kadare: The accident, a novel. Translated from the Albanian by John Hodgson.
New York, Grove Press. Distributed by Publishers Group West, 2010.
Denmark
Hanne Marie Svendsen: The Gold ball; New York, Knopf, 1989. Translated
from the Danish ( Guldkuglen: Fortaelling om en o; Copenhagen, 1985) by
Jorgen Schiott. Several generations of the lives of villagers and
strangers on an island off the Danish coast are followed in this
novel. Much of the story is seen through the eyes of Maja Stina and
her curious golden ball.
Peter Hoeg: History of Danish dreams; New York, Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 1995. Translated by Barbara Haveland. (Originally published
in Copenhagen, 1988 under the title: Forestilling Om Det Tyvende
Arhundrede.) A delightful romp through the history of an incredible
family
Herman Bang: Katinka; Seattle, Fjord Press, 1990. Translated from
the Danish (Ved Vejen; Copenhagen, Det Schubotheske, 1886.) Life and
love in a Danish village.
Carsten Jensen: We, the drowned; Boston, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010, c2006.
Translated from the Danish by Charlotte Barslund with Emma Ryder.
Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis: The Boy in the Suitcase (Nina Borg #1); Soho, 2011.
Translated from the Danish by Lene Kaaberbøl. A young boy is kidnapped in Lithuania
and transported to Denmark. But why? His family is poor, so money is not the motive.
Greece
Panos Karnezis: Little Infamies; Picador (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 2002. Short
stories of life in a Greek village.
Panos Karnezis: The Maze; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. A Greek brigade retreating
from the Turks in 1922 takes up residence in a Greek village untouched by the conflict.
The presence of the soldiers changes the village's apparent tranquility.
Alexandros Papadiamantis: Tales from a Greek Island; Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1987. Translated, with an introduction and notes, by Elizabeth Constantinides.
Written around the turn of the century (19th to 20th), these stories of village life are
set on the author's native island of Skiathos.
Ersi Sotiropoulos: Zigzag through the Bitter-Orange Trees, Northhampton, MA., Interlink, 2007.
Translated from the Greek by Peter green. A dark comedy of contemporary Greece through the
viewpoints of four characters: a young woman dying in an Athens hospital, her vengeful brother,
her male nurse, and a yound girl in the nurse's home village.
France
Michel Houellebecq: The map and the territory; New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. Translated by Gavin Bowd.
Delphine de Vigan: Underground time; New York, Bloomsbury USA, 2011. Translated by George Miller.
Muriel Barbery: The Elegance of the Hedgehog; Highbridge Co, 2009. Translated by Alison Anderson
Life in a Paris apartment building.
Antoine Laurain: The President's Hat; London, Gallic Books, 2013. Title page has Gallic Books as translator.
Publisher's website shows "Gallic Books (Jane Aitken, Emily Boyce, Louise Rogers Lalaurie)" as translators.
A charming tale of a somewhat magical hat that is accidentally passed from person to person in Paris in the 1980s.
Guernsey
Gerald Basil Edwards: The Book of Ebenezer Le Page; New York Review Books Classics, (re-issue) 2007.
(Introduction by John Fowles) Fictional autobiography of a Guernseyman, spanning the late 19th century to
the early 1960s.
Iceland
Einar Mar Gudmundsson: Angels of the Universe; St. Martin's, 1995.
Translated from the Icelandic (Englar alseimsins, Almenna bokafelagid)
by Bernard Scudder. Lost souls caught in a spiral of madness live
out their lives in Reykjavik.
Olaf Olafson: The Journey Home; Pantheon, 2000. An Icelandic woman living
in England returns to her homeland when she discovers she has a serious
illness. Her journey is one of memories and self discovery.
Olaf Olafson: Absolution; Anchor Books, 2003. An ex-patriot Icelander in New York
city confronts the sins of his past.
Arnaldur Indriðason: Hypothermia; Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb.
New York : Minotaur Books, 2010.
Bergsveinn Birgisson: Reply to a Letter from Helga; Amazon Crossing, 2013. Translated by
Philip Roughton. An aging farmer reflects on life, love, and shepherding.
Italy
Natalia Ginzburg: Voices in the evening; New york, Arcade, 1963.
Translated by C. M. Low. (Originally published in Italy in 1961 by
Giulio Einaudi as: Le Voci Della Sera) This short novel depicts village
life.
Niccolo Ammaniti: Me and you; New York : Black Cat, 2012. Translated by Kylee Doust.
A fourteen-year-old loner hides away in a cellar.
Elsa Morante: History: a novel; New York, Knopf (distributed by Random House) 1977.
Translated from the Italian by William Weaver. WWII remote farming village in the mountains
south of Rome.
Latvia
Inga Abele: High Tide; Open Letter, 2013. Translated by Kaija Straumanis. Set mostly in Riga
in the post Soviet era, this story of a love triangle skips around i time and point of view.
Lithuania
see Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis: The Boy in the Suitcase above under Denmark
Netherlands
Margriet De Moor: The Storm: A novel; New York, Knopf, 2010. Translated from
the Dutch by Carol Brown Janeway. Originally published in the Netherlands by
Querido, 1999 as: De Verdronkene (the Drowned). Set in the horrific storm of
January/February 1953 which swept away entire islands and killed nearly 2000
people along the coast of Holland. This is the story of two women.
One, a storm victim; the other, her sister who must cope with loss.
Herman Koch: The Dinner, a novel. Translated by Sam Garrett. New York, Hogarth, 2013.
Two brothers and their wives facing serious problems involving their teenage sons meet
at an up-scale Amsterdam restaurant for a tense evening.
Arnon Grunberg: Tirza; Open Letter, 2013. Translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett.
A disturbing story of a man falling apart. Not an easy read as layers of his life are peeled
away to reveal a shocking act of violence. Part of the action takes place in Namibia.
Norway
Pal Espolin Johnson: For love of Norway; University of Nebraska Press,
1989. Translated from the Norwegian by Conrad Royksund. (Originally
published in Oslo, 1975 as: Alt for Norge.) Life in an isolated
fishing village during the first half of the Twentieth Century in this
short novel.
Karin Fossum: The Indian bride; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Reprint edition 2008.
One of a psychological crime series featuring Oslo detective Inspector Sejer
Translated by Charlotte Barslund.
Poland
Wieslaw Mysliwski: Stone Upon Stone; Archipelago; English Language ed. 2010.
Translated by Bill Johnston. A rambling tale of life in 20th century rural Poland, told
as a reminiscence of an aging bachelor farmer whose had his share of odd jobs,
vodka, women,and fighting (both brawls and as a member of the resistance).
Portugal
Fernando Namora: Fields of Fate; Crown, 1970 First published in
Portuguese as O trigo e o joio in 1954. Translated by Dorothy Ball.
This story of a day laborer and his patroness gives a view of rural
Portugal.
Antonio Lobo Antunes: Fado Alexandrino, New York, Grove, 1990.
Translated from the Portuguese by Gregory Rabassa. Five members of
a military unit meet in Lisbon for a reunion and share their stories
of love, family, and politics. This complex novel provides a picture
of life in urban Portugal.
Russia/Soviet Union:
Andreï Makine: Confessions of a Fallen Standard-Bearer, New York,
Penguin, 2000. Translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan. Two
young boys deal with Soviet life and disillusionment.
Spain
Llrenc Villalonga: the Dolls' room; London, Andre Deutsch, 1988.
Translated from The Catalan (Bearn o la Sala de las Munecas) by Deborah
Bonner. Set in Mallorca in the late 1800's. This is the story of a
declining country nobleman, told through the eyes of his house priest.
Sweden
P.C. Jersild: Hause of babel; Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press,
1987. Translated by Joan Tate; afterward, a Conversation with P.C.
Jersild, by Lief Sjoberg. Original title: Babels hus. A novel of
life, death, andlitics in a large hospital.
Turkey
Alev Lytle Croutier: Seven Houses, New York, Atria, 2002. The story of
several generations of a Turkish family as told by the houses in which
they lived. Covers the period 1911-1997. Set in Smyrna/Izmir, Bursa,
Ankara, and other Turkish towns.
Yashar Kemal: Iron Earth, copper sky; New York, William Morrow, 1979.
Translated from the Turkish (Yer Demir Gok Bakir; 1963) by Thilda Kemal.
A village waits in fear for their creditor to confiscate all their
possessions. As the days draw on with no action from the creditor, they
become anxious and begin attributing mystical qualities to one of their
neighbors.
Orhan Pamuk: The black book; New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994.
Translated from the Turkish by Guneli Gun. A man searches Istanbul for
his wife. Both the hero and his city seem to be searching for their
identities. A rich picture of modern Istanbul.
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar: A mind at peace; Brooklyn, NY, Archipelago
Books [Minneapolis, Minn.]; Distributed by Consortium Book Sales and
Distribution, c2008. Translated from the Turkish by Erdag Goknar.
Originally published in 1949, this novel documents the effect of the
rapid changes in Turkish society following fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Vedat Dalokay: Sister Shako and Kolo the goat: memories of my
childhood in Turkey. Translated by Guner Ener. Lothrop,
Lee & Shepard, 1994. Dalokay is a prominent Turkish author. This
little book reads a bit like a folk tale.
NORTH AMERICA
Canada
Robertson Davies: Davies has left a large body of work which gives
his insight into the Canadian national character. The Deptford
Trilogy: Fifth business, the Manticore, and World of wonders; The
Salterton Trilogy: Tempesttost, a Mixture of frailties, and Leaven
of Malice; and the the Cornish trilogy: the Rebel angels, What's
bread in the bone and the Lyre of Orpheus all are delightful, witty
novels. Each novel stands alone and can be read apart from the others
in each trilogy. Published by Viking/Penguin.
Robert MacNeil: Wordstruck; Viking Penguin 1989. A memoir of growing
up in Halifax, Nova Scotia during World War II. This book and MacNeil's
novel, Burden of desire (Talese/Doubleday, 1992) set in the Halifax
of World War give a portrait of this Canadian city.
Joan Clark: Latitudes of melt, a novel; New York, Soho, 2002.
The life of a woman (found as an infant adrift on an ice floe in
the North Atlantic in 1912) in a Newfoundland village.
Michael Crummey: Galore, a novel New York, Other Press, 2011.
A whale washes up on a Newfoundland beach, a man emerges
from it, but is it the strangest thing that happens in this village?
Is he its oddest resident?
Mexico
Luis Eduardo Reyes: Modelo Antiguo; El Paso, Cinco Puntos Press, 1997.
Originally published in Mexico, D.F.; Ediciones Era, 1992. Translated
by Sharon Franco and Joe Hayes. A young Mexico City cab driver gives
up driving his VW Bug to chauffeur an eccentric old woman through the
streets of her youth in a classic 1942 Ford. A strange tale of past
times and time passing.
Mexico/USA
Sylvia Lopez-Medina: Cantora; Albuquerque, University of New Mexico
Press, 1992. This novel follows four generations of women beginning
on a Mexican hacienda in 1904 with a young woman fleeing an arranged
marriage. The family finally ends up in the United States.
Carlos Fuentes: The Crystal frontier: a novel in nine stories; New
York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997. Translated from the Spanish
by Alfred Mac Adam. Originally published as: La frontera de cristal:
una novela en nueve cuentos, Mexico, Aguilar, Altea Taurus, Alfaguara;
1995. Fuentes, a leading Mexican literary figure, takes the Mexican/
United States border as the subject matter for this collection of
stories within a novel.
CARIBBEAN
Haiti
Edwidge Danticat: Claire of the Sea Light; new York, Knopf, 2013.
Written in English. Parents, children, friends, lovers in a seaside
town in Haiti.
CENTRAL AMERICA
Guatemala
Arturo Artas: After the bombs; Willimantic, CT, Curbstone Press, 1990.
Translated from the Spanish (Despues de las bombas; Joaquin Mortix,
Mexico, 1979) by Asa Zatz. Traces the life of a young man in Guatemala
beginning in 1954.
SOUTH AMERICA
Argentina
Pedro Mairal: The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra; New Vessel, 2013.
Translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor. A mute man spends years
painting rolls of canvas (for a total of 4 km). After his death, his sons
search for a missing roll (depicting the year 1961) and find out a lot
about their father and themselves.
Peru
Laura Riesco: Ximena at the Crossroads; White Pine, Fredonia, N.Y., 1998.
Translated from the Spanish (Ximena de dos caminos) by Mary Berg.
Story of a young girl's childhood in Peru in the 1940's. Told
through a serious of relationships.
LINKS TO WORLD LITERATURE
Words without Borders.
"Founded in 2003, Words without Borders promotes cultural understanding through
the translation, publication, and promotion of the finest contemporary international
literature.... We seek to connect international writers to the general public, to
students and educators, and to print and other media and to serve as a primary
online location for a global literary conversation."
Three Percent brings "...readers information about goings-on in the world of
international literature, and by providing reviews and samples of books in translation
and those that have yet to be translated...." In addition to reviews and news,
the site has a good set of links to blogs, organizations, presses, magazines,
and other resources. Part of the University of Rochester's (NY) translation
program, the site takes its name from the fact that "only about 3% of all books
published in the United States are works in translation."
In 2012, British writer/editor Ann Morgan began "A Year of Reading the World," a project
to read at least one book from every country (196 countries). Here is her list .
(Morgan also mentions that the UK figure for works published in translation is around 3%.)
AFRICA: Reading Women Writers and African Literature.
Although this site is an overview of African women writing in French it has some
information in English, including a brief list of titles which have been translated
from French into English. There is also an alphabetical listing of African women
authors with notations on which language (French, English, Portuguese, Spanish, or
Afrikaans) they write in. The author entries also include bibliographies and brief
biographical information.
ARAB WORLD:
Arab World Books is a combination bookstore/book club.
It has author profiles and some short stories, poetry,
book reviews, and essays. Material is in English and/or Arabic.
ASIA:
Thai Fiction in Translation has selections from Marcel Barang's translations
of Thai literature and some information about Thai authors.
It includes his list of The 20 Best Novels of Thailand. Some of the titles are available from the
DCO Made in Thailand book section.
The Sunthorn Phu Page has two essays on the poet (1786 - 1855) and the full
text of his Phra Abhai Mani as retold in English by Prince Prem Burachatr.
latest update (links only): May 2018 © by Martha Gifford
