Recommended Reads: International Authors
"A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations…" Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
Want to learn what life is like in other countries? One of the most enjoyable ways to become acquainted with a variety of other cultures is to read books by international authors, set in foreign lands. According to a Publishers Weekly online article celebrating the Pen World Voices festival of international literature, "As books like the Kite Runner and Reading Lolita in Tehran" dominate the bestseller list, there are other signs that US readers may be waking up to writers born abroad."
The Pen festival of international literature held in April 2005 drew more than 8,000 people to events featuring foreign writers. Also, a recent article in The Bookseller pointed to an emerging interest in international writers; for instance, many reading groups have adored books such as Carlos Ruiz Zafon's Shadow of the Wind, while Japanese author Haruki Marukami has also enjoyed bestselling popularity in the US. A number of the authors included in this resource list have won the prestigious Novel prize in literature. Enjoy your journey!
Recorded cassette (RC), braille (BR), and large print (LT) copies of these books are available from the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library. Please contact the library to order any of these books.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
RC 47510
Portrays traditional Ibo society in nineteenth-century Nigeria and one of its great men, Okonkwo. Through rituals, the lives of the individual and the community are unified, giving them order and significance. But the time-honored system of beliefs and behavior falls apart with the arrival of missionaries and colonists.
The Winter Queen: A Novel by Boris Akunin
RC 58580
Moscow, 1876. Twenty-year-old novice detective Erast Fandorin investigates the case of university student Pyotr Kokorin, who committed suicide and inexplicably left his fortune to an English philanthropist. After witnessing another violent act, Fandorin suspects espionage and travels across Europe to London to test his hypothesis. Violence. 1998.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
RC 37602, BR 14874
Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy, longs to see the world and dreams about a treasure hidden in the Egyptian pyramids. He sells his flock and leaves his home in Spain, sails first to Tangiers, crosses the desert, and eventually reaches Egypt. Along the way, he is led by a series of spiritual guides, perhaps the most important of whom is the alchemist who advises him to follow his heart.
Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
RC 49263
Divorced, fifty-two-year-old professor David Lurie is dismissed from a Cape Town university for seducing a twenty-year-old student. After retreating to his daughter's farm, an unprovoked attack by three African youths causes Lurie to reflect on his value system. Some descriptions of sex, some violence, and some strong language. Booker Prize. 1999.
Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
RC 46001, BR 9784
Until age twelve, Sophie is raised by her aunt in Haiti. Her mother then sends for her to come to New York and explains that Sophie is the product of rape. When a grown Sophie is befriended by an older musician, her mother tests her virginity. Sophie rebels by violently deflowering herself, an act that later causes her to seek sexual phobia therapy. She marries the musician and tries to come to terms with her past as her mother does the same. Some violence.
July's People by Nadine Gordimer
RC 17077, BR 11974
In the aftermath of a successful black revolution, a white Johannesburg family, architect Bam Smales, his wife, and their three young children, have been rescued by July, their black house servant of fifteen years. They are taken to July's remote, primitive family compound, where the roles of white-black dependency are reversed and where they try to come to terms with what has happened to them.
Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
RC 57457, BR 15785, LT 5510
An Afghan in California recalls a fateful 1975 day in Kabul that seared his soul at age twelve--the day he won a kite tournament and abandoned a younger companion to rape. That cowardice keeps haunting him during exile in America until the opportunity for atonement arises--back in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Violence and some strong language. 2003.
Waiting by Ha Jin
RC 49107, LT 2000
In 1960s China, Manna Wu falls in love with married doctor Lin Kong. His tradition-bound wife Shuyu refuses to divorce him, but if Lin can forbear through eighteen years of separation, the court will dissolve the marriage. National Book Award. 1999.
Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra
RC 58094
In war-torn Afghanistan, two couples' lives, branded by Taliban rule, cross paths. Zunaira, a self-imposed shut-in; husband Mohsen, dazed by atrocity; jailer Atiq, young yet old enough to mourn lost beauty; and his wife, Musarrat, desperate and dying, come together as Atiq attempts to save Zunaira from execution. Violence. 2002.
Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
RC 21074, BR 8839
Novel blends social and philosophical questions with personal concerns of the principal characters. A Czech surgeon, two of his countrywomen, and a Swiss professor, grapple with their sexual and political problems in the difficult years following the 1968 Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. Descriptions of sex.
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
RC 32132
The title of this first volume in the Cairo Trilogy comes from the name of a street near the great Mosque of Hosein. It is a metaphor for Egypt, straddling the ancient and the modern worlds. The story is of al-Sayyid Ahmad, his wife Amina, their daughter, and their two sons. Al-Sayyid is a tyrant at home, but lives a different life outside--loving sensual and aesthetic pleasures. Some descriptions of sex.
Embers by Sandor Marai
RC 53619, BR 13857
Hungary, 1940. The old general, Henrik, entertains his closest childhood friend, whom he has not seen in forty-one years. As he talks and questions Konrad, a complex history of friendship, passion, and betrayal is untangled. First published in Budapest in 1942. Translated by Carol Brown Janeway. Bestseller. 2001.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
RC 26981
Set in an unnamed Latin American country. After an eminent physician dies, leaving behind a bereft but still vital widow, a man with whom she was involved before her marriage emerges and declares his continued love for her. Some descriptions of sex. Bestseller.
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
RC 59914
After teenager Kafka Tamura runs away, his father, a famous sculptor, is murdered. This crime links Kafka and an elderly illiterate man in inexplicable ways. Both journey separately to a private library where their destinies overlap. Some explicit descriptions of sex, some violence, and some strong language. Bestseller. 2002.
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
RC 56459
Former professor of English literature in Iran relates her experiences, after resigning her university post in 1995, in continuing to teach seven female students who met secretly at her home each week to discuss literary classics. Nafisi describes how the women, reacting to the Islamic republic's intolerance, resisted oppression and embraced free thought. 2003.
A Bend in the River by V S Naipaul
RC 48487
In a recently independent central African nation, Salim, a Muslim of Indian origin, purchases a defunct store in a town at a bend in the river. Hoping to prosper but feeling trapped, Salim describes the people, political climate, and needs of a society in upheaval.
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
RC 62505, LT 6598
When the Germans invade France in 1940, Parisians flee to the countryside amid chaos. The following year, the Nazis occupy a provincial village, where a woman--who is hiding another villager wanted for the murder of an enemy soldier--falls in love with a German officer. Published posthumously in 2006. Bestseller. 1942.
Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje
RC 50089
Representing the Centre for Human Rights, Anil Tissera, a forensic pathologist, arrives in Sri Lanka, her birthplace, to investigate reports of political mass murders. Her task is complicated by uncertainty over the trustworthiness of her government-appointed counterpart, Sarath Diyasena, an archaeologist. Some violence and some strong language. Bestseller. 2000.
Snow by Orhan Pamuk
RC 58863
Poet Ka returns to Turkey after years of exile in Germany. While trying to rekindle romance with a childhood friend he investigates the suicide of several religious "head-scarf" girls. Meanwhile a blizzard cuts off the town and a military coup occurs. Some descriptions of sex and some violence. Bestseller. 2002.
The Cave by Jose Saramago
RC 56575
A commercial center no longer needs the pottery jugs of elderly widower Cipriano Algor, who instead creates clay figurines. His daughter, a new love, and a stray dog help him cope with imminent retirement until a haunting discovery under the urban complex changes them forever. By winner of 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature. 2000.
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
RC 23940, BR 6780
A bizarre tale set in eighteenth-century France. Orphaned Jean-Baptiste has an extraordinarily developed sense of smell, but he is haunted by the fact that his body has no scent of its own. His talents ingratiate him with a French perfumer and eventually he becomes an olfactory vampire who steals the scent of luscious girls. Some violence and some descriptions of sex. Bestseller 1986.
Soul Mountain by Giao Xingian
RC 51463
A semi-autobiographical, philosophical novel by the Chinese Nobel laureate. The protagonist, in reprieve from death, wanders through the Chinese landscape in search of Lingshan (Soul Mountain), describing his interior and exterior quests. Some descriptions of sex and some strong language. Bestseller. 2000.
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
RC 58940
Barcelona, 1945. Young Daniel Sempere selects Julián Carax's The Shadow of the Wind when his father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Daniel loves the novel, investigates the author's life and death, and meets a cast of characters hiding deadly secrets. Some descriptions of sex. Bestseller. 2001.