fannyprice Reads Around the World

I've been inspired by the efforts of a number of people in this group, particularly depressaholic and cestovatela, to try to read my way around the world. I felt that I could do a good job filling out the map with what I'd already read, but once I decided to restrict myself to fiction, I realized I had hardly been anywhere, literarily speaking!

Even most of my reading of Middle Eastern literature has been confined to Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt. And how have I not read any Canadian fiction (I'm not counting The Handmaid's Tale, even though Atwood is Canadian, since it is not really a book that tells the reader much about Canada specifically)?!

So I'm going to try to read around the world, introducing myself to the literary cultures of new countries. If I absolutely cannot find a work of fiction from a specific country, I may break down and read either folktales/mythology or memoirs, but I am going to try to avoid counting straight non-fiction.

So, here is my pathetic map and my promise to do better!


create your own visited country map
or check our Venice travel guide

Edited on 09/08/2007 to add Portugal, 12/30/2007 to add Japan
Edited on 03/22/2008 to add Dominican Republic, China, and Sudan

Goodness! You have your work cut out for you. Get reading, girl.

Do you want some recommendations to get you started?

An area you're lacking is Australia and New Zealand. Personally, I've read authors from those countries, but would like to explore more. Does anyone have any recommendations for us? I love Katherine Mansfield, but I'm wondering what Australia Lit and Kiwi Lit aficionados like to read.

I know - its pretty pathetic, isn't it? I have always preferred non-fiction to fiction, and if I were to count history/sociology/anthropology/etc., I would actually have been to a pretty decent number of places. But hey, there's no shame in admitting what you don't know & I think I'll have a great time with this challenge, even if it takes me forever.

But there is something wonderful about all those spaces to explore! I've thought about dropping the countries I haven't read in 20 years from my list, just to open up some big, rich countries.

And you have Iran open! All those classic Persian tales beckon! There's a new translation of the Shahnameh that came out a couple years ago that I've kept near and read from regularly, and I'd really recommend that.

Two recommendations...

The only Australian author I've read so far is Markus Zusak who wrote The Book Thief which is set in Nazi Germany. The book is very good and well worth the read. Zusak was born and lives in Sydney, Australia.

I'd love to recommend a book set in the Hunan Province of China. It's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Although author Lisa See was born in France, the book is a stunning reccreation of Chinese life in the 19th century. The chapter about foot binding alone makes this book well worth reading.

We're such a globally-integrated world now. It's often hard to find good fiction that does not mix an author's birthplace, place of residence, and/or setting of a novel. Which is most important to you?

Oh, is that the Dick Davis (not sure if this is the correct touchstone...) translation? I have wanted that for a long time!

Edited to try to make a link to Amazon.com (but failed, sigh...)

Yes, that's the one - it's now in paperback, but the hardcover was my birthday present to myself when it came out.

#5, For Australia, there is the wonderful The Secret River by Kate Grenville, one of my favorites this year (which I read thanks to an LT recommendation).

Fannyprice, you do have some wonderful places to explore! There are threads for almost every area (except Asia) here in the group which are loaded with recommendations.

I can second rebeccanyc's recommend of Kate Grenville, and I also enjoyed her Idea of Perfection but there are so many excellent Australian authors! Peter Carey would be another obvious choice.

Okay, this is where I'm starting from. (oh, my these touchstones will never load...)

United States
So many of my books fit into this category, despite never having read most "classic" works of American literature - another defect in my reading that I should remedy. I guess I'll pick a quintessential work - John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Read this one a long time ago, in high school I think. I remember enjoying it a lot, but the book produced an unfortunate side effect - I talked like the Joads to myself for a while afterwards. Also falling into this category are all of the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. They provide the reader with a fascinating window into the lives of American pioneers in the post-Civil War era. Re-reading these as an adult, I was struck by how much life has changed since these books were written - the Ingalls/Wilder families worked constantly in order to simply survive. Little things like store-bought candy were real luxuries to them; such a contrast to our time.

Columbia

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Kind of an obvious choice for Columbia. I read this a long time ago and really should re-read it as an adult.

Algeria

This one is touchy, I know, since there is some debate about whether Albert Camus should
be counted as Algerian or French. But since The Stranger and The Plague grow out of Camus' experience in Algeria and describe the Algerian setting so vividly, I think they count. I have read The Stranger twice - over ten years apart - and not thought much of it either time, but I read The Plague in high school and enjoyed it very much. I thought it was a much deeper, more thoughtful examination of the human experience than The Stranger. Having said all this, I would still prefer to fill this slot with an author whose "Algerian-ness" is less contested.

Cameroon

The One Facing Us by Ronit Matalon is a fictionalized account of a young Jewish girl's
life in Cameroon. It addresses issues of colonial privilege and family secrets. I should re-read it, since I read it almost 10 years ago.

Egypt

A number of works by Naguib Mahfouz - Adrift on the Nile, The Children of Gebalawi, Miramar, and my favorite, The Cairo Trilogy. The Cairo Trilogy follows a single Egyptian family from the early 20th century to the 1952 Revolution in Egypt, documenting the incredible social, political, intellectual and economic changes that occurred during this period. Where the novel really shines, though, is in its presentation of the way familial relationships and the relationship between the private & public spheres changed - especially with respect to the roles of women.

Nigeria

Again, the obvious choices - Chinua Achebe's Man of the People and Things Fall Apart. Both so long ago I might commit to a re-read.

Russia

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a lot of Russian poetry - Anna Akhmatova, Sergei Yesenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Aleksander Blok, Mikhail Lermontov, Mikhail Lomonosov, Osip Mandelstam, Marina Tsvetaeva and various short stories. Eventually I plan to embark on a big survey of Russian masters.

United Kingdom

All of Jane Austen's completed novels, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, a few H.G. Wells' novels.

Israel

The Secret Life of Saeed by Emile Habiby about the Israeli-Arab experience, Death in the Rain by Ruth Almog, See Under: Love by David Grossman, The Lover and Mr. Mani by A.B. Yehoshua. Also a number of short stories.

Palestine

A number of short stories by Ghassan Kanafani, the best of which were "Returning to Haifa" and "Men in the Sun", Memory for Forgetfulness by Mahmoud Darwish (Palestinian experience in Lebanon).

Lebanon

Passage to Dusk by Rashid al-Daif, The Stone of Laughter by Hoda Barakat, Sitt Marie Rose by Etel Adnan, Little Mountain by Elias Khoury, Beirut 75 by Ghada al-Samman all about the Lebanese Civil War at various stages.

fannyprice, thanks for posting your thread. My map looks different from yours, but has comparable amounts of red and gray (I posted it on the map thread). I admire depressaholic and cestovatela for being so widely read, but I was feeling a little intimidated about starting my own thread. You've given me courage! Don't have time now but hope to create one later.

fannyprice, while I would not dispute Camus' Algerian experience, I think it would be useful to also read someone on the colonized end of the viewpoint. That's what I'm trying to do with Djebar (also I'm interested in women authors).

Here's an interesting website with lists of Algerian authors (I must go explore this website further!)

Hey thanks! That is exactly what I'm looking for. I completely agree with you on the need to get both the colonized and colonizer perspectives - I hope that I will get more of the former than the latter, quite honestly.

Well, I think it is easier to get the viewpoints of those of European descent. Camus, as discussed elsewhere, was born in Algerian; but his European heritage places him in a more privileged social position.

When you get to Lesotho, let me know, I'll send you the memoir I just read (it's relatively short).

Nickelini and fannyprice, there are several Australian and Kiwi authors you might try.
Beside the aforementioned excellent Kate Grenville, you might enjoy Peter Carey, Patrick White (Nobel Prize winner), Alexis Wright, Roberta Sykes, Janet Frame (NZ). Excellent non-fiction writer is Drusilla Modjeska.

For less recent writers, beside the famous Katherine Mansfield, I would add Jean Devanny for NZ and Katharine Susannah Prichard, Miles Franklin, Eleanor Dark, and Dorothy Hewett. If you want to go even farther (or earlier) in time, Ada Cambridge and Mrs. Aeneas Gunn. I am sure I am forgetting many, but these were those I could think of right off the bat.
Oh, and I was forgetting Colleen McCullough!

#3: I know - its pretty pathetic, isn't it? I have always preferred non-fiction to fiction, and if I were to count history/sociology/anthropology/etc., I would actually have been to a pretty decent number of places. But hey, there's no shame in admitting what you don't know & I think I'll have a great time with this challenge, even if it takes me forever.

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Oh, absolutely! I'm not sure, but when I made my map I expect that I included non-fiction. So I may be cheating. When it comes to LibraryThing, I make the rules and guidelines that work for me (not necessarily what everyone else is doing).

To Paola's excellent list in 15 above, I'd like to add Tim Winton and Thea Astley.

#5: We're such a globally-integrated world now. It's often hard to find good fiction that does not mix an author's birthplace, place of residence, and/or setting of a novel.

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So very true. For example, so much Canadian literature is written by immigrants. These writers have moved to Canada, and become citizens, but write about their homelands. Here in Canada, we claim and take pride in writers who I'll bet many (most?) readers would never guess as Canadian. I know other countries that attract immigrants, such as Britain and Australia (to name just two), also face this conundrum.

Again, I make the guidelines that work best for me (because this is all for fun anyway). For example, how I classified Anil's Ghost (by Michael Ondaatje) would depend on whether I wanted to check off Sri Lanka or Canada. And even though Salman Rushdie is considered a British writer, I have to classify Shame as Pakistani.

Yes, I agree - determining the "nationality" of a work is sometimes complex. I think for me it depends on a combination of the author's background and the subject of the work. Within reason, one needs to be somewhat flexible on the matter, I think. Without being presumptuous, I'd guess that most people in this group, whether doing a personal challenge or not, are just trying to expose themselves to voices that are sometimes overlooked. We all permit ourselves some leeway. I've tried to place non-fiction off limits because my natural inclination is to read a history of each country on the list. I'm sure I will run into a wall at some point. :)

One of the great things about your map is you've got Europe open, leading to the question of if we could pick just one book, for an introduction to say, French literature, what would it be?

I know, isn't it crazy? The pressure is on!

I have to recommend a book to you so you can check off Mexico: Like Water For Chocolate (Laura Esquivel). This is one of my all-time favourite books. I started reading it, and was so swept into the story that I finished it in one sitting (so it's also not very long). Absolutely enchanting. (And it made me want to explore Mexican cooking.)

One idea for French literature is Bouvard and Pecuchet by Flaubert. Two men decide to read everything, giving Flaubert a backdrop for satirizing all of European culture up to that point. The problem is that I think the novel kind of drags on - Flaubert wrote about 100 pages too many in my humble opinion - though many would disagree.

For Israel, I would recommend anything by Amos Oz.

I just saw a wonderfully reviewed book that I may just have to have: A Pigeon and a Boy by Meir Shalev, translated from the Hebrew by Evan Fallenberg. Here's what the reviewer in Publishers Weekly said, "This gem of a story about the power of love...brims with luminous originality." Due out in Oct. here in the states.

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Re books from Israel

I pre-ordered A Pigeon and a Boy from my library as soon as I saw Shalev had a new book coming out.

I loved Meir Shalev's book The Blue Mountain - particularly since the setting is in the area of Israel in which my family lives. I actually just bought a used copy of this book to keep for my permanent collection (a rare happening).

The Loves of Judith by Shalev is wonderful reading as well.

Venturing into Chile, Isabel Allende writes beautifully evocative portraits and includes lots of geopolitical information, especially her first three novels: House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows and Eva Luna.

Thanks all for the suggestions - especially the Israeli lit. I've got that area much better covered than any other area, but I am definitely not as widely read as I want to be.

More from Israel: Adding the novelists A. B. Yehoshua,for The Lover, and Ida Fink for the Journey.She writes in Polish but lives in israel. The book is the story of two Polish-Jewish sisters who go to Germany during wwii as conscript laborers, disguised as gentiles to escape the concentration camps. Aharon Appelfeld for Badenheim 451 and S.Y. Agnon's The Bridal Canopy.
Two wonderful israeli poets are Dan Pagis and Yehudah Amichai.

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How about novels by an Israeli Arab? Two I highly recommend are Dancing Arabs and Let It Be Morning by Sayed Kashua. Same geographical area; different culture.

Sayed Kashua is a journalist for the Israeli newspaper Ha'Aretz. He lives in Beit-Safafa, an Arab village within Jerusalem. His books deal with what it's like to an Arab living in a Jewish state.

in thanks for your excellent list of Lebanon books, I can make some suggestions for my own specialist area - Asia. for Sri Lanka, I would recommend funny boy by shyam selvadurai - I love Michael Ondaatje, but funny boy is a good read which is also a great insight into Sri Lanka. To be a little controversial on India, I would recommend the last jet-engine laugh by ruchir joshi - not your stereotypical novel, but a slightly dystopian tale of India twenty years in the future... or even bunker 13 by aniruddha bahal, interesting because it's basically a Bond novel set in modern India. For Indonesia Max Havelaar by multatuli, and the Philippines, dogeaters by jessica hagedorn, or noli me tangere by jose rizal, a hero of the Philippine revolution as well as a novelist and poet.

I'm sure there are more, will add them as I think of them! Also have a look at http://books.guardian.co.uk/internationalwriting/0,,143936,00.html for some more discussion.

Fannyprice,
Something I have been doing more of with my own literary travelling is visiting coutries in chunks, e.g. I just read 5 books from the Caribbean region and am now embarking on a bit of an African odyssey. Although I would never suggest that Africa is a homogenous whole, or that South Africa and Nigeria are in the same 'place', sometimes bunching your reads geographically can give you a bit more insight to what is going on in a particular region. I only mention this because it seems to me that I missed out on something by hopping my way across the globe randomly and because you have a few more open countries than me you could aviod doing this (and, I know, I could always go back).

btw #31 Multatuli was the pseudonym of a Dutch writer who was writing about the abuses of colonists in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). I only mention this in case someones personal 'rules' may make him Dutch, rather than Indonesian.

good point, depressaholic - in which case Pramoedya Ananta Toer might be a good substitute! (Touchstone not working, but this is the link: http://www.librarything.com/author/toerpramoedyaananta)

Ok, somewhere in the past few months, I hit Japan and Portugal with Haruki Murakami and Jose Saramago.

Does anyone else start to feel weird about checking off a country after only reading one book by an author from that country that may only tangentially be "about" that country? I mean, in reading Murakami, I think I discovered a new favorite author and I have resolved to read more of his books specifically in the next year, but I would never want to feel like I have read and understood 'Japanese literature' in its entirety. I know that's not really the attitude of most people who are doing this challenge, I just sometimes feel bad b/c the truth of the matter is that I am just not devoted enough to the challenge to read a number of books from the same region or country all in a row, unlike some amazing people who are doing the challenge and have provided a wealth of items for my TBR list! (Thanks guys...)

Anyway, just thoughts, as I end the year not really any more diversely-read than I began it.

I don't mind checking countries off after one book. Each checkmark is kind of satisfying. However, I do feel as if I should move on to another country even if there is more I want to read for that place. At least then I'll have touched that many more cultures.

I just ordered Blindness by Jose Saramago after all the good LT buzz--but I already have Portugal checked off. Oh, the decisions!

fannyprice, I agree completely. "Visiting" a country is much different from "living" there ... meaning as you say, you'd have to read more books to truly understand the country's literature. I guess I tend to visit (and yes, enjoy the checkmarks!), and then if I like it, I might return for an extended stay.

I had some time so I thought I'd play this game too, but I ran into a few problems.

1. I agree with FannyPrice about checking off a country just for the sake of completing a list. It reminds me of the "If it's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium" syndrome--tourists that race around Europe and don't actually see anything, but bring home a suitcase of T-shirts from each place they got off the bus.

I started checking off my map, and got really confused. Where a writer is from and what he or she writes about rarely match. Margaret Atwood wrote Oryx and Crake, but the book doesn't represent Canada or Canadian literature. Where does Out of Africa fit in? Isak Dinesen was definitely Danish, but her book says almost nothing about Danish culture. I used A Fine Balance for India, but Rohinton Mistry is now Canadian. I checked off Brazil because I read Coelho's The Alchemist, but I don't feel like that book enriched my understanding of Brazilian literature, and it didn't have anything to do with Brazil. And where do I put The Plague by Camus? It doesn't feel Algerian OR French. These are just a handful of the questions I came across as I tried to make my list.

2. How do you copy the map into LibraryThing? The website says to paste the HTML code, but when I do that, I just see HTML code. I know I'm missing something obvious . . . help!

Other than those problems, I've really enjoyed watching all of you read your way around the globe, and I'd like to play too.

I think that Reading Globally is a fantastic platform for learning about the world and its literature, but it is only a platform. Reading a single book or putting a check by a country doesn't mean that you have 'finished' exploring that country, hopefully it means that you have just started. There are a few places I have discovered that I am keen to explore more thoroughly, others I will pass through fleetingly. It depends what you want to get out of it. Reading a single book is a good start, but only a start.

As to Nickelini's points above, I think the first depends on the attitude of the reader/traveller. Are we doing it to tick lists, or are we determined to learn something during our 'visits'. My motivation is overwhelmingly the latter, though I would be lying if I denied that the former gave me a bit of pleasure. As to the how to classify authors question, there is a whole thread covering this (and also raising many points relating to the usefulness or otherwise of reading challenges). The thread is called 'Deciding Which country a book is from' and has slipped way down the lists of threads due to inactivity. It was an interesting discussion, and clarified in my mind many of the benefits and limitations of a Reading Globally Challenge. I can only offer the rather weak argument that I am now familiar with many aspects of history, politics and geography that I was clueless about before, and that has to be a good thing.

HERE is the thread that depressaholic is referring to. Everyone should feel free to pick up an old thread and post. No topic is ever really dead in this group.

>37 Nickelini: about the HTML code ... paste it into the message and then click "Submit." Voila, the map will display once it's saved. You can put a map in your profile the same way, if you want to try it out there, first (click on my profile to see what it looks like there).

I think we're all free to set our own parameters for the challenge. I only choose books that deal with the country I want to explore. That usually means they're set in that country or they deal with the experiences of immigrants from that particular country. If I happen to pick up a book and discover that the author is from, say, Portugal, but it has nothing at all to do with Portugal, I don't usually include it in the challenge.

I stopped worrying about just why I've been doing this thing, reading around the world, after the exercise helped me discover Ivo Andric, NaguibMahfouz, Leila Aboulela and other such writers.

I'm going to try this year not only to add a few checks to the list, but also to try to revisit a bunch of the countries where I've now only read one book. Maybe I'll find a way to get a multi-colored map (white means no books, red means one book, green means 2-4, blue means 5 or more!), so it's not just checking off the country for the first time, but also getting deeper into the literature of each country as well.

Well, I've finally come back to this thread. I've made a bit of progress, I guess.

Dominican Republic
Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys (F)

Review

Jean Rhys occupies kind of a hybrid position, as the descendant of white Creoles in Dominica, and she spent most of her life in England, but she never identified as English. Still, I would like to find a book by a more contemporary Dominican author, even though this book provides one window into the country.

Sudan
The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur - Daoud Hari (a memoir)

Review

I wasn't going to include memoirs but I am re-thinking on that one.

China
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress - Dai Sijie
Review of this one will be coming once I sort out my thoughts.

Fanny - don't forget, parts of The Translator took place in Chad...so there is potential to add another country to your map.