Suggestions Please

I am a bookseller at an independent bookstore. We work with a lot with arts groups in our town, and one such group is hosting a world music festival. I am helping to promote it and thought it would be fun to suggest a piece of fiction and non-fiction from each place represented. I have some obvious answers, but I thought I would ask my LT friends who read globally for some of your recommendations. It would be helpful if the books were readily available in the US.

I know some are pretty broad while others might not offer much, but any suggestion is appreciated. Again, looking for Fiction / Non-fiction each.

Here we go:

Balkans
India
Brazil
Mali
Russia
Iran
Cuba
Congo

Balkans: books of Dubravka Ugresic

Russia: of course great classics (like Dostoyevski), but also e.g. Wiktor Pielewin with his Generation P.

Fiction from/about Cuba calls to mind Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos. Although it's set in the US it is about the Cuban experience and the arts--con mucho sabor cubano/with lots of Cuban flavor. Never saw the movie, but it's a good tie-in too.

Wish I kept a reading log back when, there's a great novel about life on the island and building a bridge that can withstand the seasonal flooding that destroys it. Grr....

Iran: The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer and Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi,

for India anything by Narayan,
Midnights Children by Salman Rushdie,
Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer-Jhabvala,
The Namesake and The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri,
or Brick Lane by Monica Ali.

For Cuba Alejo Carpentier's The Lost Steps or Before night Falls by Reinaldo arenas

for Brazil anything by Machado de Assis

For Russia
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman,
Dead Souls (Chichikov's Journey) by Nikolai Gogol,
Sketches from a Hunter's Album or Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev,
And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov,
Hope against Hope (non-fiction) by Nadezhda Mandelstam.

If you want Argentina: The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander.
Blow Up by Julio Cortazar,
or Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges

Balkans
The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric, a classic but in some ways not much has changed
The Successor by Ismail Kadare, a satire about Albania; I wasn't crazy about it

India
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, one of my all-time favorites
The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott, a four-book work that looks at the last years of British rule
Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra, the contemporary Bombay underworld/Bollywood, etc.

Brazil
Anything by Jorge Amado

Russia
I second almigwin's recommendation of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate
The Case of Comrade Tulayev and Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge, for a look at the Soviet era
Of contemporary interested, because he just died, Solzhenitsyn

Balkans -- The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric

India -- Haroun and the Sea of Stories and The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie

Brazil -- anything by Jorge Amado

Mali -- Sundiata

Russia -- Anton Chekhov' s plays, Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

Cuba -- The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano by Margarita Engle

Balkans - The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric
Inat : Images of Serbia and the Kosovo Conflict

Russia- Blue Lantern, The
Anna Karenina

Brazil- Little Star of Bela Lua: Stories from Brazil
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon
India - Autobiography of a Yogi
Ganesha Goes to Lunch: Classics from Mystic India
The Palace of Illusions: A Novel

Hope you don't mind a shameless plug, but my new novel, Heart of Diamonds, is set in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It has literally just been released by Kunati Books, named Independent Publisher of the Year at BEA 2008. The novel is a romantic thriller that also seriously explores the dire circumstances faced by the people of the Congo. The book design includes photos I took during two trips to Africa to research the book. Good luck with your promotion!
Dave Donelson

I recommend Zoé Valdés from Cuba.

More for Cuba: Paradiso by jose Lezama Lima
and How the Garcia Girls lost their Accents by julia Alvarez,
and the fourteen sisters of Emilio Montez O'brien by Oscar Hijuelos.

For the Balkans: The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning,
and the woman of Sarajevo and Bosnian Chronicles by ivo Andric.
And a non-fiction for Brazil - The Masters and the Slaves by Gilberto Freyre
(A study in the development of Brazilian civilization).

Err...
Garcia Girls is a great read, but they and Julia Alvarez are from the Dominican Republic.

Whoops, sorry.

I haven't read it but oh how I want it. I have read Achy Obejas and thought she was a real talent. This looks like a lot of fun as your Cuban suggestion.

http://www.akashicbooks.com/havananoir.htm

Hi,
how about the Persepolis (graphic) novels by Mariane Satrapi for Iran? Beautiful graphic art, and the story breaks your heart...
More on Iran: Cry of the peacock by Gina Nahai. Kind of magical realistic, but interesting as it gives you insight in the recent history of Iran/Persia.

And on Congo I would definately suggest King Leopold's ghost by Adam Hochschild (non-fiction), and perhaps The poisonwood bible by Barbara Kingsolver as fiction, even though she is an American author. By using American characters to describe Congo it might be more accessible to a broader US public than your local African author?

For the Balkans:

Garden, Ashes by Danilo Kis
Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic

For Brazil, there is

The Centaur in the Garden by Moacyr Scliar and Max and the Cats by the same author.

In a more populist vein, there is Paulo Coelho: The alchemist and Veronika Decides to Die.

For India, there are lots of choices. Ones that I have particularly liked are:
A River Sutra by Gita Mehta, connected stories about pilgrims.
The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh, set in the islands by the Bay of Bengal
The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor, a retelling of modern Indian politics through the characters of the Mahabharata.

Persepolis for Iran would be popular! Especially since it's also a recent film release. (Also, I kind of think it's a better pick than Reading Lolita in Tehran because it gets further into history, and in a more accessible way.)

I loved janeajones' suggestions for the Balkans, India, Russia and Mail in message 6, but would also add:

-- S: A Novel about the Balkans by Slavenka Draculic (and then the nonfiction could be some of her journalistic work)

-- A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Alexander Solzhenitsyn as a novel for Russia, and Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky as the nonfiction

-- and I'd love to suggest fiction for India, but all of my favorite Indian writers live in England rather than India, such as with the hilarious novel Life Isn't All Ha Ha He He by Myra Syal

I hope you will post an update telling us which texts you selected! I'd love to add ones I don't know to my TBR pile.

:)

For Brazil: perhaps The Hour Of The Star by Clarice Lispector.

For the Balkans, I would add How the Soldier Repairs the Gramaphone by Sasa Stinisic, which is now being made into a movie as well, and Ismail Kadare's Chronicle in Stone. Do you include Greece in there, since there is a whole additional round of Greek suggestions we could make.

For India, some classics could be good - the Kalidasa volume from Penguin, The Loom of Time is great, and there are projects at UChicago and Columbia turning out new multi-volume translations of the Mahabharata; likewise, for Iran, Dirk Davis's translation of the Shahnameh is wonderful and recent.