(Some of the book descriptions come from Amazon.com)
South Asia (Indian Subcontinent)
Narayan, R.K. (India) The Grandmother's Tales and Other Stories. From The New Yorker: Narayan... cannot be too highly commended to those who want to understand the Indian mind or to know what life in India is like. From The New York Review of Books : R. K. Narayan is a writer of towering achievement who has cultivated and preserved the lightest of touches. So small, so domestic, so quiet his stories seem; but great art can be very sly. From The New York Times: It is not too much to compare Mr. Narayan to Chekhov. From Newsweek: Narayan sees the divine in the ordinary.Narayan, R.K. (India) The Guide : A Novel (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
Rushdie, Salman Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Rushdie is not technically an Indian writer; he lives and writes in the U.K. But he writes a lot about India which he does consider his "home." This particular book is a children's story. He says he wrote it for his ten-year old son. It was the first book he wrote after he went into hiding following Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa agianst him. It is an "eastern" fable, drawing on various epics/folktales from India, Persia, etc. But it really is a serious (though very funny) comment on the importance of the freedom of speech. Immediately forget any preconceptions you may have about Salman Rushdie and the controversy that has swirled around his million-dollar head. You should instead know that he is one of the best contemporary writers of fables and parables, from any culture. Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a delightful tale about a storyteller who loses his skill and a struggle against mysterious forces attempting to block the seas of inspiration from which all stories are derived. The author of The Satanic Verses returns with his most humorous and accessible novel yet. This is the story of Haroun, a 12-year-old boy whose father Rashid is the greatest storyteller in a city so sad that it has forgotten its name. When the gift of gab suddenly deserts Rashid, Haroun sets out on an adventure to rescue his print
China
Confucius The Analects. This is one of the "Confucian classics" which outlines the fundamental ethical precepts of Confucius, whose philosophy underlines East Asian civilization. Arranged topically (e.g. respect for parents, benevolence, education), the book is a collection of Confucius' sayings as remembered by his students. It has a scriptural feel to it and is easily excerpted to convey not only the moral bedrock of East Asia but the way wisdom was passed down from master to pupil. Many fine English-language translations of this work exist. In recent years, "comic book" versions (done by Asians themselves) have appeared, much to the delight of the Western audience.
Lao Tzu, The Tao Te Ching. This is the great classic repository of Taoist thought. It contains the sayings of Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, as passed down by his disciples. It, too, is easily excerpted. Many outstanding translations exist, often with beautiful nature drawings, paintings, photographs, and Chinese calligraphy accompanying the text in English. A "comic book" edition also exists. It has become a world classic because of its radical challenge to the underlying assumptions of both traditional and modern civilizations.
Chinese Poetry.
Outstanding poets of the T'ang dynasty (618-907 C.E.) like Li Po and Tu Fu are often quoted in the West. Their poetry is prized for its lyrical beauty and grace. The T'ang poets penned some of the best of the world's poetry and are available in many fine translations.
Li Po and Tu Fu (tranlstated by Aruthur Cooper). Li Po and Tu Fu: Poems (Penguin Classics). Arthur Cooper includes an introduction to get the reader up to speed on Chinese literary history and the development of Chinese Kanji. The translation of poems loose most of the musical qualities and doesn't sufficiently create a sense of poem. In Cooper's introduction he discusses some of these problems, but having read other tanslation of Li Po, it is an adequate translation. One of the strengths of this edition is that it has the chinese version on the opposite page, so it does try to bridge the gap. The book is intended as an introduction to Chinese poetry and provides enough information for those who want to know the history and expose themselves to Li Po and Tu FuLi Po (translated by David Hinton) The Selected Poems of Li Po. Li Po fits perfectly into the modern class of poor sensitive vagabonds (Hamsun, Celine, Fante, Bukowski) and is sort of their Prince (because obviously the King is Catullus). His influence on just about everything is so obvious after you read these poems, and they are some of the most beautiful things ever put onto paper. Ezra Pound was a large fan and in fact translated some of his work
Elegant,
Simon A Floating Life : The Adventures of Li Po : An Historical
Novel. The great Chinese poet Li Po (701-762) was an artistic
innovator and a recalcitrant who spent much of his life unemployed or in exile. Mr.
Elegant's fictionalized life of Li Po is a swashbuckling picaresque tale, good reading
even if one has doubts about the poet's claim that he rode home on the back of an eagle.
His complaints about that old bore Confucius, phony scholarship, court etiquette, and the
straitjacket rules of Mandarin verse ring true. (A Review from the Atlantic
Monthly)
Chinese Novels. Although the Chinese novel is quite different in form from the Western novel, some of China's greatest novels are action-packed and illuminate the nature of China's Confucian society, tradition, and religion in imaginative ways. There are excellent translations of three such novels:
Luo Guan Zhong Romance of the Three Kingdoms (chronicling political heroism, military glory, and civil war in fourth- and fifth-century China), There is an old Chinese saying... "Do not read Romance of the Three Kingdoms when you are old". the implication is, you will already be very wise from your years, and to read this book then will make you almost superhuman. This book is one of the greatest novels ever written. It is a lesson in human relations, in war, in startegy, in emotion, in man management... it is so many things. Luo Guanzhong deveoted his entire life to writing just this one book, and his careful effort can be felt through the book's emotion. Today its characters are revered as gods and sages in much of the Chinese speaking world.
Hu, Anthony (Translator) Journey to the West. (a thrilling tale dramatizing how Chinese people lived out their religious convictions and how the worldly and the supernatural intertwine in people's daily lives). If you are interested in Asian studies, you must read this novel. Many modern Asian anime, comics, and stories are adaptations of this one or are based on it. The main character is a mischievous monkey who becomes immortal by eating a peach of immortality from the garden of the gods. He studies Taoism and gains special powers. His punishment is to escort a priest from China to India in search of the Buddhist scriptures. On the way they encounter many different monsters, funny adventures, and two more companions: a pig, and a sea monster.
Chan Tsao
, Tsao Hsuen-Chin, Tsao Hsueh-Chin Dream of the Red Chamber .(which explains late imperial China's Confucian family system and institutions). For more than a century and a half, Dream of the Red Chamber has been recognized in China as the greatest of its novels, a Chinese Romeo-and-Juliet love story and a portrait of one of the world's great civilizations. Chi-chen Wang's translation is skillful, accurate and fascinating.Japan
Novel.
Lady Murasaki Shikibu The Tale of Genj. This book, written by Lady Murasaki Shikibu (c. 973 - ? C.E.), is the world's first and Japan's greatest novel. Depicting the elaborate court life which Japan borrowed from China in 700-1000 C.E., this novel illuminates the glorious achievements of Japan's highly developed civilization. It is easily excerpted. Widely acknowledged as the world's first novel, this astonishingly lovely book was written by a court lady in Heian Japan and offers a window into that formal, mannered world. Genji, a man of passionate impulses and a lover of beauty, is the favorite son of the Emperor, though his position at court is not entirely stable. He follows his wayward longings through moonlight-soaked gardens and jeweled pavilions, with mysterious women such as the Lady of the Orange Blossoms, the Akashi lady, and his own father's Empress. This version is translated by Edward G. Seidensticker, who has translated a number of other great Japanese writers such as Mishima and Kawabata. In the eleventh century Murasaki Shikibu, a lady in the Heian court of Japan, wrote the world's first novel. But The Tale of Genji is no mere artifact. It is, rather, a lively and astonishingly nuanced portrait of a refined society where every dalliance is an act of political consequence, a play of characters whose inner lives are as rich and changeable as those imagined by Proust. Chief of these is "the shining Genji," the son of the emperor and a man whose passionate impulses create great turmoil in his world and very nearly destroy him.
Poetry.
Basho
Matsuo ( Sam
Hanill (Translator) The Essential Basho; Full Moon Is Rising :
Lost Haiku of Matsuo Basho (1644-1694 and Travel Haiku of Matsuo Bashio a New Rendering.
The haiku form of Japanese poetry is universally well
known, and its greatest exponent is Basho (1644-1694). His poetry has been widely
translated. Other poetic forms, such as tanka (the poetic form mastered in English
by Fr. Neal Lawrence, OSB, in Japan), are also widely translated and admired.
Drama.
Monzaemon Chikamatsu, Donald Keene (Translator) Four Major Plays of Chikamatsu (UNESCO Collection of Representative Works. Japanese Series) Japan is famous for its No plays and other forms of puppet and human drama. The great dramatist Chikamatsu (1653-1725) is considered Japan's Shakespeare. His plays have been wonderfully rendered into English. Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) wrote some 130 plays, chiefly for the puppet theater, many of which are still performed today, and he is thought to have written the first major tragedies about the common man. This edition contains four of his most important plays including three popular domestic dramas and one history play.
Kamo no Chomei. An Account of My Hut. A kind of Japances Thoreau, mediating on teh vicissitudes of the world, the beauties of nature, and the satisfactions of the simple life- but at the fartherst remove from Thereau's civil disobedience.
African
Achebe, Chinua Things Fall Apart, Man of the People, Arrow of God, and Anthills of the Savannah. These novels written by a Nigerian are beautifully written and unfold a compelling story of an African society from the first contact with Europeans (Things Fall Apart) to the modern state which reflects the problems and abuses of the past (Anthills of the Savannah.) Achebe has a remarkable ability to present complex characters who are caught up in situations which they do not fully understand or control.Bowen, Elenore Return to Laughter. A novel that is based on the real experiences of an anthropologist who recounts how she went into an African society to observe a "primitive" society but she ended her stay having learned far more about herself and her assumptions.
Boynton, Graham Last Days in Cloud Cuckooland. Boynton is a white journalist who was expelled from South Africa in 1975 for his writings against apartheid. In this collection he examines the final gasps of white power on the continent of Africa. By recounting a series of particular incidents, Boynton illuminates the complexity and ambiguity of the influence of white Africans. He also turns his attention to the black African successors and finds them to be flawed humans as well. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. The Classic Slave Narratives. Four stories written by slaves which illustrate the wide variety of the black experience in slavery. Two of these narratives are written by women, and the first person narratives give an immediacy and an authority to these lives that no history could. Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror & Heroism in Colonial Africa. Reads like an adventure story but Hochschild relates the true tale of King Leopold of Belgium who established his own private colony in the Congo. Balanced against Leopold's cruelty and greed are the men who worked selflessly to bring the truth into the open and topple Leopold's control.Keane, Fergal Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey. A nonfictional account by an a fine journalist of the horrible events of genocide in an eastern African nation. The misunderstandings, hatred, and political manipulations of a population are clearly delineated and have much larger implications for all humans.
Thiongo, Ngugi wa. Matigari: A Novel. Who is Matigari? Is he young or old? Dead or living... or even Jesus Christ? These are the questions asked by the people when a man who has survived a war for independence emerges from the mountains. Matigari is in search of his family, the rebuilding of his home and the start of a new and peaceful future. But his search becomes a quest for truth and justice as he finds the people still dispossessed and the land he loves ruled by corruption, fear, and misery. Rumor springs up that a man with superhuman powers has risen to renew the freedom struggle. The novel races towards its climax as Matigari realizes that words alone cannot defeat the enemy. He vows to use force of arms to achieve his true liberation. Lyrical and hilarious in turn, Matigari is a memorable satire on the betrayal of human ideals and on the bitter experience of post-independence African society.
Thiongo, Ngugi wa The River Between Christian missionaries attempt to outlaw the female circumcision ritual and in the process create a terrible rift between the two Kikuyu communities on either side of the river. The people are torn between those who believe in Western/Christian education and the opportunities it will offer, and those who feel that only unquestioned loyalty to past traditions will save them. The growing conflict brings tragedy to a pair of young lovers who attempted to bridge the deepening chasm.
Thiongo, Ngugi wa A Grain of Wheat This is a compelling account of the turbulence that inflamed Kenya in the 1950s and its impact on people's lives. Five friends and agemates make different choices when the Mau Mau rebellion erupts in colonial Kenya. Kihika joins the freedom fighters in the forest; Gikonyo supports the rebels, but is arrested and detained; Mumbi, Gikonyo's wife, works to keep family and home together in the village; Karanja chooses to support the more powerful British masters; Mugo ultimately betrays his friends and loses his life in a desperate attempt to stay alive and stay neutral. In this ambitious and densely worked novel, we begin to see early signs of Ngugi's increasing bitterness about the ways in which the politicians, not the fighters or their families, are the true benefactors of the rewards on independence
Thiongo, Ngugi wa The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, The Black Hermit (a Play)
Bitek, Okot. Song of a Prisioner. Song of Lawino. Song of Ocol
Oyono, Fedinand. House Boy. Houseboy is written in the form of a diary kept by Toundi, an innocent Cameroonian houseboy who is fascinated and awed by the white world, the world of his masters. When the head of his mission is killed in an accident, Toundi becomes the "boy" of the local Commandant. In an effort to improve himself, Toundi studies his new world closely---too closely. Gradually his eyes are opened to its realities, and in the end it destroys him.
Mexico
Fuentes, Carlos (translated by Alfred J. Mac Adam) The Death of Artemio Cruz Novel by Carlos Fuentes, published in Spanish as La muerte de Artemio Cruz in 1962. An imaginative portrait of an unscrupulous individual, the story also serves as commentary on Mexican society, most notably on the abuse of power--a theme that runs throughout Fuentes' work. As the novel opens, Artemio Cruz, former revolutionary turned capitalist, lies on his deathbed. He drifts in and out of consciousness, and when he is conscious his mind wanders between past and present. The story reveals that Cruz became rich through treachery, bribery, corruption, and ruthlessness. As a young man he had been full of revolutionary ideals. Acts committed as a means of self-preservation soon developed into a way of life based on opportunism. A fully realized character, Cruz can also be seen as a symbol of Mexico's quest for wealth at the expense of moral values.
Paz, Octavio El Laberinto De LA Soledad Winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature and past recipient of the Jerusalem Prize, the Frankfurt Peace Prize, and the Neustadt Prize, Octavio Paz has written one of the most enduring and powerful works ever created on Mexico and its people, character, and culture. "Essential to an understanding of Mexico and, by extension, Latin America and the third world".--THE VILLAGE VOICE; By first analyzing the phenomena of the "pachuco" (the Mexican who leaves his country for the U.S.), Paz makes you aware of how easily people can be alienated -- by their own country and by immigration. he then goes on to explore the realities and implications of other themes in S. American society -- from ritual to myth to holiday. He poignantly conveys how Mexican are temporarily stagnated in the eurocentric world. Although beautifully and clearly written in English, Paz' essay reveals his undyingly poetic tendencies in the Spanish (original) version
Caribbean
Cuba
Marti, Jose Jose Marti : Major Poems Cuban patriot, author, and journalist, who dedicated his life to Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain.
Puerto Rico
Sanchez, Luis Rafael
South America
Argentina
Borges, Jorge Luis (Andrew Hurly, Translator) Collected Fictions The erudition that enriches the fictions is certainly dazzling, as much at home with medieval Arabic science as with the classics of philosophy and literature, yet it embraced the folkish and popular as well.... This collection is a valuable contribution to the English-language bookshelf of world literature, long overdue.
Borges, Jorge Luis Everything & Nothing George Steiner, The New Yorker:Chile
Neruda, Pablo The Book of Questions This is one of the best collections of poems by Neruda. Insightful, provocative, charming, lovely, wonderful questions which are poems and poems which are cast as questions. I let someone borrowmy copy and never got it back! I'm ordering another copy because this is one collection one shouldreturn to often; I began this book with the idea that I would be done in an hour, but I could not read the contents at face value and take it lightly. I had to stop, ponder, re-read, and digest. Some questions drew laughs,some drew tears, but all changed the way I see certain things. This is a wonderful book to own, to pass around among friends, and to quote.
Neruda, Pablo Love : Ten Poems I highly recommend Pablo Neruda's Love: Ten Poems to everyone. In this piece, Neruda exposes his skill of using description to create beautiful language. Love: Ten Poems exemplifies language at it's best. In this book, Neruda brings life to his words and makes you feel more alive than ever. Pablo Neruda's Love: Ten Poems kidnaps its readers and takes them hostage to another world. In this dream world, Neruda uses unique descriptives to pull your elusive emotions from your chest and lay them out for you to stare upon. Before reading Love: Ten Poems, I had never seen love in "moon lines", watched hope "travel in the wind", or gazed upon the despair of a "shattered night, all between two covers of a book. Pablo Neruda's Love: Ten Poems is a must read for all. By depicting emotions with flowing words, Neruda brings timeless enjoyment to his readers. If you want to experiance Language at its best I highly recommend reading Pablo Neruda's Love: Ten Poems.
Colombia
Isaac, Jorge
Marquez,
Gabriel Garcia One Hundred Years of Solitude William
Kennedy, New York Times Book Review:
"One Hundred Years of Solitude is the first piece of literature since the Book of
Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race. It takes up not long
after Genesis left off and carries through to the air age, reporting on everything that
happened in between with more lucidity, wit, wisdom, and poetry that is expected from 100
years of novelists, let alone one man...Mr. Garca Mrquez has done nothing less than to
create in the reader a sense of all that is profound, meaningful, and meaningless in
life." --
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia The Autumn of the Patriarch Gabriel Garcia Marquez, renowned as a master of magical realism, creates stories that grip the imagination. Set in exotic locals, peoples with unforgettable characters, and crafted with exquisite prose, his stories transport the reader to a world that is at once fanciful and real. One of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's most intricate and ambitious works, The Autumn of the Patriarch is a brilliant tale of a Caribbean tyrant and the corruption of power. Employing an innovative, dreamlike style, the novel is overflowing with symbolic descriptions as it vividly portrays the dying tyrant caught in the prison of his own dictatorship. From charity to deceit, benevolence to violence, fear of God to extreme cruelty, the dictator embodies at once the best and the worst of human nature.
Equador
Icaza, Jorge The Villagers : A Novel (Huasipungo) Jorge
Icaza had a dream just like Martin Luther King, except his dream was not meant toward the
United States, his dream was meant toward his people of Ecuador who, like people in the
United States, are prejudiced against people who are of different races, and different
economic statuses, etc. Jorge Icaza wrote his first novel The Villagers as the first step
(in a series of steps) to make the dream come true. In it he portrays the Indian people of
Ecuador as they truly are, as well as the landowners and government leaders, and the ways
in which these ruthlessly treat the Indians. Religion plays a big role in this novel.
Icaza leaves no prisoners, everyone in Ecuadorean society is criticized,
including the mestizoes, persons of both European and American Indian descent. Icaza's
1934 novel is studied in many of the top universities of the United States in classes of
Spanish, Comparative Literature, and Anthropology. I suggest this book to those who are
interested in learning about Latin America and its peoples. I think people will be shocked
and appalled. Icaza is by far the most important Indianist novelist Latin America ever
brought forth, as well as one of Ecuador's most finest and important writers.
Peru
Llosa, Mario Vargas The War of the End of the World Deep within the remote backlands of 19th-century Brazil sits Canudosa libertarian paradise. Home of prostitutes, bandits, beggars, Canudos embodies the revolutionary spirit in its purest and most apocalyptic form. In one of his most brilliant and tragic novels, Mario Vargas Llosa creates an unforgettable tale of passion, idealism, adventure, and man's struggle to be free. this is a straightforward historical novel, taking place in 1890s northeastern Brazil. It is also a real novel of ideas, confronting very seriously such timeless topics as the relationship of individual to society and of faith and personal belief to law and social order, the source of state authority, and truth/beauty and means/ends issues. While somewhat "modern" in style - the narrative does not proceed in a linear fashion, perspectives shift sharply from one character to the next, and "truth" is often in the eye of the beholder - the book really aspires to be a Great Historical Novel in a classic mode, like The Red and the Black or War and Peace.
Venezula
Gallegos, Romulo Dona Barbara (English translation) I'm a man with no luck, because I read this book 4 years ago and I still remember it from head to tail! I remember that when I finished it I was just... just as now, wiyh no words. The book is wonderfully writen and it describes perfectly those venezuelan landscapes, the atmosphere that you feel when you're there, and the diference between those two caracters and their minds. This book is one of thegreatest classics on venezuelan literature.
Pietri, Arturo Uslar
Central America
Guatemala
Asturias, Miguel Angel The Mirror of Lida Sal :
Tales Based on Mayan Myths and Guatemalan
Legends (Discoveries) The New York Times Book Review, James Polk
...the book challenges readers with frequent convolutions leading to destinations that are
hard to pin down.... a surreal journey through a landscape charged with light ironies and
weighty implications.
Asturias,
Miguel Angel The President Winner! Nobel Prize for
Literature. Guatemalan diplomat and writer Miguel Angel Asturias (1899-1974) began this
award-winning work while still a law student. It is a story of ruthless dictator and his
schemes to dispose of a political adversary in an unnamed Latin American country usually
identified as Guatemala. The book has been acclaimed for portraying both a totalitarian
government and its damaging psychological effects. Drawing from his experiences as a
journalist writing under repressive conditions, Asturias employs such literary devices as
satire to convey the government's
transgressions and surrealistic dream sequences to demonstrate the police state's impact
on the individual psyche. Asturias's stance against all forms of injustice in Guatemala
caused critics to view the author as a compassionate spokesperson for the oppressed.
"My work," Asturias promised when he accepted the Nobel Prize, "will
continue to reflect the voice of the people, gathering their myths and popular beliefs and
at the same time seeking to give birth to a universal consciousness of Latin American
problems."
Nicaragua
Dario, Ruben Azul/Blue Book of Poetry
Spain
Molina, Antonio Munoz
Matute, Maria Celebration in the Northwest Ana Maria Matute, author of Celebration in the Northwest, was 10 years old in 1936, the year the Spanish Civil War broke out. For three years she witnessed the strife and carnage that ripped her homeland apart, then came of age in a repressive society ruled by Franco. These terrible years fostered in her the pessimistic outlook evident in her fiction and provided the subject matter for her writing. In the Franco years, strict censorship forced writers into a kind of metaphorical fiction in which they discussed the war, the government, and the church without directly referring to them. The biblical story of Cain and Abel is a theme Matute returns to time and again, a symbol for the fratricide in Spain. This story is integral to her short novel, Celebration in the Northwest, first published in 1953. The novel's title refers to a small village cemetery where the funeral of a young child killed by a circus wagon is celebrated. The main characters are Pablo and Juan, two half-brothers whose love/hate relationship parallels that of biblical brothers Cain and Abel. Matute's dark vision of social injustice and church hypocrisy in postwar Spain is leavened by striking imagery and lyrical style. A winner of the prestigious Spanish Café Gijón prize in 1952, Celebration in the Northwest makes for worthwhile reading more than 40 years later.
Gaite, Carmen The Farewell Angel This remarkably intricate 1994 novel by the veteran Spanish author (of, most recently, Variable Cloud, 1996) won her country's National Prize for Literature. It reveals, through a series of skillfully juxtaposed overlapping scenes (set both in the present and in a painstakingly remembered past), the ongoing ordeal of Leonardo Villalba, recently released from prison (for his complicity in an unspecified scandal) and now compelled to explore both the mystery of his wealthy parents deaths in an automobile accident and the enigma of his own detached, affectless personality. The key to these secrets is Hans Christian Andersen's tale The Snow Queen, which bears crucial symbolic relevance to Leonardo's emotional opacity, the imperious grandmother who essentially raised him, and the strange new owner of Quinta Blanca, the clifftop house where the seeds of Leonardo's compromised manhood were sown. A Proustian journey into the interior, a dazzling psychodramaand, arguably, one of the best novels out of Spain in recent decades.