Recommendations for International Fiction

[Scheherazade]

I am trying to read books from different, non-English speaking countries. Any recommendations are welcome (provided that they are available in English).

So far:

Afghanistan: Kite Runner and 1000 Splendid Suns

Canada: Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake triology by Atwood; Life of Pi by Martel

Chile: The House of the Spirits by Allende

Colombia: One Hundred Years of Solitude and ‎Love in the Time of Cholera by Marquez

India: A Suitable Boy and White Tiger (among others)

Italy: The Name of the Rose by Eco

Japan: Kafka on the Shore and Norwegian Wood by Murakami (would like to try a different author as well)

New Zealand: The Luminaries by Catton

Portugal: Blindness by Saramago

Russia: The usual classics so I think that is covered

South Africa: Summertime by Coettzee

Turkey: My Name is Red and Snow by Pamuk and Rose of Sarajevo by Kulin

[bounty]

the girl with the dragon tattoo pops into my mind relative to Sweden.

are you a fan of soccer? if so, there is soccer in sun and shadow by Eduardo galeano, a Uruguayan journalist/fan of the sport who wrote about it in a very romantic and accessible way. I don't like the sport so much, but I loved his writing about it.

[Marcus1]

Eduardo Galeano's 'Open Veins of Latin America' is also worth checking out.

[Danik 2016]

Brazilian fiction:
http://theculturetrip.com/south-america/brazil/articles/the-10-best-brazilian-writers-a-literature-of-diversity/
My personal list:
1-Guimarães Rosa
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands
Short fiction.
2-Machado de Assis
Epitaph of a Small Winner (1881)
Any collection of his short stories.
3-Clarice Lispector-
The Hour of the Star
Short Stories- The Foreign Legion
4-Euclides da Cunha-
Backlands, the Canudos Campaign (1902)-In fact a jornalistic report with a fictional density.
5-Lima Barreto-
The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/15/sad-end-policarpo-quaresma-lima-barreto-review
6-Rubem Fonseca
Crimes in August- Somewhat in the Raymond Chandler line but with a historical/political background.
7-Jorge Amado-
Captains of the Sands (1937)
Dona Flôr and her Two Husbands (1966)-A woman getting the best out of her both marriages.
Gabriela, Clove and Cinammon (1958)

[Marcus1]

Personally, I find Japanese literature very resonating and humbling. Here are my favourites:

Akiko Yosano - River of Stars
Shuntarō Tanikawa - Selected Poems
Kenji Miyazawa - Strong in the Rain: Selected Poems
Sakutarō Hagiwara - Cat Town
Yasunari Kawabata - Snow Country, Sound of the Mountain, Thousand Cranes
Kenzaburō Ōe - The Silent Cry, Prize Stock
Naoya Shiga - The Paper Door
Shūsaku Endō - Deep River
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki - In Praise of Shadows
Natsume Sōseki - Kokoro
Fumiko Enchi - The Waiting Years

[Eiseabhal]

An Oidhche Mus do Sheol Sinn

[Poetaster]

Personally, I find Japanese literature very resonating and humbling. Here are my favourites:

Akiko Yosano - River of Stars
Shuntarō Tanikawa - Selected Poems
Kenji Miyazawa - Strong in the Rain: Selected Poems
Sakutarō Hagiwara - Cat Town
Yasunari Kawabata - Snow Country, Sound of the Mountain, Thousand Cranes
Kenzaburō Ōe - The Silent Cry, Prize Stock
Naoya Shiga - The Paper Door
Shūsaku Endō - Deep River
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki - In Praise of Shadows
Natsume Sōseki - Kokoro
Fumiko Enchi - The Waiting Years

Good list! I was going to post these too, adding Basho's Haiku and The Tale of Genji.

[thekingrat]

Anything by Kafka is a good choice, he was born in the Czech Republic and his books were originally written in German and are widely available.
The Trial
The Metamorphosis
The Castle
You may have already read these.

[Waveguide]

Czech:
Milan Kundera, "unbearable lightness of being"
Finnish:
Arto Paasilinna, "the year of the hare"
German:
Leonie Swann, "Glennkill" ("three bags full")
Alfred Doblin, "Berlin, Alexanderplatz" ( read in cold depressing winter after you visit Berlin, otherwise it won't work)
Marta Hillers, "A woman in Berlin" - a must-read for everybody, I believe. The best, personal book I've ever read

[TheFifthElement]

Elena Ferrante for Italy. You'll love her Neapolitan series (My Brilliant Friend, Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, Story of the Lost Child). It sounds a lot but honestly you'll devour them. Europa Press, & Other Stories and Peireine Press all do a lot of great books in translation. For Saramago, I recommend The Cave. France: Simone de Beauvoir is worth a read (The Woman Destroyed, in particular) or Marguerite Duras. I've heard good things about Valeria Luiselli, especially The Story of My Teeth (Mexico). Alternative for South Africa would be Nadine Gordimer (though Coetzee is very good), I'd recommend The Conservationist. Chinua Achebe or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for Nigeria. Clarice Lispector for Brazil. An alternative for Russia Lyudmila Petrushevskay - she has a couple of amazingly titled short story collections out. Cees Nooteboom for Netherlands (Lost Paradise is divine; Rituals is blackly funny).

[ennison]

Elena Ferrante, whoever she is, is excellent. I would second Eiseabhal except that I don't think it has been translated but I could translate it for you for a non-monetary fee! Like the Nobel committee getting special translations into Swedish! Trouble with translations is that which is lost and Campbell's novel is so full of word-play that it would be lost in English. Like Joyce's Angliicised Gaelicisms must be lost in Chinese. Angliicised. Hmm? Two iis!

[Eiseabhal]

Non-monetary fee! Whatever do you mean you rogue. What about skiing - another double "i" or shanghiing or zombiistic?

[EmptySeraph]

Romanian: Mircea Cărtărescu, Blinding; Max Blecher (Romanian author of Jewish descendency, as his name implies), Occurrence in the Immediate Unreality; Norman Manea, October, Eight O'Clock Stories; Mircea Eliade, The Forbidden Forest

French: Eugène Ionesco, The Bald Soprano, The Lesson, The Chairs, Rhinoceros; Nathalie Sarraute, Tropismes; Louis Aragon, Aurélien; Paul Éluard, Capital of Pain; Tristan Tzara, Seven Dada Manifestos and Lampisteries ; Gérard de Nerval, Aurélia; Benjamin Péret, Death to the Pigs; Philippe Soupault, Last Nights of Paris; Henri Michaux, Miserable Miracle; Félix Fénéon, Novels in Three Lines; Théophile Gautier, My Fantoms; Georges Bernanos, Under Satan's Sun; Edmond de Goncourt, Pages from the Goncourt Journals; Boris Vian, I Spit on Your Graves; Raymond Radiguet, The Devil in the Flesh; Jean Cocteau, The Holy Terrors; Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell; Charles Baudelaire, On Wine and Hashish; Raymond Queneau, Exercises in Style; Georges Perec, Life: A User's Manual; Raymond Roussel, Locus Solus.

[heartwing]

Twisted Spoon Press is a good source I like to peruse sometimes. Natasza Goerke's Farewells to Plasma is a fairly recent offering as well as Olga Tokarczuk's Primeval and Other Times. Poland.

This is a really great thread.

I have some more ideas for Japanese writers now as wells as writers from many other countries as well. I read Shusaku Endo's Deep River and loved it but appreciate knowing about more great Japanese writers.

Nadine Gordimer was mentioned for South Africa as well as JM Coetzee. For the former, July's People is an incredibly strong work, and for the latter, besides the classic Waiting for the Barbarians, I like Foe.

Though he lives in Texas now, the Swede Lars Gustafsson has written a couple of books I love: The Stories of Happy People and Death of a Beekeeper.

I say yes to Lyudmila Petrushevskay mentioned above. Russia.

[Pompey Bum]

I found Mario Vargas Llosa's The War of the End of the World engrossing (and disturbing). ennison made the recommendation to me, and I am happy to pass it on.

[OrphanPip]

You can try The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy if you want a piece of French Canadian literature.

[heartwing]

I'm remembering a few more that have meant a lot to me. Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather: Stories by Gao Xingjian (China), How I Came to Know Fish: Ota Pavel (Czechoslovakia), Bohumil Hrabal's Too Loud a Solitude (Czechoslovakia), Happy Families: Stories by Carlos Fuentes (Mexico), Collected Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Columbia), If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino (Italy), Francois Mauriac's collected novels/novellas - A Mauriac Reader (France), A.S. Byatt's Little Black Book of Stories (England), George Mackay Brown's Winter Tales and Hawkfall and other Stories (Orkney Islands, Scotland), Ethel Rohan Cut Through the Bone - stories (Ireland). Ethel Rohan has a couple of newer books out, one of which is another book of stories called Goodnight Nobody. It's on my list. She is a friend of friends and seems like a good egg. She writes beautiful, clear stories.

[ennison]

These are nice suggestions hwing. I hope she appreciates.

[Scheherazade]

Thank you very much for your recommendations... I am updating my reading list as we speak! :)


You can try The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy if you want a piece of French Canadian literature.

Hope it is nothing like The Tin Drum... Could not stand that book (I apologise to those who are a fan... Please keep in mind that I am merely a pleb)

[MarionL]

France: The Elegance of a Hedgehog by Murial Barbery

[TheFifthElement]

Austria: The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
Zimbabwe: We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulaweyo
Finland: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
China: I am China by Xiaolu Guo
Denmark: So Much for that Winter by Dorthe Nors

[lichtrausch]

Hope it is nothing like The Tin Drum... Could not stand that book (I apologise to those who are a fan... Please keep in mind that I am merely a pleb)
Much of the appeal of that book lies in its rhythm and lyrical quality, which I don't imagine came across so well in translation.

[El Entenado]

Some books that I think are worth reading from different countries.

The Literary Conference - Cesar Aira - Argentina
El Entenado - Juan Jose Saer - Argentina
2666 - Roberto Bolano - Chile
A Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Colombia
The Lost Steps - Alejo Carpentier - Cuba
The Red and the Black - Stendhal - France
Narcissus and Goldmund - Hermann Hesse - Germany
The Blind Owl - Sadegh Hedayat - Iran
The Gadfly - Ethel Lilian Voynich - Ireland
Woman in the Dunes - Kobo Abe - Japan
Blindness - Jose Saramago - Portugal
Jakob Von Gunten - Robert Walser - Switzerland
Time of Silence - Luis Martin-Santos - Spain
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - United States

[stacy55]

Yes, i've read "A Suitable Boy and White Tiger". It is simply amazing.

[biblophile]

Jose Saramago is a excellent Portuguese writer.

[Celestial Orb]

Roberto Bolano.