Contemporary world literature

[Anonymous]

I'm looking for book recommendations to expand my reading beyond U.S./British/Canadian/Australian authors. I think I'm pretty familiar with world classics, but I barely know where to start with world literature being written today. They don't have to be translated works. For instance, I know a lot of African and Caribbean writers write in English.

Any recommendations of your favorites?

[Anonymous]

“A Bend in the River,” VS Naipaul. A classic. Takes place in an unnamed East African country.

“Out of Africa,” Isak Dinesen. Another classic. Lyrical, beautiful, slow—a very specific lens/memoir of running a coffee farm in East Africa.

“Scatterlings,” Resoketswe Manenzhe. Also newer, about 1920s South Africa. Lovely. Sad.

“Hungry Ghosts,” Kevin Jared Hosein. A newer book about Trinidad in the 1940s.

Any JM Coetzee book. I liked “Disgrace” quite a bit.

[Anonymous]

^^and how could I forget Nadine Gordimer! “Burger’s Daughter” and “The Pickup” are two good ones. (I spent several years combined in South Africa and East Africa so that’s where my tastes lie!)

[Anonymous]

The website Words Without Borders will give you plenty of ideas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“A Bend in the River,” VS Naipaul. A classic. Takes place in an unnamed East African country.

“Out of Africa,” Isak Dinesen. Another classic. Lyrical, beautiful, slow—a very specific lens/memoir of running a coffee farm in East Africa.

“Scatterlings,” Resoketswe Manenzhe. Also newer, about 1920s South Africa. Lovely. Sad.

“Hungry Ghosts,” Kevin Jared Hosein. A newer book about Trinidad in the 1940s.

Any JM Coetzee book. I liked “Disgrace” quite a bit.

Thank you! I've read Naipaul, Dinesen, and Coetzee, but Scatterlings and Hungry Ghosts were just what I'm looking for. Scatterlings is on sale for 1.99 on kindle today, so I bought it. Put Hungry Ghosts on my wishlist for when I'm ready.

Oh, and I loved Nadine Gordimer's July's People. I'll have to try some of her others.

[Anonymous]

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I like this much better than her most well known book Americanah but it isnt as well known

[Anonymous]

Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi

[Anonymous]

My sister the serial killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite

[Anonymous]

Mohammed Hanif, A Case of Exploding Mangoes.

[Anonymous]

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/604208.Jamilia

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/366889.The_Day_Lasts_More_than_a_Hundred_Years

[Anonymous]

+1 for Yaa Gyasi.

[Anonymous]

I really like Yangsze Choo. She often writes about historical malaysia with a heavy dose of folklore/magical realism.

[Anonymous]

Cutting for Stone and Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
Arundhati Roy - God of Small Things
Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

[Anonymous]

Khaled Hosseini is an author who spent his childhood in Afghanistan, but moved to the U.S. at age 15. He has written four books based in the middle east. The most well known is the Kite Runner.
Seeing as how his books were published while he lived in the U.S., I am not sure it fits your criteria, but I thought I would throw it out there as a suggestion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“A Bend in the River,” VS Naipaul. A classic. Takes place in an unnamed East African country.

“Out of Africa,” Isak Dinesen. Another classic. Lyrical, beautiful, slow—a very specific lens/memoir of running a coffee farm in East Africa.

“Scatterlings,” Resoketswe Manenzhe. Also newer, about 1920s South Africa. Lovely. Sad.

“Hungry Ghosts,” Kevin Jared Hosein. A newer book about Trinidad in the 1940s.

Any JM Coetzee book. I liked “Disgrace” quite a bit.

NONE of these are "contemporary"