International Contemporary and Classical Fiction

 

 

 

This is a work in progress to which many have contributed, and is constantly changing. Please email jbeck@tfs.ca for additions, suggestions or comments.

 

AFRICA (See also Botswana, Nigeria)

 

Achebe, Chinua. Anthills of the Savannah/Things Fall Apart.

Berry, Bertice. The Haunting of Hip Hop

Burton, Rainelle. The Root Worker

Ford, Darnella. Rising

Grooms, Anthony. Bombingham

Guy, Rosa. My Love, My Love

Hill, K. Still Waters in Niger.

Hopkinson, Nalo. Skin Folk (Speculative Fiction)

Lesego Molope, Kagiso. Dancing in the Dust

Morris, Monique. Too Beautiful for Words.

Nuruddin, Farah. Secrets. (1998 International Prize for Literature)

Sarif, Shamim. The World Unseen

Southgate, Martha. The Fall of Rome

Prince, Althea. Loving This Man

Saro-Wiwa, Ken. Lemona’s Tale.

Turner Trice, Dawn. An Eighth of August

Tyree, Omar. Just Say No!

Whitfield, Van. Guys in Suits

Wicomb, Zoe. David’s Story.

 

ALGERIA

Marnissi, Fatima. Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood.

 

ASIA (See also China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam)

Upadhyay, Samrat. Arresting God in Kathmandu.

Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee The Unknown Errors of Our Lives.

Lee, Don. Yellow.

Tamaki, Mariko. Cover Me/True Lies: The Book of Bad Advice.

Thien, Madeleine. Simple Recipes.

 

ARGENTINA

Borges, Jorges, Louis. The Library of Babel./Fictions

Cortazar, Julio Blow-Up and Other Stories/62:A Model Kit.

Casares, A. B. A Russian Doll and Other Stories

 

AZERBAIJAN

Said, Kurban. Ali and Nino.

 

BRAZIL

Amado, Jorge. The Violent Land.

 

BOTSWANA

Head, Bessie. Maru/When Rain Clouds Gather.

Mitchison, N. Images of Africa (TFS)

Sesinyi, Andrew. Love on the Rocks

 

CARRIBEAN

Naipaul, V.S. The House of Mr. Biswas/Half a Life/Enigma of Arrival (TFS)

 

CHILE

Allende, I. Portrait in Sepia/House of the Spirits/Of Love and Shadows (TFS)

 

CHINA

Chiu, Christina. Troublemaker and Other Saints.

"This debut offers a rich but wholly edible slice of diverse contemporary Chinese American life. Chiu's 11 stories are so tightly woven together that they read like a novel. Shifting from New York City to Hong Kong, the stories occur mostly around the time the British were returning the latter to China and expertly chronicle the daily struggles of their characters." (Library Journal)

 

Heng, Liu. Green River Daydreams.

"In this new work, Liu's second to be translated after the highly acclaimed Black Snow, a talkative centenarian known only as Ears relates his story to an unnamed auditor. Around the beginning of the 20th century, Ears was a domestic slave to the rich and influential Cao family, whose members are so self-involved that they scarcely know how the others spend their days. Only Ears talks regularly to them all and knows that each is heading toward a tragic fate." (Library Journal)

Hui, Wei. Shanghai Baby.

Chai, May-lee and Winberg Chai. The Girl From Purple Mountain

Jin, Ha. Waiting/In the Pond

Lai, Larissa. Salt Fish Girl/When Fox is a Thousand

Min, Anchee. Katherine

Sijie, Dai. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Tsukiyama, Gail. Night of Many Dreams

Wang, Annie. Lili

Wang, Lulu. The Lily Theater

Woo, Terry. Banana Boys

Xingjian, Gao. Soul Mountain (Winner Nobel Prize for Literature)

Yan, Geling. The Lost Daughter of Happiness

___________. White Snake and other stories

 

COLOMBIA

Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. Chronicle of a Death Foretold/ Love in the Time of Cholera/ One Hundred Years of Solitude/Autumn of the Patriarch (TFS)

 

CUBA

Menendez, Ana In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd

Montero, Mayra The Red of His Shadow – (Cuba/Haiti)

Vazquez, Rene Diaz The Island of Cundeamor

 

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Alvarez, Julia. In the Name of Salome.

Cruz, Angie. Soledad

 

EGYPT

El-Saadawi, Nawal. The Fall of the Iman

Mahfouz, N. Akhentaten/The Palace Walk (Cairo Trilogy)

Moussa, Sabri. Seeds of Corruption.

Sole, Robert. The Photographer’s Wife

 

EL SALVADOR

Argueta, M. One Day of Life (TFS)

Benitez, Sandra. The Weight of All Things.

 

INDIA

Badami, Anita Rau. Tamarind Men/ The Hero’s Walk

Balasubramanyam, Rajeev. In Beautiful Disguises.

Banerji, Sara. Shining Hero

Chaudhuri, Amit. New World

Davidar, David. The House of Blue Mangoes.

Desai, Anita. Feasting and Fasting/Baumgarten’s Bombay

Deshpande, Shashi. The Binding Vine.

Divakaruni, Chitra Banerji. The Mistress of Spices.

Ghosh, Amitav The Glass Palace

Glenn Miller, Almeda. Tiger Dreams.

"Tiger Dreams is a very ambitious novel, probably too ambitious for a debut. It is the story of a Canadian woman, Claire, a documentary film maker mourning the loss of her Anglo-Indian father, who travels to India and meets her only surviving relative, a cousin of her grandmother's. She begins researching the life and death of her grandmother, the wife of Gandhi's jailer during the 1930's, and finds a lot more than she bargained for." (Library Journal)

Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies.

Maharaj, Rabindranath. The Book of Ifs and Buts.

Mistry, Rohinton. Such a Long Journey

Mukherjee, B. Desirable Daughters/Leave It To Me.

Narayan, R.K. The Guide/The English Teacher/Bachelor of Arts

Parameswaran, Uma. Mangoes On the Maple Tree.

Prawar Jhabvala, Ruth. Heat & Dust/The Householder/Shards of Memory.

Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things

Rushdie, Salman. Fury/Shame

Seth, Vikram. An Equal Music/A Suitable Boy

Tharoor, Shashi. Riot.

"Drawing on his political savvy as a senior United Nations official, Tharoor (India: From Midnight to the Millennium) has written an ingenious story of the investigation into the mysterious death of a young American woman during a Hindu-Muslim riot in a small Indian town, in 1989. When the parents of 24-year-old Priscilla Hart travel to India to find out the reason for their daughter's death, they encounter the slow and circuitous unfolding of their daughter's life in India." (Library Journal)

Vassanji, M.G. No New Land/The Book of Secrets (Giller Prize)

Vijayaraghavan, Vineeta. Motherland.

Umrigar, Thrity. Bombay Time.

Warriar, Nalini Blues from the Malabar Coast.

 

INDONESIA

Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The Fugitive.

 

IRAN

Yalfani, Mehri. Afsaneh’s Moon.

 

ISRAEL

Oz, Amos. The Same Sea/My Michael/Black Box/(TFS)

 

JAPAN

Akutagawa, R. Rashomon.

Goto, Hiromi. The Kappa Child.

Kneale, Matthew. Mr. Foreigner

Kobayashi, Jamai. Exile and the Heart: Lesbian Fiction.

Murakami, H. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle/Kafka on the Shore

Murasaki, S. A Tale of Genji

Okuizumi, Hikaru. The Stones Cry Out

Soseki, Natsume. Kokoro

Tsukiyama, Gail. Woman of the Silk/The Samurai’s Garden

 

KOREA

Park, Frances. When My Sister Was Cleopatra Moon

 

LEBANON

al-Shaykh, Hanan. Beirut Blues/Women of Sand and Myrrh/The Story of Zahra.

 

MEXICO

Fuentes, Carlos. The Death of Artemio Cruz/The Old Gringo/The Crystal Frontier.

 

NIGERIA

Achebe, C. Things Fall Apart

Okri, Ben. The Famished Road (See also Africa)

 

PAKISTAN

Shamsie, Kamila. Kartography/Salt and Saffron.

 

PERU

Vargas Llosa, M. The Storyteller/Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.

 

PHILLIPINES

Ong, Han. Fixer Chaos

 

SPAIN

Atxaga, Bernardo. The Lone Woman

Marias, Javier. A Heart So White.

Perez-reverte, Arturo. The Club Dumas/The Flanders Panel/The Nautical Chart.

 

SOUTH AFRICA

Cotzee,J. M. Dusklands/The Lives of Animals.

Paton, Alan. Cry the Beloved Country.

Gordimer, Nadine. The Burger’s Daughter/The Pickup/The Conservationist.

 

SOUTH AMERICA (See Also Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela)

 

SRI LANKA

Perera, Shyama. Do the Right Thing.

Roberts, Karen. The Flower Boy.

Selvadurai, S. Funny Boy. (Lambda Gay Literary Award)

 

THAILAND

Samtow, S.P. Jasmine Nights.

 

TURKEY

Atasu, Erendiz. The Other Side of the Mountain.

Tekin, Latife. Dear Shameless Death.

Pamuk, Orhan. My Name is Red.

 

"In 16th-century Istanbul, master miniaturist and illuminator of books Enishte Effendi is commissioned to illustrate a book celebrating the sultan. Soon he lies dead at the bottom of a well, and how he got there is the crux of this novel. A number of narrators give testimony to what they know about the circumstances surrounding the murder. The stories accumulate and become more detailed as the novel progresses." (Library Journal)

 

VIETNAM

Huong, Duong Thu. Paradise of the Blind

Thai, Ho Anh. Behind the Red Mist. )

 

OTHER TIMES & PLACES

Culleton Mosionier, Beatrice. In the Shadow of Evil. (First Nations/Canadian)

Evariste, Bernadine. The Emperor’s Babe. (Ethiopian in Ancient Rome)

Kelby N. M. In the Company of Angels. (Holocaust/Belgium)

Kertesz, Imre. Fateless (Holocaust/Hungary Nobel Prize for Literature)

Marai, Sandor. Embers (Hungarian)

Smith Zadie. The Autograph Man/White Teeth/On Beauty.

Tokarczuk, Olga. House of Day, House of Night (Polish)