World Literature

[close] Dear readers, Recently, I saw an inspiring speech of the incredible Ann Morgan, a freelancer writer and editor from London, who accepted the challenge in 2012 of reading a book from every single country in the world. Why? Because she realized that she never really had read any books from any country than Britain and America she decided to stuff her discovered cultural “blindspot“. So, she spent 12 months exploring stories from other countries. Inspired by her brilliant idea, I decided to start a similar project. The idea is to read a book from every country in the world, but without any limit of time. I'll select any kind of books, from novels, fiction and crimes up to thrillers and sagas, some of them will be chosen from Morgan's suggestions. Mainly, my intention is getting to know a little better the world which for me is full of undiscovered knowledge. Now that I'm not able to travel all the year around, I can at least learn about other places by reading other people's stories. Books have an extraordinary power to take you out of yourself and into someone else way of thinking, you can look at the world through different eyes, with different values, cultures, diversity, complexity. Books have the power to connect people around the world, people with diverse religion, culture, mindset and composures. If anyone wants to join this project, you're welcome to dive with me into other worlds and discuss about chosen books and their contents. Everybody is welcome, I would be honoured! I'm so exited to start this project, I'm sure there are amazing stories out there!

[close] Share ideas for great books you and your students are reading!

[close] The challenge: Read 12 books in 2018 from 12 different countries

[close] We want to get readers interested in literature, history, and human rights talking to each other. Here´s the project website: https://site.uit.no/readrespond/ We´ll focus on one book a month from September 2020 - September 2021, but you are welcome to add books to the shelf and start new discussions any time. There will be monthly Zoom sessions with literature and culture scholars and some challenges along the way. In August, we will be focusing on Jenny Erpenbeck’s novel 'Go, Went, Gone' (2015). We will be hosting discussions about the novel throughout the month, and we encourage anyone who wants to chime in to contribute! On August 26th, Hanna Meretoja, a Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Turku, Finland, will lead a discussion on Jenny Erpenbeck’s novel 'Go, Went, Gone' (2015). Happy Reading!