Around the World discussion

NIGERIA, Things Fall Apart , https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Part 1 of The African Trilogy, an African literary classic.

BRITAIN, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... The light-hearted surface portrays a dark side of history. It's written in the epistolary style. Though set on the island of Guernsey, modern communications and travel connect the place to America, Europe, and England; while memories connect the present and the past.

ANGOLA, Our Musseque, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Another book written while the author was imprisoned and published years after it was written. Another author in a similar predicament recently read was Pramoedya Ananta Toer of This Earth of Mankind (#1, Buru Quartet). The stories about childhood in a shantytown of Luanda is supposed to reflect the author Vieira's childhood.

INDIA, The Yoga of Max's Discontent, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
If you are looking to learn about and experience the philosophy and practice of yoga, then you might find this novel to be both informative and pleasurable with some imaginative flights of fancy. The odds against Max's achievements are numerous, but his yogic name Mahadeva, meaning "obstinate", might give you an idea of his determination for success.

GHANA, Brave Music of a Distant Drum, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The book continues the story of Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade into the next generation. If you know the epic about Ama, then this new book which recapitulates her fictional life is a good review of it with the addition about her and Tomba's son Kwame. If you don't know her story, then this book gives you the big events of it. Besides a book about Ama, this story is about Kwame. Her adult, learned son returns from his foster home to write down her story which eventually changes him.

CAMEROON, Houseboy
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Set prior to Cameroon independence in the partition French Cameroun. The portrait is from the perspective of a young, native man.

SUDAN, Season of Migration to the North
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... :

Thematic assortment works together for a satisfying novel and for a story-within-a-story. Protagonists are two Sudanese, formerly unknown to each other, who reach the highest levels of British education and government service. By contrast is the ancestral, Sudanese village in which they meet. Most of the action happens in the village; the backstory happens in England. Vibrant, sometimes piteous characters and mysterious goings-on.

CHINA, Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Translated by the the renown Robert van Gulik, who himself writes in the genre of Chinese mystery novels. The main character is a seventh-century A.D. magistrate, who with his lieutenants solves three deaths and ultimately identifies the guilty parties.

MOROCCO, The Spider's House
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The title is derived from the epigraph. Presumably, the story is meant to suggest the fragility of our finest works.

JAPAN, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Early Murakami (1985) but an indicator of his extraordinary imagination.

I haven't started on my next book for this challenge yet but it is on my kindle ready for me to read while on holiday/at a conference in 2 weeks time! It is Night Market - An Anthology (set in Taipei, Taiwan). A little about it here: https://taipeiwritersgroup.wordpress....

I'm reading 40 Below - short stories about winter in Edmonton not for this challenge but because my husbands cousin has a short story in it (and we are going to Edmonton - part of our trip). http://www.40belowproject.ca/ I'm really enjoying it!

The anthology "Night Market" you mention, Yrinsyde, arouses my curiosity.

EGYPT The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk / Palace of Desire / Sugar Street

I remember discovering Egypt during the sixth grade of elementary school, at first enthralled in remembering the spelling of the country and in answering the difficult, end-of-chapter questions in the geography textbook.

In my mature years, it is not the upper and lower Egypt which can be plotted on a map, which concerns Naguib Mahfouz's trilogy of Egyptian historical fiction. Instead there is a three-generational epic about the early twentieth-century Cairo. On the background of revolution, colonialism, and pashas and kings, there's social transformation happening in the story: how life, individual values, and options change as Egypt moves forward through the lives of the extended al-Jawad family.

review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

JAMAICA There Is an Anger That Moves

My introduction to the Jamaican author, Kei Miller, whose latest work is the novel Augustown (2016), is a poetry collection. Poems are meant to be enjoyed through multiple rereadings. That's exactly my intention during my literary journey to the Caribbean island of Jamaica. While this book was devoured in a sitting, its contents have yet to be consumed.

review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

A. Fedosia wrote: "EGYPT The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk / Palace of Desire / Sugar Street

I remember discovering Egypt during the sixth grade of elementary school, at first enthralled in remembering the ..."

Nice review, Asma. I've had the trilogy on my list forever but haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe I'll get off my duff and start the first one next month! :-)

Thanks, Lilisa. The first volume Palace Walk is particularly recommended.

SIERRA LEONE
Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna

A twentieth-century fictitious memoir by the aged Sierra Leonean women Asana, Mariama, Hawa, and Serah. They are all related through marriage. The stories are not only about their relationships with each other and with others of the community, the women also present the effects of larger events on their lives.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

A book which describes in historical and fictional terms the history of western intervention into Congo especially through religious evangelism, political interference, colonialism, and exploitation of its natural resources and workers. In parallel, the story especially depicts oppression in the microcosm of family life, too. The Prices' missionary activity in a Congolese village comes to naught when Reverend Price stays there without empathy for the villagers' centuries-old methods of survival while the country's independence makes his mission increasingly dangerous. Meanwhile, his submissive wife and daughters learn self-esteem. His obsession with his ways founders the mission and the family.

my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

ISRAEL
Writing in the Dark: Essays on Literature and Politics by David Grossman

There are further books from this author on my reading itinerary: Falling Out of Time and To the End of the Land. The current book is particularly interesting in Grossman's sense of urgency towards an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement and a recognized, shared boundary.

Brief impression rather than a longer review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Asma wrote: "DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

A book which describes in historical and fictional terms the history of western intervention into Congo especia..."

I'm glad you enjoyed this one. I think it is rather brilliant.

Rusalka, I like historical novels for bringing to light the past. Kingsolver said a lot in TPB about states and ecosystems and about false impressions, addressed feminism through the narrations and actions of five females, omitted preachiness, and showed by example through Brother Fowles, Orleanna Price, and Leah Price Ngemba. A critic commented on the lack of a Kilangan narrator; she wrote what she knew.