Around the World discussion

I love the sound of this challenge as it resonates with my reading intentions, so I have decided to challenge myself to read 25 books from around the world, not necessarily all from different countries, just books that sound like they might take me somewhere outside of my usual dwelling place.

I will no doubt add to the list as I go, the following are books I intend to read:

Antigua - At the Bottom of the River by Jamaica Kincaid - my review here
Argentina - Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras - my review here
Bulgaria - Street Without a Name, Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria by Kapka Kassabova
Chile - 2666 by Roberto Bolano my review here
Cuba - The Poet Slave of Cuba by Margarita Engle - my review here
- Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia my review here
Czech Republic - Václav Havel, A Political Tragedy in Six Acts by John Keane
Dominica - the autobiography of my mother by Jamaica Kincaid - my review here
Finland - White Hunger by Aki Ollikainen - my review here
- Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson
Guadeloupe - Tales From the Heart: True Stories From My Childhood by Maryse Condé - my review here
- Victoire: My Mother's Mother by Maryse Condé - my review here
Estonia - Purge by Sofi Oksanen - my review here
France - Beside the Sea by Véronique Olmi - my review here
- The Foundling's War by Michel Déon
Germany - Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman by Friedrich Christian Delius - my review here
- The Wall by Marlen Haushoffer - my review here
Haiti - Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat - my review here
India - The Tusk That Did The Damage by Tania James - review here
Kenya - Unbowed One Woman's Story by Wangari Maathai - my review here
Lebanon - Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury
Malaysia - The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twang Eng
New Zealand - Wake by Elizabeth Knox - my review here
Nigeria - There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe
Poland - Chasing the King of Hearts by Hanna Krall
Spain - The Yellow Rain by Julio Llamazares - my review here
- Stone in a Landslide by Maria Barbal - my review here
Sudan - The African Equation by Yasmina Khadra - my review here
South Africa - Agaat by Marlene Van Niekerk - my review here
Sweden - The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald - my review here
Turkey - The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar
Uganda - All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu

Great list Claire. I have one of Tove Jansson's books on my list as well.

Just added The Tusk That Did The Damage for India.

Added The African Equation by the Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra, set mostly in Sudan.

Added The Autobiography of my Mother for Dominica by Jamaica Kincaid and also her debut short story collection At The Bottom of the River for Antigua.

Adding Maryse Condé for Guadeloupe:

Tales from the Heart:True Stories From My Childhood
Victoire: My Mother's Mother

Added my review of Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat for Haiti.

Added Agaat by Marlene Van Niekerk for South Africa, with link to review.

Adding The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald, translated from Swedish, though set in a small town in Iowa.

Needed some light reading after a particularly tough week and this is just perfect.

Adding All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu for Uganda.

The book is set in Uganda and the US, by an Ethiopian writer now living in the US. The author was the winner of The Guardian First Book Award in in 2007 for his novel Children of the Revolution (published in the US as The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears).

Claire wrote: "Adding All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu for Uganda. The book is set in Uganda and the US, by an Ethiopian writer now living in the US. The author was the winner of The Guardian First Book Award in ..."

That sounds good Claire - added it.

Claire wrote: "Adding All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu for Uganda.

The book is set in Uganda and the US, by an Ethiopian writer now living in the US. The author was the winner of The Guardian First Book Award in ..."

I'm planning to read that one in 2016 so I'll look forward to your review.

Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "Claire wrote: "Adding All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu for Uganda.

The book is set in Uganda and the US, by an Ethiopian writer now living in the US. The author was the winner of The Guardian First..."

It's a very interesting and thought-provoking work as well as being an entertaining read and well written, I'm so glad I stumbled across it at the library, I definitely want to read more from this author, so insightful.

It reminded me a little of Elizabeth Strout's The Burgess Boys, which I was disappointed by, this is the kind of book I was expecting, but understandably, she wrote it from the perspective of the Burgess boys, whereas Dinaw Mengestu gives us both perspectives and the story is all the more powerful for it.