I’ve made a resolution that in 2024, I will try and read more non-western literature. My two favorite writers by far are Cormac McCarthy and Fyodr Dostoyevsky, but I’ve also a big fan of Céline, Vonnegut, Gaiman, Marquez, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Chekhov.
Can anybody recommend literature from East Asia/India/Middle East, etc that I could possibly enjoy. Is there some genius Korean or Egyptian writer out that there that explores the same themes as McCarthy and Dostoyevsky? I do have a feeling though that this subreddit’s recommendations will be dominated by Japanese authors (which isn’t a problem for me at all, I’m down with reading literature from Japan).
Also, please don’t recommend any books from Russian culture, I understand that the Russian “canon” is oftentimes considered seperate from the western one, but I’ve already read quite alot of Russian books.
by iridium-83
8 Comments
*My Name is Red* by Orhan Pamuk is very good and very Turkish (about the Ottoman Empire book illustrators). It’s postmodern like Vonnegut and with the sort of weirdness of Marquez.
*Things Fall Apart* is a classic of African lit and not that dissimilar from your fave authors in themes.
For Japan, please make sure to not overlook Kobo Abe. Murakami is so celebrated, but took much influence from Abe who is now more forgotten. I also enjoy Abe’s type of experimentation more.
I love the Turkish author Bilge Karasu but am not otherwise familiar with Turkish lit.
Zimbabwean author Dambudzo Marechera is also a favorite. _The House of Hunger_ is rightfully a classic and the forgotten _Black Sunlight_ just got reprinted.
I also love the South African writer Es’kia Mphahlele. Try to find a story collection featuring “Mrs Plum” and read it without spoilers.
From Senegal, Mariama Bâ’s _So Long a Letter_ is a favorite as well. Also from Senegal, I can recommend Ousmene Sembene’s _Gods Bits of Wood_.
From Argentina, my fav author is perhaps Luisa Valenzuela, which is a lot to say for the country of Borges and Cortazar. _He Who Searches_ and _Black Novel (with Argentines)_ are two favorites of hers, though everything is good.
I feel like Murakami will be your guy, at least as a gateway to others! He reminds me a lot of Marquez.
We have very similar tastes in authors, I love your list!
You might take a peek at the Booker Prize nominees (particularly the “Booker long list”) – it’s an award for books written in English and published in the UK/Ireland, but in the past few years there has been a wider range of nations represented among the authors. I don’t think it’s a rule that the books have to literary fiction but the list always trends very strongly in that direction. The 2022 Booker winner was Shehan Karunatilaka, from Sri Lanka, for “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.”
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was epic! Civil War in Nigeria 🇳🇬 in the 1960s
Perhaps…
Arundhati Roy: the Ministry of Utmost Happiness
_To Live_ by Yu Hua.
One of the most insightful novels about the human psyche and the question of morality is ‘Crime and Punishment’ by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I recommend it for its deep psychological analysis and the moral dilemmas it presents through the story of Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student.