Monday 12 March 2018

The non-western books that every student should read


Last year, a friend sent me an article from the Guardian by Sunny Singh, lecturer at London Metropolitan University and author of "Hotel Arcadia". It was called called "The non-western books that every student should read". 

I forwarded it to my book club and we decided to read at least one of the books from the list. We then decided on "So Long a Letter" by the Senegalese author Mariama Bâ. It was a great book and I decided I would love to read all of those book. One of them (Palace Walk) had been on my wishlist for ages anwyay. 

Read the article here. And this is the list with links to the books I already read: 

Ananthamurthy, U. R. "Samskara" (ಸಂಸ್ಕಾರ/Rites) - 1965
Bâ, Mariama "So Long a Letter" (Une si longue lettre) - 1979 
Fanon, Frantz "The Wretched of the Earth" (Les damnés de la terre) -1961 
Khedairi, Betool "Absent" (غايب/Gabe) - 2004
Mahfouz, Naguib "Palace Walk" (بين القصرين/Bayn al-qasrayn) - 1956 
Narayan, R. K. "Malgudi Omnibus" (Trilogy: Swami and Friends, 1935; The Bachelor of Arts, 1937; The English Teacher, 1945)
Ruzhen, Li "Flowers in the Mirror" (鏡花緣/Jing Hua Yuan) - 1827 
Unigwe, Chika "On Black Sisters’ Street" (Fata Morgana) - 2007
"Dhammapada" (धम्मपद), Buddhist text - ca. 300 BCE 

I still think this is a wonderful list written by someone who obviously knows her business. It gives a lot of inspiration to anyone who wants to broaden their mind and understand people from other parts of this world.

2 comments:

  1. It is a wonderful list. The other day the long list for the Man Booker International Prize came out. It is also a wonderful list. I will be adding from both lists to my lists.

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    1. I hope that one day I will be able to say I have read all the books from this list, they seem so worthwile.

      I have read a few Booker Prize books and have just started to follow their International list. Strangely enough, I don't always agree with them, i.e. I don't like all of their winners. But there are always some great ideas among the nominees. So, I'm sure we'll be talkign about one or the other soon.

      Happy Reading!

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