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Contemporary Non-Anglo Authors

L

lies

New Member
Ell suggested in another thread to start a Contemporary Non-Anglo Authors-thread to help promote them, so that's exactly what we're doing.

We all know our Dumas, or Tolstoi, but what about all those great "foreign" authors that are a bit closer to us in time?
 
To start off, how about:

Dai Sijie
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. A little gem of a book set during the Cultural Revolution in China. Translated from French into English.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love in the Time of Cholera
One Hundred Years of Solitiude

Haruki Murakami
Norwegian Wood


Other recommendations?
 
I really enjoyed The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch. It was translated into English by Paul Vincent and I would highly recommend it to people who don't mind a 700+ pages book.

Though the book is basically about God wanting to break the covenant, there's so much more in there.
 
Carina Burman is a swedish author mainly writing fiction about historical people. She is a scholar and in her novels she adds the fiction to bring life to the characters.
Unfortunatly she is not yet translated into english.

In the same way author Maja Lundgren wrote a book about Pompeji and filled it with life and smells and sounds, how it might have been just a few days before the eruption.
 
How about Luara Equeival ( For water like chocolate ) And Isabel Allende ( The House Of Spirits )

I will have to get more of both thease authors. I enjoyed their books, their stories and use of language very much :)
 
Salman Rushdie- Satanic Verses ...only one I've read by him, but very intriguing....although I think if you like magic realism the master is my next suggesiton...

Gabriel Garcia Marquez <-- The master of magic realism.

For some less popular authors that might not have been heard of as much I suggest....
Arundhati Roy <-- Strongly recommend God of Small Things

Shashi Tharoor - Riot is a great love story mixed into a cultural setting of India while internationalization is occurring.

V.S. Naipaul - The Mystic Masseur

Cinua Achebe <-- One of my favorite non-anglo authors that I need to read more of. - Things Fall Apart....
 
italo calvino, too. particularly, some of his short stories ... under the jaguar sun, t-zero, cosmicomics, invisible cities, and many others.
 
You can, but it wouldn't actually be true :D

You can also call them rude names, thow fruit at them and run away giggling... but that might be going just a bit too far!
 
SillyWabbit said:
You can also call them rude names, thow fruit at them and run away giggling... but that might be going just a bit too far!
Click to expand...

And you'd have to visit all kinds of creepy cemeteries.
 
Ben Okri is a wonderful African writer; I especially like the trilogy of books which tell the story of Azaro, a spirit child - "The Famished Road", "Songs of Enchantment" and "Infinite Riches". Magical.
 
German:
'The Discovery of Slowness' by Sten Nadolny - One of my favourite books, sad and uplifting in the same time.

'The Clown' by Heinrich Böll

'Brother of Sleep' by Robert Schneider

French:
'Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of Coran' by Erich-Emmanuel Schmitt
'Oscar and the Lady in Pink' by Erich-Emmanuel Schmitt
Short and easy reads, but thought-provoking and full of warmth.

'The Book of proper names' by Amelié Nothomb - Her books are witty and so evil. My favourite is 'L'hygiene d'assassin', but it hasn't been translated into English.

'The girl who played Go' by Shan Sa

Italian:
'Silk' by Alessandro Baricco - beautifully written story about love

Spanish:
'The Paper House' by Carlos María Domínguez (to be published in October 05) - the love for reading and books

‘The House of Spirits’ by Isabel Allende

Portuguese:
'Blindness' by José Saramago

Hungarian:
'Embers' by Sándor Márai

'Fateless’ by Imre Kertész
 
Rigana said:
'The Book of proper names' by Amelié Nothomb - Her books are witty and so evil. My favourite is 'L'hygiene d'assassin', but it hasn't been translated into English.
Click to expand...
Really? My professor keeps referring to Amélie Nothomb in his classes (in a "daughter of" kind of way), but I've never actually read anything of hers. You make her sound interesting though.
 
I thaught that you, if anybody, would have read something by her. I mean, she is Belgian, isn't she? But she was born in Kobe, Japan, so some of her books refer to her youth there, too.

It's hard for me to describe her books because I can't find the right words.
In a way they are relly terrible, the topics she writes about are no things you want to hear about. Serial murderers; an old guy, who keeps a girl imprisoned and such stuff.
But the way she deals with the topics is what makes her books so great to me. It's not like a thriller or a horror book from Stephen King etc, but her books are cleverly put-together stories. 'L'hygiene de l'assassin' for example features five interviews between an author and various journalist.
The dialogues are great and the endings of her books are always full of surprises. And I like her style a lot.
 
She's Belgian, yes, but Wallon also, which I'm not. It's a culture (if that's the word I'm looking for) I'm not too familiar with.
 
Rosarrio Ferre writes historical fiction about Puerto Rico. I was turned onto her writing when I read The House on the Lagoon for a class on Caribbean History.
 
I just want to add "I'm not Stiller" by Max Frisch and "The Visit" by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, both Swiss authors, as well as "The Pursuit of Unhapiness" by Paul Watzlawick.
 
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