The World's Literature in Europe discussion

Which books are making this Challenge? I noted that Nicola chose A Golden Age about South Asia.

My goal for this challenge is to read the following list:

Russia: Mayakovsky: A Biography
West Asia: Adama
East Asia: The Tale of the Heike
South Asia: Jejuri
Southeast Asia:Supernova: The Knight, the Princess and the Falling Star
Oceania: Bearded Ladies

in addition to the group reads.

Don wrote: "My goal for this challenge is to read the following list:

Russia: Mayakovsky: A Biography
West Asia: Adama
East Asia: The Tale of the Heike
South ..."

Excellent selections, Don.

I hope I can succeed with these. Six from my to-read shelf that I'd like to have read by end of 2015. A hotchpotch from the areas.

fiction -
The Last Quarter of the Moon by Chi Zijian -- Evenki
A Curse on Dostoevsky by Atiq Rahimi -- Afghanistan
Soul by Andrei Platonov -- Russian/Central Asia
non-fiction -
Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China by Beata Grant
The Hundred Thousand Fools of God: Musical Travels in Central Asia by Theodore Levin
The Sinister Way: The Divine and the Demonic in Chinese Religious Culture by Glahn Richard von

Bryn wrote: "I hope I can succeed with these. Six from my to-read shelf that I'd like to have read by end of 2015. A hotchpotch from the areas.

fiction -
The Last Quarter of the Moon by [autho..."

Ooh! Fascinating selection. I'm looking forward to your reviews.

Bryn, fiction and nonfiction mixed together sounds like a success.

The way the Read books for this challenge are tallied toward your goal requires that you tick the shelf label you assigned at signup. The shelf label got automatically registered into your Bookshelf on Goodreads. When you tick "Read" at the end of a book, also tick the shelf label of the challenge so that the Read book will count toward this Challenge goal, as well as towards your Goodreads 2015 goal.

I added One Part Woman by பெருமாள் முருகன் Perumal Murugan , Tamil Nadu, India. I thought I needed more fiction.

I'll be adding to this post during the year, as there are several titles I've gotten from the libraries and the online bookstore, some of those books being about birds and such in the Indonesia-Australia-Pacific islands area. Aside from picking out a reading theme (so many as to be impossible to make a choice), I'll just list the ones read and currently reading.

East Asia: After Dark by Murakami (Japan): Surreal!

Oceania: Sacred Games by Gary Corby. This book is part of his popular mystery series set in 5th-century-BC Greece, a period when it was composed of rival city states. Good entertainment.

Southeast Asia: The Rainbow Troops: A Novel by Hirata (Belitong Island, Sumatra, Indonesia): Inspired education at a village school.

Bryn wrote: "I added One Part Woman by பெருமாள் முருகன் Perumal Murugan , Tamil Nadu, India. I thought I needed more fiction."

Interested to know what you thought about the story.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
My review, Asma. A satisfying novel, its theme in the great novel tradition: the individual versus society.

I didn't enjoy A Curse on Dostoevsky so much; I missed personality in it. I can see it isn't a novel intended to explore personality, but more an absurdist tale or satire/social criticism.

Bryn wrote: "...A satisfying novel, its theme in the great novel tradition...I didn't enjoy A Curse on Dostoevsky so much; I missed personality in it...."

I'm glad that you liked the book translated from Tamil; I might give it a read. As you know, its reception in India has proven controversial.

Regarding the latter book, I would consider reading it along with Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

Asma wrote: "I'm glad that you liked the book translated from Tamil; I might give it a read. As you know, its reception in India has proven controversial..."

Yes, that's how I heard of it. It's run into controversy, but you don't feel it sets out to offend. Funnily, A Curse on Dostoevsky was the angry, bitter novel (about conditions in Afghanistan). One Part Woman was warm and human.

With A Curse on Dostoevsky, I think my Dostoevsky expectations only got in the way. It uses the plot, closely, but that led me to await other resemblences, until I had settled in my mind it was different in style and substance. I even began to fear it was an anti-Crime and Punishment, saying that Dostoevsky's resolutions won't work here and now --
I don't know.

Bryn wrote: "...With A Curse on Dostoevsky, I think my Dostoevsky expectations only got in the way. It uses the plot, closely, but that led me to await other resemblences, until I had settled in my mind it was different in style and substance. ..."

You've got me interested in that book now, Bryn, as well as the Dostoevsky related to it. Thank you.

Some Tasmanian prize winners

The Roving Party

1835 The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia

source: http://www.arts.tas.gov.au/industry_d...

These two from the Tasmanian-prize-winner list above were at the library:

Twilight of Love: Travels with Turgenev

In Tasmania: Adventures at the End of the World

Though the Research part of "Reading Australia" is for subscribers, the site http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/pag... makes public a list of ten representative books from that country with links for supplemental background, called "trails for reading", left, from Anna Funder to Christos Tsiolkas.

HI

Quick question - When it says about a country, does that means that setting has to be in that country and the author be from a different nationality? for example a french author who wrote a novel that takes place in Thailand for example.

I think someone asked this before, but i forgot.

Thanks

Mekki wrote: "...When it says about a country, does that means that setting has to be in that country and the author be from a different nationality..."

Hi, Mekki,

Generally speaking, Yes. It seems likely that a citizen would write about the place s/he knows well. Non-citizens might also know the place well, like your example of the French person who wrote about Thailand. I've noted some books like that: , a wonderful epic of that country by a non-Latin-American! There's also about Brazil by a Peruvian. about Japan was written by a British novelist born in Japan and dealt with a British woman of Japanese heritage who takes the whole book to narrate a Japanese tragedy. That's my perspective. The focus on setting is not written in stone. Focus on author's also fine. Whatever fits your thinking.

The next book I've begun is Sacred Games by Gary Corby. It's the third installment of his mystery series (five written so far). He's an Australian whose theme is Periclean (democratic) Athens around 460 BC.

It's not a very well known book, and probably not that easy to find, but Permanently Temporary takes us to a lot of places that would fit this Rendang Stew challenge.

Tess Johnston used to work in the US Foreign Service before she retired, and was posted in Vietnam, Laos, China, Teheran, India (from what I remembered). She hasn't been to Russia, but has been to East Berlin before the fall of the wall, so still under Sovietic influence.

Melaslithos wrote: "...Permanently Temporary takes us to a lot of places that would fit this Rendang Stew challenge..."

I like the part in your review when you mention that the book's author directly experienced the cultures instead of being surrounded by expatriate communities :)

Thanks. That's what I really loved about Tess Johnston. Living as an expat, I know how easy it is to stay in your little community. I try to go out, mix with local people, but it's not always that easy. She's really encouraging me to explore more.

I also met her at one of her talks, and what impressed me was that the two posting whe didn't like were the only two where she didn't make any local friends (including Paris, which is usually the dream of everyone working in Foreign Service. She's probably the only one who cut her stay there).

Melaslithos wrote: "...the two...she didn't like were the only two where she didn't make any local friends (including Paris...)..."

She called the French city "A thorn among roses" in the Table of Contents. http://www.tessinshanghai.com/books.html

I would like to ask a question. What is considered West Asia?

Hello, Susan, West Asia, aka Western Asia, is described here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_... Thanks for your question.

I am reading a book for West Asia now. An easy and uncomplicated read, but opens a wide door on understanding the cultural root and social life of the people (Turkish), I guess:



The Tales of Nasrettin Hoca

Najibah wrote: "I am reading a book for West Asia now..on understanding the cultural root and social life of the people (Turkish)...The Tales of Nasrettin Hoca"

Many of many reads about Turkey have been books by Orhan Pamuk. I'd like to read The Tales of Nasrettin Hoca as well.

Najibah wrote: "I am reading a book for West Asia now..."


Hi Najibah, I just saw that you are from Malaysia. You would be a better leader than I would for the group read of Bumi Manusia later this year. Would you be interested in leading that read?

I've been browsing through a new book each day. The latest one pertinent to the Rendang Stew Challenge is In Tasmania: Adventures at the End of the World by William Nicholas Shakespeare. He does highlight the key events in Tasmania's history from its historical discovery by Tasmen, who apparently didn't exactly go onto the island, to his personal discovery of familial relations there. The island was originally a beautiful landscape with apple trees and so forth. Today, the air there is scientifically monitored and is rated the purest on earth.

I might go to Maldives this summer (although it hasn't been confirmed yet), and I thought it would be nice to find a book from there for the South Asia part of the Rendang Stew challenge.

Problem is, I haven't found much on the subject, only the followings:
http://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/201...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category... (although for these, I'm not quite sure if I can find English translations yet).

Would any of you have any other recommendations?

BTW, for now, my Rendang Stew challenge shapes as follow:

Russia: Notes from Underground
West Asia: The Quran
East Asia: Rickshaw Boy
South Asia: Dhon Hiyala and Ali Fulhu
Southeast Asia: Tree
Oceania: Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea

For the Oceania book, since we are reading a lot of books from this area already this year, I do not intend to read any others.

This list might change yet if I come over other interesting finds.

I think india is in south asia, so how about The Satanic Verses from Salman Rushdie. It would go along with the The Quran that you're going to read.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I already read The Satanic Verses

Melaslithos wrote: "I might go to Maldives this summer (although it hasn't been confirmed yet), and I thought it would be nice to find a book from there ..."

Folk Tales of the Maldives
See: http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-8775-...

Melaslithos wrote: "I might go to Maldives this summer (although it hasn't been confirmed yet), and I thought it would be nice to find a book from there for the South Asia part of the Rendang Stew challenge.

Problem ..."

I have not read anything for Maldives yet that I could recommend. It is a difficult country to find literature for. However, here is a link to a short list of titles from the Around the World in 80 Books group you might be interested in:

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

Thanks everyone! Looks like nice suggestions, I'll see what I can get my hands on (the problem of living abroad is that it's quite difficult to get books in a language you can read, outside of big hits).

Although I do note that if there are a few books set in the Maldives, very few are from Maldivian authors.

I have finally started reading books for this challenge.
So far, I have read the following books:

Japan (East Asia)- Thousand Cranes
Russia- Under House Arrest

Melaslithos wrote: "It's not a very well known book, and probably not that easy to find, but Permanently Temporary..."

I tried looking for P...T by Tess Johnston. It's a biography, and Johnston has written several books about Chinese architecture. Lucky for you, having read the book and met the author.

Najibah wrote: "...The Tales of Nasrettin Hoca."

Definitely is a Turkish book for people of all ages. I'm reading it as well.

Asma Fedosia wrote: I tried looking for P...T by Tess Johnston. It's a biography, and Johnston ha..."

If you insist on reading this book but can't find it, please tell me and I'll see if I can get one copy for you here and send it.

I was very lucky indeed, she is such an interesting person.

Melaslithos wrote: "Although I do note that if there are a few books set in the Maldives, very few are from Maldivian authors."

Some countries' writers move away to somewhere else, writing in their books memories about their former home. The Maldives is one of those countries that I don't know much about its history or geography.

Melaslithos wrote: "...I'll see if I can get one copy for you here..."

:) Johnston's A Last Look: Western Architecture in Old Shanghai is locatable here.

Susan wrote: "I have finally started reading books for this challenge.
So far, I have read the following...

Good for you, Susan! A literary Cheers!