Hello readers! If you are already participating in our Adult Summer Reading Program, and you decided to complete the Adult Bingo activities, one of the tasks is to read a non-European book in translation. In this column, you will find a few book suggestions to consider as well as ways to cross more than one BINGO square in the process.
Let’s start with two authors from Brazil, my home country. Clarice Lispector is the Brazilian female author considered to be the country’s greatest modern writer. She is also receiving a second chance in translation – a rare move that shows her strong writing skills and moving poetic prose. Her literary novels are considered challenging with “strange and unexpected language.” The Hour of the Star (FIC Lis) is her final work and tells us the story of Macabéa, “a typist who lives in the slums of Rio de Janeiro – underfed, sickly and unloved, yet inwardly free. This book also fulfils the BINGO task of “a book with fewer than 175 pages.”
Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian author who tends to be well-known to the international audience. His book The Alchemist (FIC COE) has sold over two million copies around the world. The story is about Santiago, and Andalusian shepherd who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. It’s an inspiring tale of self-discovery wrapped in magic, mysticism and wonder that encourages all to follow their dream. Other books by the same author are The Spy, The Archer, The Zahir and more.
Gabriel García Márquez, the famous Colombian author also graces our shelves with his brilliant imagination. The Autumn of the Patriarch begins with the discovery of the corpse of a great dictator in his decaying palace. The narrative moves in dreamlike reminiscence from present to past and sideways in a Latin American country ravaged by corruption, anarchy and exuberance. Márquez does not disappoint in this magnificent tale of political grandeur, tyranny and decadence. Other stories by the master of magic realism are One Hundred Years of Solitude and Of Love and Other Demons.
The Chilean writer Isabel Allende is also on our list of great reads. Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia follow the story of a Chilean woman who searches for her lover in the 1840s Gold Rush era in California. Other well know books by this prolific author include Eva Luna, Paula, Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses, and The House of Spirits.
Willing to try some middle-eastern authors? Jalaloddin (also Jalal al-Din) Rumi has become the best known Persian poet in the wet. Rumi, Fountain of Fire, A Celebration of Life and Love (891.55 Jal) translated by Nader Khalili is a wonderful expression of beauty, freedom and the infinite bliss that love brings to the human soul. Another winner is the novel Frankenstein in Baghdad (FIC Saa) by Ahmed Saadawi, an Iraqi novelist. The novel is set against the painful landscape of the Iraqi war where the main character (Hadi) tries to force the Iraqi government into recognizing the humanity of the victims and give them proper burial. Hadi collects human parts and stitches them together to create a corpse that later disappears. A tale of horror and dark humor that “captures the surreal reality of contemporary Iraq.”
A graphic novel by one of the most recognized contemporary Japanese authors is Fragments of Horror by Junji Ito (GN FIC Ito). Uncanny situations, terrifying characters, and supernatural forces characterize this long-awaited return of Ito’s creative genius. From tales of horror to tails of friendship, we move to Hiro Arikawa’s The Travelling Cat Chronicles (FIC ARI, large print). As Satoru and Nana (a stray cat) travel across Japan, “they learn the true meaning of courage and gratitude, of loyalty and love.” This is a highly well-reviewed item both by Goodreads and Amazon readers and qualifies for “a fiction book featuring an animal friendship” on our BINGO card.
Some of these books also qualify for extra squares such as “a book set in a location you want to visit”, “a book set in a large city”, “a comic or graphic novel” and a few others depending on the extent of your reading list (e.g. “read an author you’ve never read before”). If you are still uncertain about what to read, stop by the Ref desk on the second floor at CDPL – we will be glad to help.
Happy summer reading everyone!
Ivette de Assis-Wilson is the Head of the Reference and Local History Department at CDPL.
