
amf
Mar 1, 2025 12:52 PM
Favorite novels from underrepresented nations/languages? It seems rather a shame (if inevitable) that global literature is dominated by a handful of linguistic expressions. What are your faves from elsewhere? I'll start the ball rolling. Saneh Sangsuk's "The White Shadow" is a completely batshit insane Thai novel -- Cormac McCarthy-level rural violence and sexual deviance on the margins of Thai society, told in some of the most intense, unsettling stream of consciousness you'll find.
macaron
6 days ago
A big fan of Tove Jansson's novels (though there is a question if she counts as a Swedish Author based on language or Finnish based on nationality). Probably too popular to be really that underrepresented, but I don't hear that much about Finnish authors than I do the Scandinavians and shes famous for the Moomin stuff rather than her adult novels anyways.
yarb
6 days ago
I The Supreme (Yo El Supremo) by Augusto Roa Bastos - the "Paraguayan Ulysses" - not actually much like Ulysses but it is fucking awesome and enormous. But For the Lovers by Wilfrido Nolledo is the only Flilipino novel I've read and it's a stunner.
amf
5 days ago
I've got Bastos on my list, and you just made me so much more excited. I don't know Nolledo, but I recommend the short stories of Mia Alvar without reservation, and Miguel Syjuco's Ilustrado is one of the funniest, most acerbic contemporary novels I've ever read. There's a scene in which a girl breaks up with the protagonist by writing out the lyrics to Wilson Phillips' "Hold On," which if you're fortunate enough to know many Filipinos/as (Filipinx?), will strike you as peak Pinay.
literati
7 days ago
Some reads from the last two years I've enjoyed The Trip by Radheshyam Sharma Mhudi by Solomon Plaatje Eve out of her Ruins by Ananda Devi Novel without a name by Duong Thu Huong Mater 2-10 by Hwang Sok-yong Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury Next up on my TBR is the collection The Vampire of Curitibia by Dalton Trevisan
amf
6 days ago
Big fan of Hwang Sok-Yong and Duong Thu Huong, although I haven't read that particular Hwang novel. Good reminder to move that forward in the queue.
anaca
7 days ago
I don't know if it's a favorite but Jørn Riel (Danish) stories in Greenland are nice. It's Jack London adventure and Steinbeck banal lumped together.