Mar 01, 2025
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.
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.
amf1 year 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.
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
amf1 year 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.
anaca1 year 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.
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.