Category Archives: Postcards from my bookshelf

Postcard from my bookshelf #12

December 15, 2017 By in Post-world, Postcards from my bookshelf Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

And so we come to the final stranger to receive a book in celebration of the support people gave me when I read the world in 2012.

What a year it’s been. In the last 12 months, I’ve sent titles to an incredibly diverse group of people and places – from a translator on a Greek island to an aspiring writer living in a hostel in Delhi, and from a school student in Australia to a medical student with leukemia in the Philippines (not to mention one Donald J Trump).

Choosing books for strangers has made me revisit several of the big questions I encountered during my quest to read the world. These have included how taboos differ from person to person and what we mean when we say a book is set in a particular place.

I have been delighted and humbled by the warmth so many people have shown in the comments on the project post – indeed, it’s been great to hear from many booklovers who have followed the blog for some time but have never commented before. I only wish I could choose books for all of you!

For this last gift, I’ve picked someone who is at the early stages of a reading adventure similar to the project that changed my life five years ago. One of the joys of this blog has been the huge number of people who tell me it has inspired them to broaden their reading and so I wanted to select a fellow literary explorer to receive the last book.

There were a huge number to choose from, so in the end, luck played a part. I went for Pritha Bardhan, who happened to have posted her entry for the competition on October 24, 2016, five years to the day since I launched this blog with the question ‘Can you help me read the world?’ She wrote this:

Hi Ann,

I absolutely LOVE what you did and it has inspired me to do the same. I am currently on world book 14, which is from Vietnam. I am also consciously trying to split my reading list 50/50 between men and women after reading your Women In Translation month blog posts.

Similar to you, when people found out about this challenge that I am undertaking, they have been kindly recommending or gifting me with books. I am also finding out more about the history of each of the countries; for instance details on the 1987 military coup in Fiji, fascism in Europe in the 1930s and I’m currently reading the hardships faced by Vietnamese women during the Vietnam War.

Thank-you for your insight and I look forward to reading more of your blog posts in the future :o)

The book I’ve chosen for Pritha, By Night the Mountain Burns by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel and translated from the Spanish by Jethro Soutar, is a rare gem. In fact, it is only the second novel to be translated into and published in English from the authoritarian West African nation, Equatorial Guinea. Weaving local oral storytelling traditions into the Western novel form to portray a series of catastrophic events that shape the narrator’s childhood, the title stands out as one of the most exciting additions to literature from underrepresented nations of recent years.

As it was published in 2014, By Night the Mountain Burns wasn’t available when I read the world. Like many of the works I review in my book-of-the-month posts (marked orange on the List), it has been part of a wave of brilliant translations that have continued to open up closed-off areas of world literature to English speakers. Since my project, titles from Madagascar, Guinea-Bissau and Turkmenistan have all come onto the market, making it easier for curious readers to explore even more of the world’s stories (although nations such as the Comoros remain absent from anglophone bookshelves and many other countries have only one or two titles in English translation).

The truth is that the world we are able to read – much like the planet itself – is in flux. The international literary landscape shifts constantly, with new voices emerging and others sinking as titles go out of print. One person’s journey through world literature at a particular point in time is really nothing more than a snapshot of the image shown briefly on a kaleidoscope before the picture changes once more.

It’s endlessly fascinating and it’s for this reason that, as I realised when my year-long adventure ended, I’ll be reading the world for the rest of my life. Pritha, I hope the same will be true for you.

Thanks to everyone who entered Postcards from my bookshelf. Your enthusiasm is what keeps this blog going. May 2018 bring us all many wonderful reads!

Postcard from my bookshelf #11

November 15, 2017 By in Post-world, Postcards from my bookshelf Tags: , , , , , , , 7 Comments

A final spin of the random-number generator brought me to this comment from Meghan:

I love this project! I have always said that if I could, I would love to spend quality time in every culture in the world. This is a great way to see into those different cultures and know that we are all the same, no matter where we ended up being born. I have eclectic taste: poetry, sci-fi, apocalyptic..I especially love reading books that show the day to day lives of other cultures so you feel yourself immersed in that culture. Thank you for sharing your journey with us!

Two things stood out for me from this: Meghan’s enjoyment of sci-fi and apocalyptic literature, and her desire to feel immersed in the day-to-day lives of other cultures.

This second point is a common theme among literary explorers. Indeed, when people hear about my project to read a book from every country in 2012, they often assume that I read a book set in every country.

I can see why. For many bibliophiles, part of the appeal of reading internationally is the idea that it will enable them to travel in the mind, using books as a telescope to look at far-away places that they might never visit in person.

There’s nothing wrong with this as an ambition – and there are many wonderfully immersive books bristling with local detail that will give readers the impression of being transplanted into the everyday lives of people thousands of miles away.

However, when I set out on my quest five years ago, I knew this wasn’t my goal. Apart from anything else, I was sure that it would take many more than one book from each place to get an accurate, rounded picture of what life in each nation was like.

Instead, what interested me was mindsets, voices and perspectives. I wanted to explore how writers in different places looked at life, seeing what individual viewpoints I could access, rather than trying to look for general truths.

This meant that setting was not a primary concern. It seemed to me that a novel about another country or an imaginary place could tell me as much about the world-view of the author as a lavish evocation of the region in which they lived. So, although many of the stories I read took place in the nations I chose them to represent, some didn’t – my Eritrean read being an example. Meanwhile, like many of the best English-language novels, a number of them featured international journeys.

With this in mind, I decided to crash together Meghan’s two points and selected an-otherworldly book that nevertheless reveals telling things about the culture in which it was written. My choice is the daring 1977 dystopian novel Egalia’s Daughters: A Satire of the Sexes by Norwegian writer Gerd Brantenberg, translated by Louis Mackay.

It’s a novel I’ve discovered since I finished my original quest and have returned to several times. Indeed, I wrote an entry about it for the beautifully illustrated Literary Wonderlands: A Journey Through the Greatest Fictional Worlds Ever Created, which Hachette published last year. (The picture of the rather controversial Norwegian cover featured at the top comes from this.)

Set in a world where patriarchy is turned on its head so that society is ruled by wim, while menwim can only aspire to be ‘housebounds’ who must stay at home, look pretty and bring up the children, the novel explores gender dynamics through the lens of second-wave Scandinavian feminism. As British writer Naomi Alderman’s The Power would do decades later, it uses this startling reversal of the status quo to reveal the injustices and cruelties that lurk beneath the surface of many of our assumptions about how life works.

Like the best books, it is as at once specifically of its time and place, and universal – packed with insights that are relevant to people reading in a different language at forty years’ remove.

Meghan, I hope you enjoy it.

If you’d like a chance to receive a postcard from my bookshelf, visit the project post and leave a comment telling me a bit about you and what you like to read. The final recipient will be announced on December 15.

 

Postcard from my bookshelf #10

October 14, 2017 By in Post-world, Postcards from my bookshelf Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Without the millions of people putting stories into words around the planet, my quest to read a book from every country in the world would never have got off the ground. In consequence, this month, I’m sending a book to a writer.

I was encouraged to find a number of people with literary ambitions among the entrants to this giveaway. As I wrote when I got my book deal for my first novel, Beside Myself, my journey through a wide range of the globe’s stories was the key that unlocked writing for me. Prior to that project, I had spent years churning out cramped, inward-looking little half-books. Reading the world blew my imagination open and let the fresh air in.

There were many aspiring wordsmiths to choose from for this venture. A large proportion of the people who have commented on the project post maintain their own blogs or write about reading in other ways. What’s more, a significant minority of these stated explicitly that they want to be writers (NB to those of you who said this, if you’re putting words on a screen or page, you already are a writer. Writing isn’t a state of being; it’s something you do. Keep going!)

In the end, however, it was the following comment from Cheche in the Philippines that caught my eye:

Hi Ann! I’m really hoping that I could take part in this fun adventure of yours!

I’m Cheche and I’m from one of the distant provinces here in the Philipppines! I’m 25 and diagnosed with leukemia last year. Thankfully, I’m now in remission but still under maintenance treatment. Before, I have always wanted to read books that are not related to school or medical stuffs (I graduated with a degree in Medical Technology) but didn’t had enough motivation to do so and ended up reading very very few ones only. Then came my diagnosis that made me stay in my bed and at home for most of my days. It was then I finally did the thing I’ve always wanted to do – read. But mostly as a distraction from depression or a time- killer. I was surprised to find myself able to finish a book in just one day! I know this is pretty much nothing for you guys who are bookworms but I have never done that before, especially that I was on weekly chemo at that time. I discovered how much I truly love reading. And now I have my blog which has been up for a few months now. I write about my experiences and also tried one daily prompt by WordPress out of desperation. Hahah! I don’t write fast and don’t publish in a daily or weekly basis. I learned that I am able to write better if I read more. I dig up the right inspiration to start a blog after reading stories of other cancer survivors as well. I admit I’m sort of running out of motivation again and I kind of beat myself up for this since I have only started writing for just a few months. It hasn’t even been a year and I can’t seem to find the words now.

Anyways, every time I go to the bigger city, I always try to find time to drop by at Booksale to rummage through some quality second hand books from US, Canada and other places in the world at very cheap prices. For months now, I haven’t been reading a book, physically, as I find myself enjoying the blogs and Long reads from WordPress. But I am really looking forward to getting myself smelling the pages of a book again! I’ll be going to the big city probably by the end of this month for a procedure and I’ll make sure to buy books good for 2 or 3 months. I like reading inspirational books, fiction or non-fiction, real stories of survival of whatever kinds of adversities. Also I would like to read books about cancer, healthy eating, lifestyle and healing.

Thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity to share with you how reading made do something I have never thought I would ever do in my lifetime. And THANK YOU too for your utmost love for reading!

When I clicked through to Cheche’s blog, I found that her corner of the virtual world contains posts covering everything from making museli to tricycle rides. She writes a lot about her condition too. In particular, one post on the homepage stands out: To Be a Young Adult With Cancer in the Philippines. In this, Cheche describes the challenges that her condition brings, from the specific logistical issues that come with having leukaemia in her region to frustrations that must be familiar to young people battling illness everywhere:

‘With cancer, one thing is always certain- the sense of being a burden to everyone. People my age are supposed to be earning enough or maybe just starting out, but my circumstances called for unemployment. I can’t help but be angry at myself. Health and youth are supposed to go hand-in-hand, but in my case they don’t.’

I wanted to choose a book that might be a good source of companionship through the next stage of Cheche’s treatment. However, when I thought about the novels I had read to do with illness – from Venezuelan writer Alberto Barrera Tyszka’s The Sickness to Seeing Red by Lina Meruane from Chile – I realised that, while many of them are brilliantly written, the majority are rather pessimistic in outlook.

As a result, I turned my mind to stories concerning people facing other extreme challenges. This made me remember the various books I have encountered about child soldiers. Although several of the fictional accounts, such as Allah Is Not Obliged by Ahmadou Kourouma from Côte d’Ivoire, are understandably bleak, one very uplifting narrative sprang into my thoughts: the memoir A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah from Sierra Leone.

(Indeed, this exercise made me realise something about memoir that had never occurred to me before: by its nature, it is an optimistic form. In order to write their story, the central personage has to have survived whatever challenges they describe and got to a place where they are able to look back, process and understand.)

Cheche, I hope this book inspires you. Like, The Circle of Karma, which I sent to Ashlee back in July, this is not a translation in the literal sense of the word because it was written in English, but in many ways it does the same work: it finds the language to take us into an experience that is thankfully alien to most of us. It is not an easy read because it deals with the full range of things that make us human, from the ugliest to the most beautiful impulses. But from what I know of you, I’m sure you’re able to cope with that.

If you’d like a chance to receive a postcard from my bookshelf, visit the project post and leave a comment telling me a bit about you and what you like to read. The next recipient will be announced on November 15.

Postcard from my bookshelf #9

September 15, 2017 By in Postcards from my bookshelf Tags: , , , , , , 5 Comments

This month, the random-number generator led me to an intriguing comment. It was posted back in January by Rachel Unklesbay and went as follows:

I’ve just started your challenge to read a book from every country (not in a year, though. I have a toddler. I’m giving myself more time than that.) I love the idea of getting to know different peoples through their literature!

I would love to receive a book – or just recommendations. I sometimes struggle to find books that aren’t overtly sexual – I’m okay with some sex, but nothing pornographic – and sometimes authors try to make their books “edgy” and only succeed in making them really awkward. Is this something I just have to get over? Is this a worldwide trend, or just something Americans do to try to look grown-up?

Rachel’s words posed me something of a head-scratcher. After all, I have no way of knowing what counts as ‘overtly sexual’ in her eyes or whether our definitions of ‘pornographic’ match. Among many things, reading the world has taught me that people can have very different thresholds when it comes to a whole range of sensitive issues and if you attempt to second-guess someone’s sensibilities you can often end up extremely wide of the mark.

It’s a dilemma I’ve encountered many times over the last five years. One of the most common queries I receive is from people – often teachers – asking whether the books on the list are suitable for children of certain ages.

I’m sure they find my replies frustratingly vague, but the truth is I can’t answer definitively as I do not know what they would deem acceptable. Apart from the fact that individual children vary hugely in what they are capable of appreciating, there is the problem that what I consider harmless might be beyond the pale for my correspondents and visa versa.

It’s a point that was neatly illustrated when I looked into Chinese children’s literature and chose the award-winning Bronze and Sunflower by Cao Wenxuan (translated by Helen Wang) as my Book of the month back in April 2015. According to Wang and several other translators I’ve been in touch with, it can often be challenging to find Chinese children’s books that will work in the anglophone market because standards are so different: while Chinese stories can often seem rather simplistic and old-fashioned about things like gender roles, they can also be far more violent and graphic than is usual in English-language works aimed at similar age groups.

However, one thing I could very much identify with in Rachel’s comment was her comment about sex coming across as awkward in a lot of the titles she’s tried. That’s certainly an issue as far as British writers are concerned. Indeed, so much terrible writing about physical intimacy is published each year in my home country that the Literary Review magazine even runs an annual Bad Sex in Fiction award.

I can’t say for sure whether this is a problem exclusive to English-language writers, although it’s certainly true that my international reading has introduced me to some of the best writing about sex that I have ever encountered (indeed, my post on the book I read for Guyana, which I naively titled ‘Guyana: sex and how to do it’ unintentionally brought a lot of people using dubious, sex-tourism-related search terms to my blog – but that’s another story).

Still, I wanted to choose a book that Rachel would be likely to enjoy and so didn’t want to run the risk of selecting something that she would find too explicit.

Instead, I’ve opted for a book that, while it might appear overtly sexual, is in fact far from it. The novel in question is The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris by Leïla Marouane (translated by Alison Anderson), which was my pick for Algeria.

As I wrote in my 2012 review, its provocative title made for some awkward moments on public transport – and was a neat demonstration of the old adage ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’.

Witty, inventive and beautifully written, this is a treat of a novel. Rachel, I hope you like it!

 

Postcard from my bookshelf #8

August 15, 2017 By in Post-world, Postcards from my bookshelf Tags: , , , , , , , 5 Comments

This month, I’ve chosen someone from the publishing world to receive a book. Although the literature of some countries remains unrepresented on anglophone bookshop shelves, the vast majority of the translated books I read during 2012 were commercially available (or at least available to buy secondhand). I could never have completed – or even seriously contemplated – the challenge of reading a book from every country without the army of editors, agents, scouts, rights managers, publicists, production staff and many others who spend their time bringing books to market.

In my experience, these people (particularly those working on translated literature) are deeply devoted bibliophiles who often work long hours for relatively little financial reward. For many of them, publishing the world’s stories is a labour of love.

The entries on the project post bore this out. Among the numerous comments from people working in or  connected to the publishing industry, there was a common theme: passion for literature and a readiness to go beyond the call of duty to share brilliant written works.

I was especially encouraged by the number of publishing students and aspiring editors who participated. It’s great to know that many of the next generation of literary gatekeepers share my enthusiasm for opening up the world’s stories to as many readers as possible. A special mention must go to Sarah, who comes to the UK this month to take up a place on Oxford University’s Columbia Publishing course. I hope it’s the start of a rewarding career!

In the end, however, it was a comment by Juliana Gonçalves that caught my eye:

Hi Ann,
my name is Juliana, and I am a student of Publishing Studies. Your work has been an inspiration to me, and I religiously follow your blog. It makes me feel ever more blessed for choosing the path I did! When I saw your TED video I immediately had a look at my bookshelf and I realized it wasn’t multicultural at all! Not a good sign for someone that wishes to work in the publishing world. Since then I have been trying to change this. A million thanks for opening my eyes! I was amazed to find out you read and loved Paulina Chiziane, because she is an astonishing writer and represents Portuguese language marvelously!

I love your new idea as in fact I love all others you had before, and I would be thrilled to participate too! I am not very picky with books! The last one I read is called Depois de morrer aconteceram-me muitas coisas by Ricardo Adolfo, a Portuguese writer that I am just now discovering and already find to be spectacular! A book I highly recommend, by the way! I am mostly happy when I find out books like this: amazingly written, funny and dramatic at the same time, that conveys deep meaning, but not very well known. These are the books I like to call pearls! Those I feel proud to find out from a million of other books. But I am not picky, as I said before! To receive books, any kind of books, is both a joy and a blessing.

I was drawn to Juliana’s enthusiasm and honesty. It’s always a good sign when someone recommends a book in a way that persuades me to look it up (sadly, my initial searches suggest that Adolfo’s work has yet to make it into English, but maybe this is something you’ll be able to change, Juliana).

In particular, I liked the way Juliana described the sort of books she loves. Her words put me in mind of one of my favourite titles from my quest – Lake Como by the Serbian writer Srđjan Valjarević, translated from the Serbian by Alice Copple-Tošić. Funny, deft and wonderfully written, this seems to me to have all the hallmarks of one of Juliana’s ‘pearls’.

Although the book has been published in English by a small house in Serbia, it is very hard to get. A colleague brought my copy back from Belgrade in 2012. Since then, Valjarević’s Serbian agent has been in touch with me to ask for advice about getting the book a mainstream anglophone publishing deal. (I’d be very happy to connect him with anyone who is interested.)

As such, I had to order a secondhand copy online this time as the English translation no longer seems to be in print. I hope you like it, Juliana – perhaps this is one to add to your list to publish one day!

If you’d like a chance to receive a postcard from my bookshelf, visit the project post and leave a comment telling me a bit about you and what you like to read. The next recipient will be announced on September 15.

Postcard from my bookshelf #7

July 15, 2017 By in Post-world, Postcards from my bookshelf Tags: , , , , , , 9 Comments

This project has international origins. It came from a comment on a blog I used to keep, where an American reader suggested I try an Australian novel: Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet. This got me looking at my bookshelves with new eyes and made me realise how narrow my reading choices were. So in recognition of Australian literature’s role in opening my eyes to the world’s stories, I’m sending this month’s literary postcard to a reader in that nation.

Selecting one recipient from the clutch of very good entries from Down Under has not been easy. I liked all of the comments and had ideas of what I wanted to send to many of them, from JenroetheJourno, who is interested in LGBT fiction (try Nu Nu Yi’s Smile as They Bow, Jenroe), to Sharkell who likes not-too-heavy literary fiction and wanted to try some Arabic literature (it would have been Girls of Riyadh).

I was also intrigued to hear about the challenges of reading internationally in the outback – Bethany relies heavily on her e-reader as it takes around four weeks for many physical titles to reach her (Andrei Volos’s Hurramabad for you, Bethany). And I very much wanted to pick the brains of Alistair MW, a Latvian-Australian history teacher and Aboriginal education coordinator in Adelaide as I have yet to try Aboriginal literature and could do with some tips (my choice for you would have been Sandra Kalniete’s With Dance Shoes in Siberian Snow).

Unable to decide, I resorted to the time-honoured practice of picking a name out of a hat (or, in this case, my pocket). This yielded Ashlee Stewart, a 15-year-old Victorian who is keen to set out and read the world herself. Ashlee wrote this:

This is a great idea! I am thinking of doing my own version of this, but I won’t be able to fit it into just one year. I live in Victoria, Australia and I am 15 years old. I absolutely love reading. However, when I looked at my bookshelf, I saw a similar trend throughout my books, to what you saw when you looked at yours. I have now come to the conclusion, as you did, that I need to extend my range of reading.
To be given a copy of a translated book would be extremely helpful for this challenge, as the problem with spending money to buy all the books (as a lot won’t be available in my local libraries) is something that is playing on my mind.
Before starting this challenge I am writing a list of what books I will read for each country (which I am in the process of doing at the moment).
Also, do you have any tips or tricks that will help me with this challenge? Anything would be extremely helpful 🙂

Well, Ashlee. My main tips are to be persistent, curious and open-minded. Sometimes the route to finding those hard-to-reach titles can be surprising. Bear in mind that a lot has changed since I did my quest five years ago. Although some countries remain unrepresented in commercially available English translations, there have been some exciting new publications that have started to open up new literatures to us anglophone readers. I’ve featured some of them as my books of the month (the orange links on the List) but there are more out there, so I would encourage you to look widely.

It’s great that you’re getting organised and planning what you’d like to read, but I’d also leave the door open for changing your mind and discovering things along the way too. The more you do this sort of project, the more you learn about what’s going on with publishing around the world and you might find you stumble upon some more interesting choices as you go along.

As for my selection for you, I’ve decided to send you Kunzang Choden’s The Circle of Karma, to help you tick one of the smaller nations, Bhutan, off your list. The book is not a translation in the literal sense – it’s the first English-language novel written by a woman from the nation. However, in many senses it is a translation because it takes experiences that would be very alien to most Western readers and puts them into a form that we can appreciate.

Its central character has a lot in common with you. She’s also 15 and setting out on a quest – to travel to a remote village to light ritual butter lamps in her late mother’s memory. As I hope your reading adventure will for you, this journey opens up many ideas and possibilities for her, and leads her to a much richer life than she would have had if she had stayed in her familiar surroundings.

I hope you like it and good luck!

If you’d like a chance to receive a postcard from my bookshelf, visit the project post and leave a comment telling me a bit about you and what you like to read. The next recipient will be announced on August 15.

Postcard from my bookshelf #6

June 15, 2017 By in Post-world, Postcards from my bookshelf Tags: , , , , , , 4 Comments

Another potluck selection from the more than 200 entries to this project this month. This time, the random-number generator led me to the following comment from Aina Qistina:

Hi Ann!! I was just blog walking and end up here. Your idea of postcard from your bookshelf really excites the bookworm side of me. I’m new here but I would really love to receive one of your books.

I’m stuck with my reading habits when I was stuck in a hospital for almost a year. Before that, I do love reading but I’m not too keen of having books yet. Until one day, during my boring days when I was bed ridden, there was this one volunteer group..they were foreigners. They approach me, and play a bit with me. They offer me two things, one of it is a story book. It was my first novel. Enid Blyton. Since then I learn that by reading books makes me leave the current world I’m in. I’m in love with the wide world inside books. I can travel anywhere I like. I love to read adventure books. As i grew up, my adventures cross to some heavy literature like Haruki Murakami’s. I’ve tried various genres, like science fiction and love stories.. but nothing beats the beauty of those flowery literature writings in adventure books. I’ve read dark books such as the series of “Flower in the Attic”. It’s dark, twisted and lots of dramas but the way the author spins the words makes me love it so much.

I’m just a normal girl from Malaysia. I love reading and treats it as my savior. I was 8 when I was bed ridden. But i fought off my sickness and live strongly till today. I take courage from the characters in the books I’ve read. I learn to be positive from them too. And now I’m in University learning engineering.
I’d love to see what kind of adventure books you have in your bookshelves that you can offer to me. Some that have a strong and unexpected endings. 😉 Or maybe you have something else to offer that will broadens more of my adventure world.

I hope you would choose me. Thank you for reading this Ann. ❤

I was pleased with this chance selection for several reasons. Firstly, Aina is in many ways representative of the numerous people I’ve heard from over the past five years who have found books to be a source of strength and support often in very difficult circumstances. It’s amazing how stories have the potential to transport us, allowing us not only to travel to new places but also to escape tough situations, even if only for a while.

Secondly, I identified with Aina’s childhood discovery of the power of reading. I wasn’t bedridden as a child like her, but I did suffer from an illness that restricted my movement. At around the age of seven, I was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis and over the next six years or so, the condition migrated around my body, affecting my knees, elbows, jaw, hands and feet at different times.

I was lucky that I recovered with relatively little lasting damage. However, one legacy of that experience – along with my appalling handwriting – is undoubtedly my love of reading. At a time when walking was often painful, I could always rely on a book to take me away.

For me, it wasn’t Enid Blyton who unlocked this door (although I did enjoy many of her books) but the Canadian writer LM Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. When I finished it, aged eight, I knew that I would go to university to study literature. (I also decided to spell my name with an ‘e’, but that resolution didn’t stick!)

Finally, I really like the way Aina expresses herself. ‘Blog walking’ – what a lovely way to describe surfing through sites online. And the fact that she is in Malaysia feels fitting too – the first person to show the generosity that I received from so many strangers during 2012 was Rafidah in Kuala Lumpur, the woman who volunteered to choose my Malaysian book and post it to me four days after I launched my appeal for people to help me read the world.

As for Aina’s request, well the book selected itself before I’d got to the end of her comment. I’m not a big reader of adventure stories, but during my quest there was one such book that had caused a sensation in its region and made it onto my list as a result. The novel in question was Telesa: The Covenant Keeper, the first in the self-published YA trilogy by Samoan author Lani Wendt Young.  This fusion of Samoan myth and culture with American high-school fantasy had found fans in several countries and proved to be an intriguing read.

So there you go, Aina. It’s on its way to you. Thanks for stopping by the blog and all the best for your studies.

If you’d like a chance to receive a postcard from my bookshelf, visit the project post and leave a comment telling me a bit about you and what you like to read. The next recipient will be announced on July 15.

Postcard from my bookshelf #5

May 15, 2017 By in Post-world, Postcards from my bookshelf, The stories Tags: , , , , , , 7 Comments

Last month, I sent a translated book to someone from the nation that showed most interest in my 2012 Year of Reading the World. This month, I’m giving one to someone from the country that, in many ways, provided me with the biggest challenge during the quest.

While I struggled to find a single translated work from numerous places – many of the lusophone and francophone African nations had no commercially available literature in English, for example – there were some nations that posed the opposite conundrum. These were the countries that had such a wealth of literature available that the idea of choosing a single book seemed ludicrous.

India was by far the trickiest of these. As I recorded in my blog post at the time, I was swamped with recommendations for titles from this vast and diverse nation. And every time I asked someone to help me choose my Indian book, they simply added more suggestions to my list.

Luckily, just as I was beginning to despair of ever finding a satisfactory way of selecting one thing to read, a journalist called Suneetha Balakrishnan came to my rescue. She had noticed that all the titles people had suggested were written in English. To her mind, this was second best when you considered that there was so much Indian literature written in other languages – the subcontinent is home to 22 officially recognised tongues, along with hundreds of others.

One of her favourite writers was MT Vasudevan Nair, who writes in Malayalam. She suggested I try to find a translation of one of his books.

Suneetha’s argument made sense to me. More than that, as happened so often that year, it highlighted a blind spot in my thinking. Despite the quest being driven by my desire to read more diversely, it hadn’t occurred to me to seek out Indian literature written in languages other than English.

I followed her suggestion and found a translation of Vasudevan Nair’s novel Kaalam. I enjoyed it very much and it opened the door for me to start exploring numerous other Indian literatures, which I have continued to do over the last five years.

(Incidentally, the exchange provided a lightbulb moment for Suneetha too. Realising how neglected Indian literature in languages other than English often is, she launched her own Reading Across India blog, an idea which she adapted for Mslexia magazine.)

Suneetha applied for a postcard and I was very tempted to choose a book for her. Had I done so, it would probably have been my UK choice, Caryl Lewis’s Martha, Jack and Shanco, or another book translated from Welsh because my discussion with Suneetha also inspired me to think about literature in languages other than English in my home country.

However, this project is about sending books to strangers and, although Suneetha and I have never met in person, I feel we are friends through the exchanges we have had. (Thanks once again for all your interest, support and wise words, Suneetha. I hope we will share many more reading ideas in future.)

As such, I have decided to send a book to one of Suneetha’s compatriots instead as a sort of thank you-by-proxy. After reading through the many Indian entries, I settled on Azfar Zaidi. He told me this:

I’ve been reading the replies to this post, and frankly, I feel a little unqualified. […] I’m nowhere near as “international” as anyone here. I’ve never sat on an airplane, and there are few cities in India that I have explored. But I read, and that breaks borders. Being able to imagine a parallel world through the descriptions and situations in a book is one thing I love to do. However, I believe that every book has a bit of its author’s own world in it. No matter how fictitious a book is, there’s an element of the author in it. It gets reflected by the way he narrates, describes or argues. Exploring parallel worlds through the medium of books somewhat compensates for the (current) limits of my world. I don’t have a specific genre to request. I read what comes my way, and I leave it to your discretion as to which book you’d like to send me (if you do). I’m only looking to widen the horizons of my mind. And I hope you’ll help.

Just as Suneetha’s words did five years ago, Azfar’s comment struck a chord with me. Reading does break borders and expand horizons. That was one of the most powerful things I took away from the project and continue to experience with my literary explorations to this day.

He also made me think almost instantaneously of the book I wanted to send him. It is a memoir by someone who, like Azfar, had never been on a plane, but ended up discovering the world through reading and his own curiosity.

The book in question is An African in Greenland by the Togolese writer and explorer Tété-Michel Kpomassie. It was one of the most joyous, funny and heartwarming books I read during 2012.

Azfar, it will shortly be travelling across the world to you. I hope you enjoy it.

If you’d like a chance to receive a postcard from my bookshelf, visit the project post and leave a comment telling me a bit about you and what you like to read. The next recipient will be announced on June 15.

Choosing a book for Donald Trump: Bonus World Book Day postcard from my bookshelf

April 23, 2017 By in Post-world, Postcards from my bookshelf, The stories Tags: , , , , , , , , 14 Comments

Happy World Book Day! (At least to those outside the UK and Ireland, where we mark World Book Day on a different date to the rest of the planet. Don’t get me started…)

In honour of this day celebrating the joy of reading, many people give one another books. In Barcelona, for example, where the concept originated and the date coincides with Diada de Sant Jordi, around 10 per cent of the city’s book sales take place today as thousands of residents exchange written works and roses. I was there last year and it’s an amazing party!

As a result, I decided to follow suit and take the opportunity to send an extra postcard from my bookshelf. This translated book will be the only one I select for someone who didn’t apply to be one of my 12 recipients.

Below is a copy of the letter I sent accompanying the novel I chose.

Dear President Trump

Happy World Book Day!

I’m an author and TED speaker living in the UK. In 2012, I set myself the challenge of reading a book from every country in the world in one year. It turned out to be an amazing adventure, with people around the globe researching, translating and even writing stories to help me achieve my goal.

One nation turned out to be a particularly strong supporter of the project, however. Around a third of the views that my blog, ayearofreadingtheworld.com, has ever received have come from the US. That’s more than three times the number coming from my homeland, which was the second-most-interested country.

Many of your citizens, Mr President, are passionately interested in exploring stories from beyond their borders. Judging by the statistics from my blog, you are the leader of the world’s most internationally curious English-speaking nation.

In recognition of this fact, I wanted to send you a book as a gift. It’s part of a project I’m doing this year to celebrate the five-year anniversary of my original quest. Every month, I’m choosing a translated book to send to a stranger. Earlier in April, I posted a book to a book editor in New Orleans in celebration of the overwhelming American support my project received. However, as many people mark World Book Day by giving books as gifts, I decided to send an extra title today to you.

The book I’ve chosen is The First Wife by Paulina Chiziane, the first woman to be come a published novelist in Mozambique. It’s translated from the Portuguese by David Brookshaw and published by Archipelago Books, one of a number of US-based small presses doing great work to open up international literature to English speakers.

I love this book because it’s funny, challenging and thought-provoking. Like so many of the stories from elsewhere I have read during and since my quest, it turns a lot of the things we English speakers often take for granted inside out.

I know you’re very busy, so in case you don’t have time to read the whole thing, I wanted to share one passage that I think is particularly powerful. To me, this is a brilliant statement of why inequality works for nobody, even people at the very top:

‘The white man says to the black man: It’s your fault. The rich man says to the poor man: It’s your fault. The man says to the woman: It’s your fault. The woman says to her son: It’s your fault. The son says to the dog: It’s your fault. The dog barks furiously and bites the white man, and the white man once again angrily shouts at the black man: It’s your fault. And so the wheel turns century after century ad infinitum.’

I hope you enjoy the novel.

With best wishes

Ann Morgan

Which high-profile person would you like to send a book to and what would you choose? Let me know in the comments below.

If you’d like a chance to receive a postcard from my bookshelf, visit the project post and leave a comment telling me a bit about you and what you like to read. The next recipient will be announced on May 15.

Postcard from my bookshelf #4

April 15, 2017 By in Post-world, Postcards from my bookshelf, The stories Tags: , , , , , , 8 Comments

One of the things I loved about my Year of Reading the World was the way it brought me into contact with booklovers around the planet. In the five years it’s been going, this blog has had views from more than 230 territories – far more places than the 196 UN-recognised nations (plus Taiwan) that I set out to read books from in 2012.

It’s been brilliant hearing from readers in so many regions and the international nature of the project is a constant reminder to me of the potential stories have to connect us across cultural, geographical, political and religious divides.

However, one nation stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of its interest in the quest. Roughly a third of all the views this website has ever had have come from the US. That’s three times as many as those from the next most-interested country: my homeland, the UK. Indeed, it was the interest of US-based TV channel CNN International that first brought the project onto the radar of many people around the world.

As such, I decided that this month’s translated book gift should go to someone from the US, in recognition of that nation’s enthusiasm for the idea of reading the world.

As you might imagine from the stats, there have been lots of American entries for this project. These include people of all ages and backgrounds, many of whom have inspiring things to say about what books have done for them. There are aspiring writers, librarians, students, teachers, translators and many others in the mix. And there are a number of people who have faced or are facing extraordinary personal challenges.

I was struggling to pick a winner. But then one comment caught my eye and I knew in an instant which book I wanted to send to that person.

The message came from Jane Banks, a university professor-turned-book editor in New Orleans. She wrote this:

I mostly edit books by non-native writers. I have edited two books on the war in the Balkans, both translated from Albanian, one Ph.D. dissertation by a student from Iran, a book about utopian urban planning in Europe and Central America by a professor from Portugal, and my current book by a professor in Australia on video piracy and online culture in her native China.

I love these projects because they give me a window on other countries and cultures and because armchair traveling is next best to the real thing. I would love to read books, fiction or non fiction, that have a significant sense of place. I live in New Orleans and find that books set here often use the city itself as a character. I’d like to read books like that, from any country at all.

Immediately, I thought of the novel Metropole by Hungarian writer Ferenc Karinthy. It’s an extraordinary book in which a linguist accidentally gets on the wrong plane and finds himself in a country where, unusually for him, he can make neither head nor tail of the language. Disorientated and increasingly anxious, he wanders around a city that becomes ever more menacing and strange – a character in its own right, just as Jane describes.

So there you are, Jane. This one’s on its way to you. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

There will be a bonus postcard from my bookshelf this month in celebration of World Book Day. Keep your eyes peeled for an announcement on 23 April. 

And if you’d like a chance to receive a postcard from my bookshelf, visit the project post and leave a comment telling me a bit about you and what you like to read. The next regular recipient will be announced on May 15.