Around the world in 80 books: week 5

 

Welcome to week 5 of Tower Road Branch's world tour: Around the World in 80 Books! Over the course of 8 weeks I'll be recommending 80 books set in 80 different places across the globe. All the locations included in our journey will be chosen completely at random using the random country generator from randomlists.com.

 

Where will fate take us next?

 

If you missed the first four weeks of our tour, check them out here: 

Week 1 

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

 

Otherwise, let's jump right in and head over to.....

 

 

 

Namibia  

 

Binti: The Complete Trilogy (Binti 1-3) by Nnedi Okorafor [2019]

In her Hugo- and Nebula-winning novella, Nnedi Okorafor introduced us to Binti, a young Himba girl with the chance of a lifetime: to attend the prestigious Oomza University. Despite her family's concerns, Binti's talent for mathematics and her aptitude with astrolabes make her a prime candidate to undertake this interstellar journey.

But everything changes when the jellyfish-like Medusae attack Binti's spaceship, leaving her the only survivor. Now, Binti must fend for herself, alone on a ship full of the beings who murdered her crew, with five days until she reaches her destination.

There is more to the history of the Medusae--and their war with the Khoush--than first meets the eye. If Binti is to survive this voyage and save the inhabitants of the unsuspecting planet that houses Oomza Uni, it will take all of her knowledge and talents to broker the peace.

 

Learn more about Namibia  |  Find more resources on Namibia

 

 

 

 

 

 

China  

 

Land of Big Numbers by Te-Ping Chen [2021]

Gripping and compassionate, Land of Big Numbers depicts the diverse and legion Chinese people, their history, their government, and how all of that has tumbled—messily, violently, but still beautifully—into the present.
 
Cutting between clear-eyed realism and tongue-in-cheek magical realism, Chen’s stories coalesce into a portrait of a people striving for openings where mobility is limited. Twins take radically different paths: one becomes a professional gamer, the other a political activist. A woman moves to the city to work at a government call center and is followed by her violent ex-boyfriend. A man is swept into the high-risk, high-reward temptations of China’s volatile stock exchange. And a group of people sit, trapped for no reason, on a subway platform for months, waiting for official permission to leave.
 
With acute social insight, Te-Ping Chen layers years of experience reporting on the ground in China with incantatory prose in this taut, surprising debut, proving herself both a remarkable cultural critic and an astonishingly accomplished new literary voice.

 

Learn more about China  |  Find more resources on China

 

 

 

 

 

Greenland  

 

Last Night in Nuuk by Niviaq Korneliussen [2019]

A witty and fearless debut from a stunning new voice, Last Night in Nuuk is a work of daring invention about young life in Greenland. Through monologues, emails, and text exchanges, she brilliantly weaves together the coming of age of five distinct characters: a woman who’s “gone off sausage” (men); her brother, in a secret affair with a powerful married man; a lesbian couple confronting an important transition; and the troubled young woman who forces them all to face their fears. With vibrant imagery and daring prose, Korneliussen writes honestly about finding yourself and growing into the person you were meant to be. Praised for creating “its own genre” (Politiken, Denmark), Last Night in Nuuk is a brave entrance onto the literary scene and establishes her as a voice that cannot be ignored.

 

Learn more about Greenland  |  Find more resources on Greenland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portugal  

 

The History of the Siege of Lisbon by José Saramago [1989]

"If proofreaders were given their freedom and did not have their hands and feet tied by a mass of prohibitions more binding than the penal code, they would soon transform the face of the world, establish the kingdom of universal happiness, giving drink to the thirsty, food to the famished, peace to those who live in turmoil, joy to the sorrowful ... for they would be able to do all these things simply by changing the words ..." The power of the word is evident in Portuguese author José Saramago's novel, The History of the Siege of Lisbon. His protagonist, a proofreader named Raimundo Silva, adds a key word to a history of Portugal and thus rewrites not only the past, but also his own life.

Brilliantly translated from the Portuguese by Giovanni Pontiero, The History of the Siege of Lisbon is a meditation on the differences between historiography, historical fiction, and "stories inserted into history." The novel is really two stories in one: the reimagined history of the 1147 siege of Lisbon that Raimundo feels compelled to write and the story of Raimundo's life, including his unexpected love affair with the editor, Maria Sara. In Saramago's masterful hands, the strands of this complex tale weave together to create a satisfying whole.

 

Learn more about Portugal  |  Find more resources on Portugal

 

 

 

 

 

Kenya  

 

Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor [2013]

From a breathtaking new voice, a novel about a splintered family in Kenya—a story of power and deceit, unrequited love, survival and sacrifice.

Odidi Oganda, running for his life, is gunned down in the streets of Nairobi. His grief-stricken sister, Ajany, just returned from Brazil, and their father bring his body back to their crumbling home in the Kenyan drylands, seeking some comfort and peace. But the murder has stirred memories long left untouched and unleashed a series of unexpected events: Odidi and Ajany’s mercurial mother flees in a fit of rage; a young Englishman arrives at the Ogandas’ house, seeking his missing father; a hardened policeman who has borne witness to unspeakable acts reopens a cold case; and an all-seeing Trader with a murky identity plots an overdue revenge. In scenes stretching from the violent upheaval of contemporary Kenya back through a shocking political assassination in 1969 and the Mau Mau uprisings against British colonial rule in the 1950s, we come to learn the secrets held by this parched landscape, buried deep within the shared past of the family and of a conflicted nation.

Here is a spellbinding novel about a brother and sister who have lost their way; about how myths come to pass, history is written, and war stains us forever.

 

Learn more about Kenya  |  Find more resources on Kenya

 

 

 

 

 

The Faroe Islands  

 

The Blood Strand (Faroes #1) by Chris Ould [2016]

Having left the Faroes as a child, Jan Reyna is now a British police detective, and the islands are foreign to him. But he is drawn back when his estranged father is found unconscious with a shotgun by his side and someone else’s blood at the scene. Then a man’s body is washed up on an isolated beach. Is Reyna’s father responsible?

Looking for answers, Reyna falls in with local detective Hjalti Hentze. But as the stakes get higher and Reyna learns more about his family and the truth behind his mother’s flight from the Faroes, he must decide whether to stay, or to forsake the strange, windswept islands for good.

 

Learn more about The Faroe Islands  |  Find more resources on The Faroe Islands

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Indonesia  

 

 

Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan [2004]

A wry, affecting tale set in a small town on the Indonesian coast, Man Tiger tells the story of two interlinked and tormented families and of Margio, a young man ordinary in all particulars except that he conceals within himself a supernatural female white tiger. The inequities and betrayals of family life coalesce around and torment this magical being. An explosive act of violence follows, and its mysterious cause is unraveled as events progress toward a heartbreaking revelation.

Lyrical and bawdy, experimental and political, this extraordinary novel announces the arrival of a powerful new voice on the global literary stage.

 

Learn more about Indonesia  |  Find more resources on Indonesia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trinidad and Tobago  

 

Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud [2020]

An electrifying novel of an unconventional family in Trinidad mended by their individual, and collective, quests for love

After Betty Ramdin's husband dies, she invites a colleague, Mr. Chetan, to move in with her and her son, Solo. Over time, the three become a family, loving each other deeply and depending upon one another. Then, one fateful night, Solo overhears Betty confiding in Mr. Chetan and learns a secret that plunges him into torment.

Solo flees Trinidad for New York to carve out a lonely existence as an undocumented immigrant, and Mr. Chetan remains the singular thread holding mother and son together. But soon, Mr. Chetan's own burdensome secret is revealed, with heartbreaking consequences. Love After Love interrogates love and family in all its myriad meanings and forms, asking how we might exchange an illusory love for one that is truly fulfilling.

In vibrant, addictive Trinidadian prose, Love After Love questions who and how we love, the obligations of family, and the consequences of choices made in desperation.

 

Learn more about Trinidad and Tobago  |  Find more resources on Trinidad and Tobago

 

 

 

 

 

Mauritius  

 

Eve out of Her Ruins by Ananda Devi [2016]

With brutal honesty and poetic urgency, Ananda Devi relates the tale of four young Mauritians trapped in their country's endless cycle of fear and violence: Eve, whose body is her only weapon and source of power; Savita, Eve's best friend, the only one who loves Eve without self-interest, who has plans to leave but will not go alone; Saadiq, gifted would-be poet, inspired by Rimbaud, in love with Eve; Clélio, belligerent rebel, waiting without hope for his brother to send for him from France.

Eve out of Her Ruins is a heartbreaking look at the dark corners of the island nation of Mauritius that tourists never see, and a poignant exploration of the construction of personhood at the margins of society. Awarded the prestigious Prix des cinq continents upon publication as the best book written in French outside of France, Eve Out of her Ruins is a harrowing account of the violent reality of life in her native country by the figurehead of Mauritian literature.

 

Learn more about Mauritius  |  Find more resources on Mauritius

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesotho  

 

Sometimes There is a Void: Memoirs of an Outsider by Zakes Mda [2011]

Sometimes There Is A Void is a remarkable record of the life of awardwinning novelist and playwright Zakes Mda.

Eminently readable, Mda weaves past and present together to give us an intensely personal story of the writer’s development in life, in love and in learning. Forced to follow his father, PAC ‘founding spirit’ A P Mda, into exile in Lesotho (then still Basutoland) at the age of fourteen, Zakes Mda finds freedom from close parental discipline irresistible and becomes a frequenter of shebeens and an exponent of fast living at an early age, although he is
eventually drawn back to wanting a good education above all other things. After many twists and turns, and a few false starts, we follow his journey to Athens, Ohio, where he is now professor of creative writing. Forthright almost to a fault, it is a vigorous and colourful story enriched by Mda’s dry humour
and his ability to engage with his reader on a very personal level.

Always outspoken, Mda has in the past voiced his disappointment in, and been critical of, what he sees as ‘crony capitalism’ and the ‘patronage system’ in the ‘new’ South Africa – a lot of which was highlighted in his
last novel Black Diamond – and finds that he has been side-lined in many aspects of South African culture where he feels he could make a significant contribution. Because he ‘resisted the centre’ and ‘stayed on the periphery’,
he regards himself as an outsider’ – hence the book’s subtitle. Admirers of Mda’s fiction will enjoy getting to know more about the man.

 

Learn more about Lesotho  |  Find more resources on Lesotho

 

 

 

Where to next? Find out in Around the World in 80 Books: Week 6