Books by Non-English native authors

[Coofle]

@Sharmarke....The first time I heard of Chinua achebe was embarassing yet life turning event..a whole class room, me being the only black , and awkwardly I was the only one who did not know chinua achebe!...it was first year university , I was Medical Major but I took the course as elective and all the other students were english major....the topic of discussion that day was "Heart of darkness"...Ironic..

 

@Chubaka .... If you read the works of nagib mahfouz in English and not in the native arabic,,,you are just licking the frost out of an ice-cream!! the guy is amazing in Arabic.

 

@Blessed....African-American authors..I should start reading their books eey..

 

@Apo .... get a book..

[SeeKer]

Nurundin is pompous in real life and he has every reason to be though. I remember seeing him on a panel discussing a play and his answers were brilliant but all the while condescending. Books written by 'foreigners' are always amazing and latin american writers have a way of being poetic in their language that you can't help but melt into the world they so vividly paint. I stopped buying american and british literature six years ago and started collecting african and latin writers. Try this book, "Beneath the lion's gaze" by Maaza Mengiste.

[NGONGE]

Can't say I make any distinction between writers of any language or nationality. A good read is just a good read.

 

But if you must limit yourself to admiring non English speaking writers, I recommend the Indians (Gosh, Seth, Roy, etc).

 

p.s.

For African writers, try Jose Eduardo Agualusa 's The Book Of Chameleons (very original and moving).

 

p.p.s

Chuba, Mahfouz's "Miramar" is brilliant in both Arabic AND English.

[Alpha Blondy]

 

After many years of study in Europe, the young narrator of Season of Migration to the North returns to his village along the Nile in the Sudan, eager to make a contribution to the new postcolonial life of his country. Back home, he discovers a stranger among the familiar faces of childhood—the enigmatic Mustafa Sa’eed. Mustafa takes the young man into his confidence, telling him the story of his own years in London in the early part of the twentieth century, of his brilliant career as an economist, and of the series of fraught and deadly relationships with European women that led to a terrible public reckoning and his return to his native land.

 

But what is the meaning of Mustafa’s shocking confession? Mustafa disappears without explanation, leaving the young man —whom he has asked to look after his wife—in an unsettled and violent no-man’s-land between Europe and Africa, tradition and innovation, holiness and defilement, and man and woman, from which no one will escape unaltered or unharmed.

 

excellent!

[Alpha Blondy]

^naga daa bahasha, the double entendres and what-have-yous......Apo!

[Garnaqsi]

NGONGE;902682 wrote:

But if you must limit yourself to admiring non English speaking writers, I recommend the Indians (Gosh, Seth, Roy, etc).

After a bit of search, it turns out Roy is the one who wrote The God of Small Things? I approve! :cool:

 

@Apo -- three years is quite sometime. But I'm afraid we're not going to accept your naturally gifted claim as by your own admission you replaced reading novels with textbooks. Novels are baby stuff when you compare it to the stuff one can learn from textbooks. :cool:

[guerilla]

The only Nabokov book I've read is Lolita, and his command of the English language matches Hardy & Dickens.

Joseph Conrad books aren't easy reads, The Heart of Darkness cured me of ever touching another of his creations. Is Salman Rushdie considered a native English writer? His writing leaves a lot to be desired either way, likewise that fool Paolo Cuelho.

 

A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiongo is a well written, albeit slightly boring book

[Ismahaan]

I would add Divine Madness:Mohammed Abdulle Hassan (1856-1920) by Profesor Abdi sheikh Abdi .The introduction attempts to examine the literary historical of Sayid Mohammed who was one of the greatest warriors and poets in Somali history.