Good Books from Obscure Places

I'm sure we'll all have no problem finding books and authors from Britain, France, Spain, Russia, etc...but it might be more challenging to find books by Serbian, Georgian or Latvian authors, for example. If you find a good book by an author of one of the lesser known (to us) countries, or set there with a good sense of place, please let the rest of us know here.

A few ideas from the top of my head.

For Belgium I can't recommend Amélie Nothomb enough. The few titles available in swedish have blown me away, and I'll be looking for her in english next, as I know there are more books translated. AntiChrista, about the type of friend that manipulates her way into your family, is a good place to start. I've enjoyed the understated humour of Jean-Philippe Toussaint a lot too. For classic mystery lovers, Georges Simenon and his books about Inspector Maigret have a good rep, although I haven't read them myself.

For Bosnia I heartily recommend Joe Sacco's graphic journalism Safe area Gorazde. A very warm, very moving, very scary documentary in cartoon form, that taught me so much about the conflict on the Balkans.

For Czech Republic, Franz Kafka is the most obvious choice. I find him very readable actually, and much more fun than usually given credit for. Or read Life is elsewhere by Milan Kundera.

For Ukraine try Death and the penguin by Andrej Kurkov, a fun and slightly bizarre romp through post-communist Ukraine about a man who gets a job writing orbituaries for people not yet dead. Or read A short history of tractors in Ukrainian, Marina Lewycka's sweet and funny take on annoying fathers, set among Ukrainian immigrants in the UK.

Transylvania is a province, so Romania is easy for the vampire buff. Stoker's Dracula is the classic, but a large part of The historian by Elizabeth Kostova, on the same theme, is also set here.

Wales grand son is of course Dylan Thomas. I enjoyed his Portrait of the artist as a young dog a whole lot many years ago. Made me laugh.

A few years ago, I read a book entitled Sixpence House by Paul Collins who moved his family from San Francisco to Hay-on-Wye, Wales (the city of books). It's nonfiction, but it's a good read for bibliophiles.

The mystery series featuring Constable Evan Evans by Rhys Bowen is also set in Wales.

Albania:
Il paese dove non si muore mai, by Ornela Vorpsi (available in it, de, en, fr, nl, dk)

For Albania, Ismail Kadaré seems to be well worth checking out. I found The general of the dead army, my first book by him, a decent and readable read, while I suspect he has written better books.

For Malta I read Mark Mills' book The Information Officer. While not outstanding, and written by an American, the book did give a lot of information about Malta during the Second World War, when more bombs fell on it than on London during the Blitz. It was also a thriller/murder mystery, which is always good for a quiet night.

edited to end the bold, so that you wouldn't think that I was shouting at you.

As another Ukraine option (how did you figure out how to bold country names above???) I would recommend Hiding in the Spotlight. A nonfiction/biography of a Ukranian jew who escapes a roadside extermination and becomes a "German" concert pianist. Very engaging, written in a narrative style by the subject's Grandson. A lot of the book also takes place in Germany, but German books are probably a little easier to come by for this challenge.

11: Sounds really interesting! Strange how a country like Ukraine is turning out to be a lot "easier" than one woulds think at a first glance. Lots of good suggestions from there!

For bolding, you need to put a B between arrow brackets (can't write it, as that would mean getting text in bold here!) right before where you want the bold text to start, then /B between the same characters right after where you want it to finish. For italics, swap B for I!

Hmm, does anyone know how you could actually show those characters? That would be a halluvalot easier...

Just want to see if this works word.

I tried another way of explaining it but it didn't work.

to start writing bold <b>
to end the bold </b>

to start writing italics <i>
to end the italics </i>

@16 Yay! You did it!

Just bumping this to the top...

By request, here's a list I posted elsewhere in this group. Not sure how many of them count as obscure places but I guess that depends on where each reader comes from. Hope the list is of use to someone out there.

Austria - Marie Antoinette*, Antonia Fraser
Belgium - The Harrowing, Robert Dinsdale
Bulgaria - The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
Cyprus - A Watermelon, A Fish and a Bible, Christy Lefteri
Greece - Captain Corelli's Mandolin*, Louis de Bernieres
The Athenian Murders*, Jose Carlos Samoza
Zorba the Greek*, Nikos Kazantzakis
Hungary - Embers, Sandor Marai
Ireland - Star of the Sea*, Joseph O'Neill
At Swim, Two Boys*, Jamie O'Neill
Leichtenstein - Neither Here Nor There*, Bill Bryson
Luxembourg - 'Luxembourg'* (short story) in Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, Robert Shearman
Malta - The Information Officer, Mark Mills
Montenegro - Pillars of Hercules, Paul Theroux
Netherlands - A Widow for One Year*, John Irving
Norway - Sophie's World*, Jostein Gaarder
Poland - Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels
Romania - Dracula*, Bram Stoker
Russia - The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
Spain - The Shadow of the Wind*, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Switzerland - Hotel du Lac*, Anita Brookner
Turkey - Birds Without Wings*, Louis de Bernieres

There are a couple of 'double ups' there, I'm afraid - I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing in terms of the challenge. I've starred the ones I particularly recommend though, unfortunately there are a few clunkers in there too. There are also a few (the Bill Bryson one in particular) whose connection with the country in question is fairly slight but I guess they're better than nothing.

ETA touchstones

For Estonia, check out Purge by Sofi Oksanen. Original, dark and complex, but rewarding about the meeting between a communist collaborator and a young woman who's escaped from trafficking, set just after the fall of the Soviet Union. One of the best reads this year for me.

Bump!

Might not be for everyone, but if a rather special narrator, some grotesque and an unsolved mystery is your thing, I recommend Samko Tale's cemetery book as a good choice for Slovakia. It's a little bit like a darker The earth hums in B flat.

Another Bosnian suggestion: The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric

LATVIA: The Earth is Singing by Vanessa Curtis - a YA kind of book about WW2

LIECHTENSTEIN: Ludmila, the Legend of Liechtenstein by Paul Gallico - charming book about a cow

LITHUANIA: The Issa Valley by Czeslaw Milosz - rural life of yesteryear

also Salvaged Pages by Alexandra Zapruder - heart-wrenching diaries kept by teenagers in ww2

ESTONIA: Spring by Oskar Luts (if you can get English copy) most enjoyable tale of schoolkids years ago: a classic of the country

SLOVAKIA:A False Dawn:My Life as a Gypsy Woman in Slovakia by Ilona Lackova

PORTUGAL: If you like Victorian classic type books, check out Eca de Queiros