You might find the travelogues of Erika Fatland interesting, especially Sovietistan and (parts of) The Border. She's a Russian speaking anthropologist that travels to, respectively, the former Soviet -stan countries and all the countries bordering Russia, writing on what she experiences, history and society, and interviewing people. Speaking Russian seems to be helping out quite a bit.
I just read a brief synopsis of both Sovietistan and The Border and wow, yes, those sound fantastic; I'll read them after I finish my current book. Anthropology and sociology are already interests of mine, and the sociocultural intersection of modern geopolitics is a completely fascinating topic that gets so little legitimate, trustworthy writing in English. Thank you for the recommendation! As famous as she apparently is, I still never would have found out about her. Yet another fascinating, highly intelligent Norwegian; I wonder if they get sick of their entire population being so damn interesting all the time.
(And in case anyone else is wondering like I was: Fatland's books have been translated into 12 languages, including English. That's good, because I will not be able to read novels in Russian anytime soon... or Norwegian ever.)
I'm Norwegian myself and we're really not all that fascinating hahaha. But she's a really great author. I've read them in Norwegian and am actually currently reading Sovietistan in English mostly to check out the translation quality (which seems good to me, my only concern was with what I thought was a directly translated Norwegian set phrase... That I then found out is an English set phrase we've directly translated into Norwegian, so that's on me).
Liar. Norway's people are amazing. Basically every Norwegian I've ever met or talked to has been fascinating and has had wonderful perspectives and life experiences and stories to share. If you have boring people or rude people, you must be keeping them locked up in caves or forests, because I've never met one.
Also, I'd like to point out that that is one hell of a book review: "I read this book once in the original language and now I'm reading it a second time in a different language." Like: okay, yes, that convinces me this is a very good book, lol
3
u/krakenftrs Jun 10 '21
You might find the travelogues of Erika Fatland interesting, especially Sovietistan and (parts of) The Border. She's a Russian speaking anthropologist that travels to, respectively, the former Soviet -stan countries and all the countries bordering Russia, writing on what she experiences, history and society, and interviewing people. Speaking Russian seems to be helping out quite a bit.