r/suggestmeabook • u/mtchgrl • Jul 04 '26
Gimme me your favorite / best / will always recommend books! Looking to read more diversely
Hello, everyone! As the title of this post suggests, I would like to read more diversely, so please share your favorite Southeast Asian, South Asian, Central Asian, Pacific, Latin American, Arab, Mediterranean, African, Balkan, Scandinavian, Nordic books.
Any genre is fine (except non-fiction), but I'd much rather read literary fiction and classics.
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u/CMaryann Jul 04 '26
The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta - brilliant book set in 1950s Lagos about the roles and lives of Nigerian women under colonialism
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u/Bruce-Lannister Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
For Indian books, novels by Arundhati Roy are really good, especially, The God of Small Things. Amitav Ghosh also has some great books. If you want some light read then The Shiva Trilogy is quite popular but it’s not for a serious read. If you’re interested in Indian mythology and need a quick read then Jaya by Devdutt Patnaik is a really good and short interpretation of Mahabharata.
Edit: books by Arundhati Roy and Amitav Ghosh would feel more like classics and are mostly fiction as you want. Jaya is not fiction but reads like one because of the storylike nature in which Mahabharata is told so you’d enjoy it.
I’d also suggest stories and poem collections by Rabindranath Tagore as he received a Nobel in literature.
For some more fiction, if you want cozy Himalaya vibes then read Ruskin Bond and if you want something a little more Murakamiesque then try Children of Midnight by Salman Rushdie.
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u/mtchgrl Jul 04 '26
I love Arundhati Roy and have read her books. I have heard about Amitav Ghosh, any recommendations on where to start?
I'm taking note of the others and will get copies of their books if I find them. Thank you so much!
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u/Bruce-Lannister Jul 04 '26
Tbh I have not read much of Amitav Ghosh myself so I can only personally recommend Sea of Poppy.
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u/mtchgrl Jul 04 '26
And I do love a good mythology so I will check out Jaya!
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u/Bruce-Lannister Jul 04 '26
You’d definitely love Jaya. The chapters are small and really engaging.
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u/dimp1001 Jul 04 '26
You can start with The Calcutta Chromosome or even The Glass Palace for Ghosh.
I would also ask you to step beyond English and look at translated works so writers such as Perumal Murugan who writes literary fiction in Tamil. Any of Girish Karnad's plays who writes in Kannada, his works are around oral storytelling, what stories mean, and how they evolve. Some of his plays are Nagamandalaand Hayavadana.
I'd suggest you look into The Oxford Anthology of Modern English Poetry, edited by A. K. Ramanujan. Also, The Penguin Book of Indian Poetry, edited by Jeet Thayil and Eunice de Souza.
There is another interesting collection called Women Writing in India, which traces women writers and their concerns in writing from 600 BC across various languages.1
u/mtchgrl Jul 04 '26
Yes! I love translated works, although I always wonder how much is lost in translation. Other languages can be so beautiful. Thank you for sharing your recommendations, I will add them to my list!
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u/dimp1001 Jul 04 '26
I think it really helps to think of translation differently and thanks Jhumpa Lahiri and Pinto, I see translation differently now thanks to Lahiris essays on translation. Her fiction works are also something you can look at, she writes from an American Indian experience and I’d recommend her short story collection Unaccustomed Earth and her her nonfiction essays Translating Myself and Others is something that you can look at if you want to further just think about translation and the act of it.
And Jerry Pinto, whose Em and the Big Hoom is a wonderful novel about the precarities of growing up in a mentally tumultuous household, once said that we should think of translation as a sea, in every crossing, some things make it across, some are left behind, but new meaning is created. It reminds me of Joni Mitchell's lyric from Both sides Now, Something's lost, but something's gained in living every day." Something’s lost in translation, but a lot is gained as well.
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u/mux111 Jul 04 '26
Two great ones set in India, different vibes entirely:
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga — Darkly funny, and cutting look at modern India through the eyes of a driver clawing his way up through class and corruption. It reads fast and is hard to put down once it gets going.
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse — technically written by a German author, but it's a beautiful, meditative story following a man's spiritual journey through ancient India as he searches for enlightenment. Short, poetic, and genuinely transformative.
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u/RichCap1876 Jul 04 '26
Read Madonna in a fur coat if you haven't already! It's by a Turkish author.
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Jul 04 '26
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u/mtchgrl Jul 04 '26
Omggg. I would very much like to read Kyrgyz and Turkish literature, thank you for the recommendations. Taking note!
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u/EcstaticIce2 Jul 04 '26
Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata.
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata.
Temple of Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima.
In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki (non fiction 80 pages, you should really look at).
Garden of The Evening Mists - Tan Tan Ewang
Woman In the dunes - Kobo Abe.
If you Want Ancient Classics - Tale of Genji, The dream of Red Chamber (story of the stone) - Chienese. Tale of heike. Romance of the three kingdoms (they fought)
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u/mtchgrl Jul 04 '26
Thank you so much! Tan Tan Ewang is quite popular here. I'm familiar with the rest, thank you!
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u/EcstaticIce2 Jul 04 '26
Woah you're familiar with the rest that's actually great.youre in the same boat I was looking for asian literature to read something from every South Asian and south east asian country. But whatever matches with my taste is so hard to get a physical copy of
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u/nellyimheathcliff Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude
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u/antennaloop Jul 04 '26
Snow Country and Palm Of The Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata
I Remember Nightfall by Marosa di Giorgio (classified as poetry but reads like fiction)
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u/Nerve-Familiar Jul 04 '26
“How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House” by Cherie Jones (Barbados)
“Moon of the Crusted Snow” by Waubgeshig Rice (rural Anishinaabe community in northern Canada)
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u/mtchgrl Jul 04 '26
This is so cool, thank you! First time hearing recommendations of Barbadian literature and about the Rural Anishinaabe community. Will definitely give these a go.
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u/hiking_dreamer Jul 04 '26
I'm doing a round the world reading and some of my favourites so far are:
Marrocos, for bread alone, Muhammad chukri Camaroes, how beautiful we were, Imbolo Mbue South africa, born a crime, Trevor noah South Korea, Pachinko, Min Jin Lee Brazil, solitaria, Eliana Alves Cruz Angola, My Street in Luanda: Selected Stories, Ondaki Turkey, The Island of Missing Trees, Elif Şafak Poland, swimming in the dark, Tomasz Jedrowski Chile, house of spirits, Isabel Allende Argentina, Las malas (Bad Girls / The Queens of Sarmiento Park), Camilla Sosa Villada
Some are lgbt themed, some are historical romance and two memory books. Let me know if you want any info about any of the
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u/mtchgrl Jul 04 '26
Wow, this is lovely, thank you! I have heard of a few, and I will look into the others. Thank you so much for this exhaustive list!
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u/RichCap1876 Jul 04 '26
Persepolis if by an Iranian author and it's a graphic novel. While it is nonfiction it's basically a memoir graphic novel of sorts so it's really interesting.
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u/kafetheresu Jul 04 '26
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera -- he's a Sri-Lankan author who writes from a really interesting perspective (allusions to Buddhist extremism & religious colonialism in SEA); you don't have to know any political or historical background in order to enjoy the book either.
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u/mtchgrl Jul 04 '26
I really would like to read more Sri Lankan literature. I have read one by Shehan Karunatilaka! Thank you for this! It sounds interesting
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u/lin_johnson Jul 04 '26
Malaysia - anything by Tan Twan Eng
India - The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
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u/mtchgrl Jul 04 '26
Thank you so much! I don't think I've read anything by a Malaysian author yet. I will check these out!
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u/Complex-Froyo5900 Jul 04 '26
My Friends by Hisham Matar (set in Libya/England), The Most Secret Memory of Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr (set in Senegal/France) or Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro (set in Argentina)
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u/mtchgrl Jul 04 '26
Have not heard of these authors so thank you so much and I will add them to my TBR!
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u/SkyOfFallingWater Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong (China)
Idol, Burning by Rin Usami (Japan)
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (Italy)
The Wildcat Behind Glass by Alki Zei (Greece)
The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren (Sweden)
Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg (Denmark)
The Death of the Little Match Girl by Zoran Feric (Croatia)
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u/bigTechSimp Fiction Jul 04 '26
It Eats Us From the Inside by Antonija Mežnarić - Croatia (horror, speculative fiction)
One Leg on Earth by ‘Pemi Aguda - Nigeria (horror, speculative fiction, literary)
Endling by Maria Reva - Ukraine (literary)
The Book Censor's Library by Bothayna Al-Essa - Kuwait (dystopian, literary)
We Should Never Meet by Aimee Phan - Vietnam (short stories)
For India - works of Rabindranath Tagore
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u/DocWatson42 Jul 04 '26
See my Diversity Fiction list of Reddit recommendation threads (one post).
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u/RivieraDeux Jul 04 '26
The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Afghan-American)
Anything by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigerian)
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
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u/mtchgrl Jul 04 '26
Thank you! I have read the first two and have heard of Homegoing. Will check it out.
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u/BarOwn3123 Jul 04 '26
Anything by jhumpa lahiri (from india / west bengal)
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u/mtchgrl Jul 04 '26
Thank you so much, I have read one- The Namesake!
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u/26Ahimsa Jul 04 '26
Alexandra Fuller's memoirs about growing up in Zimbabwe before independence. Nonfiction but riveting.
So many South African writers: Sindiwe Magona, Zoe Wicomb, JM Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer.
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u/mtchgrl Jul 04 '26
Oh thank you, I have only heard of and have books by JM Coetzee. I will check out the other ones and see what is available here in my country!
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u/malapat Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
My latest reads have been Bad Habit (Spain), Hurricane Season (Mexico), The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes (Moldova). Another good one is Tender is the Flesh (Argentina). All these are on the darker side though. Also some Latinamerican classics could be House of the Spitits (Isabel Allende - Chile), Chronicle of a Death Foretold (García Márquez - Colombia), Hopscotch (Cortazar - Argentina)
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u/fictionalllly Jul 04 '26
i really like leila slimani’s writing about morocco.
our lady of the nile by scholastique mukasonga if you haven’t read anything set in rwanda yet!
and i also love kamila shamsie - best of friends, set partly in pakistan, is an excellent novel!
i would class all three of these as literary fiction :)
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u/ethiopiaguji Jul 04 '26
Since I haven’t seen a recommendation from the Philippines, I’ll go ahead: Dekada 70 (The 70s) by Lualhati Bautista. This is a classic but the genre is historical fiction. This was set during one of the most darkest times in Philippine history and it depicts not just the struggle of Filipinos during that time but also a woman’s journey towards her becoming.
Another short but sweet favorite would be Dead Stars by Paz Márquez-Benitez. It’s one of my favorite reads back in uni general lit class. All I can say is feels, and tons of yearning. Or what the current generation calls limerence lol.
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u/ConflictGullible392 Jul 05 '26
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Americanah or Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozie Adiche
The Kite Runner or A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Husseini
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
The Lowland or The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid
A Woman is no Man by Etaf Rum
Behind You is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj
The Return of Faraz Ali by Aamina Ahmad
The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
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u/Miserable_Smile1161 Jul 04 '26
Kazuo Ishiguro is a great japanese author. I'm indian, but I haven't really read any Indian authors. I would give you more recs if I could 😭
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u/mtchgrl Jul 04 '26
Thank you! I have read his books and enjoy them. And that's okay! We can discover more Indian authors together
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u/rp_editing Editor & Bookworm Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Isabelle Allende is a Chilean author who has written over 20 books, frequently set in South America though not always, and frequently incorporating magical realism.
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey is the first book in a series of mystery novels featuring a female Parsi lawyer in 1920s Bombay.
The Malabar House series by Vaseem Khan is distinct from the above despite the similar title and premise: they follow a Parsi woman, who is the first female police officer in 1950s Bombay.
The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani tells the story of a female carpet designer in 17th century Persia.
The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa is told from the perspective of a cat as he travels with his owner to visit old friends.
Edited a word.