One Country/One Reading
Europe
- Austria: The Royal Game, Stefan Zweig
- Belgium: Fear and Trembling, Amélie Nothomb
- Czech Republic: A Hunger Artist, Franz Kafka
- Denmark: The Fir Tree, Hans Christian Andersen
- England: Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll
- France: The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- Germany: Perfume, Patrick Süskind
- Greece: Medea, Euripides
- Hungary: Notebook, Agota Kristof
- Iceland: Advent, Gunnar Gunnarsson
- Italy: Novecento, Alessandro Baricco
- Ireland: The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
- Lithuania: Lofoten, Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz Milosz
- Netherlands: Hugh Pine and the Good Place, Janwillem van de Wetering
- Norway: Hunger, Knut Hamsun
- Poland: Cat in an Empty Apartment, Wislawa Szymborska
- Portugal: The Book of Disquietude, Fernando Pessoa (Bernardo Soares)
- Romania: Exit the King, Eugène Ionesco
- Scotland: The Finishing School, Muriel Spark
- Serbia: Early Sorrows, Danilo Kis
- Spain: Peter and the Wolf, Miguelanxo Prado
- Sweden: Maus, Art Spiegelman
- Switzerland: Night Train to Lisbon, Pascal Mercier
- Ukraine: The Portrait, Nikolai Gogol
- Wales: Poison, Roald Dahl
North America
- Antigua: My Brother, Jamaica Kincaid
- Canada: Speak White, Michèle Lalonde
- Cuba: Before Night Falls, Reinaldo Arenas
- Honduras: (lit. Disgust: Thomas Bernhard in El Salvador), Horacio Castellanos Moya
- Jamaica: Hallucinating Foucault, Patricia Duncker
- Martinique: Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, Aimé Césaire
- Saint Lucia: The Star-Apple Kingdom, Derek Walcott
- United States: To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (See also One State/One Reading (USA))
South America
- Argentina: Fictions, Jorge Luis Borges
- Chile: The Postman, Antonio Skármeta
- Colombia: Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
- Brazil: The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Asia
- Afghanistan: Earth and Ashes, Atiq Rahimi
- Cambodia: (lit. The Hill of the 100 Fairies), Jean-Luc Bizien and Sandrine Gestin
- China: The Art Of War, Sun Tzu
- India: Q & A, Vikas Swarup
- Iran: Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
- Iraq: Codex Hammurabi, Hammurabi
- Israel: How to Cure a Fanatic, Amos Oz
- Japan: Patriotism, Yukio Mishima
- Kazakhstan: (lit. Children Games), Anatoli Kim
- Lebanon: (lit. The Chick and the Cat), Praline Gay-Para and Rémi Saillard
- Russia: La Veneziana, Vladimir Nabokov
- Syria: This Isn’t a Parrot, Rafik Schami
- Taiwan: The Toy Revolver, Wang Wenxing
- Thailand: Tales of Thailand, Pira Sudham
- Turkey: (lit. The Unpredictable), Metin Arditi
Africa
- Algeria: The Fall, Albert Camus
- Egypt: Respected Sir, Naguib Mahfouz
- Ethiopia: (lit. The Character of Man), Abbädä Mikael
- Ghana: Fascination, William Boyd
- Mali: Amkoullel, the Fula Child, Amadou Hampâté Bâ
- Mauritius: (lit. Eve of Its Rubble), Ananda Devi
- Morocco: The Rights of the Reader, Daniel Pennac
- South Africa: Boyhood, John Maxwell Coetzee
- Zimbabwe: The Five Lost Aunts of Harriet Bean, Alexander McCall Smith
Oceania
- New Zealand: The Piano, Jane Campion and Kate Pullinger
Antarctica
I want to know how worldwide I am (probably not huge!).
Of course, most of the books I've read are from the United States, England and France.
For each country, I give an example of a book I have read from an author there.
I separate them by continents: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica (who know?), Europe, and Oceania.
I do something similar for the 50 states of the USA.
It's fun to make! Before, for most of the authors I've read, I had just a vague idea where they came from.
Sometimes this is complex when an author has multiple nationalities. I will try to change the most polemic ones as I read from new authors...
The list is subject to change, I'll update as I discover or remember books.
I will put the ones I "prefer" from each country.
I've read most of these in french language, but I wrote the titles in engligh for a better understanding.
(lit.) means literally.
The updates are in highlight.
Updated 2009-11-31.
Very nice, damn I like your format so much better! I may switch mine over! How did you like The Notebook? I have thought about reading that.
I choose this format to be more readable (sorry :P). *wink*
My former foreign litterature teacher makes me read Notebook for her class (some others books here are from her too!). This the story of two heartless kids during the war (the cold war?) and they write a journal. I like it, 3-4 years ago I've read the trilogy: Notebook (re-read), The Proof and The Third Lie. The two other books confused me and make the story weird. The first is the better, I didn't really like the two others...
I need help. Where would you put Russia, in Europe or Asia? (ó ô)
Speaking strictly of Russia (not the former USSR as a whole), I'd vote for Europe; I suspect that earlier Russians saw themselves as far more "European" than "Asian," and I think their culture (mostly) reflected that. There are other members of the former USSR that I'd consider classifying as "Asian," since a lot of the time, they seem to be classed as "Central Asia"...for example, Kyrgystan or Tajikistan. I'd have a harder time with those.
Yugoslavia no longer exists. Kis would count as a Serbian writer.
Thanks. I will change it for Serbia next time I will add a new author. I have to say that I didn't really know that Yugoslavia doesn't exist anymore. I search Kis on Wikipedia, they say "Subotica, Vojvodina, Kingdom of Yugoslavia" and I didn't go any further. I'm not really good in geography and they always change it. They should stop war, so it will be less complicated for me! :P
Lol that is a good as reason as any! Subotica is in Serbia; it is the Hungarian dominated region of Serbia actually... more ethic tensions!
Serbia, Kosovo... they complicate my life!
This is great that Kosovo wants to be independent, it will be a good excuse to discover a book from there! :P
A video for Kosovo: Kosovo, Soldiers Spoof of Beach Boys Kokomo