TCTC Library
English 102/103
Non-American Authors Project

Some Recommended Titles

 

Below you will find a listing of literary works by non-American (and Native American) authors that are well suited to this project. They all present a well-defined "social record," reflecting in some way the culture, attitudes, beliefs, issues, or events of their times. There are listings for geographical regions, as well as for Native American authors.

  • For each listed author, a link will direct you to an overview of the author's life and career.
  • For each listed title, a link will direct you to an overview or description of that literary work.

An important part of this project is choosing a book that is right for you. So this background information should help you make an informed decision. You'll want to select a book that you will find interesting and that you can relate to. Finally, you'll want a book whose setting and culture you will be able to research; note that titles will vary considerably in terms of ther "researchability."

 

 

                       

African   Asian European   Latin American Native American

                     

 

African

 

Abrahams, Peter  (South African)

   Mine Boy (Novel)

 Achebe, Chinua  (Nigerian)

   Anthills of the Savannah (Novel)

   Things Fall Apart (Novel)

Armah, Ayi Kwei  (Ghanaian)

   The Beautyful Ones Are not Yet Born (Novel)

Ba, Mariama  (Senegalese)

   So Long a Letter (Novel)

Ben Jelloun, Tahar  (Moroccan)

   The Sand Child (Novel)

Beti, Mongo  (Cameroonian)

   Mission to Kala (Novel)`

Brink, Andre  (South African)

   A Dry White Season (Novel)

Coetzee, J. M.  (South African)

   Age of Iron (Novel)  

   Waiting for the Barbarians (Novel)

Dangarembga, Tsitsi  (Zimbabwean)

   Nervous Conditions (Novel)

Dinesen, Isak  (Danish, but writes about Africa)

   Out of Africa (Novel)

Emecheta, Buchi  (Nigerian)

   The Bride Price (Novel)

   The Joys of Motherhood (Novel)

Farah, Nuruddin  (Somali)

   Sweet and Sour Milk (Novel)

Gordimer, Nadine  (South African)

   Burger’s Daughter (Novel)

   The Conservationist (Novel)

   July’s People (Novel)

La Guma, Alex  (South African)

   A Walk in the Night (Novel)

Mahfouz, Naguib  (Egyptian)

   Midaq Alley (Novel)

   Palace Walk (Novel)

Memmi, Albert  (Tunisian)

   The Pillar of Salt (Novel)

Mofolo, Thomas  (Basotho)

    Chaka (Novel)

Munonye, John  (Nigerian)

   The Oil Man of Onange (Novel)

Ngugi wa Thiong’o  (Kenyan)

   Weep Not, Child (Novel)

Okri, Ben  (Nigerian)

   The Famished Road (Novel)

Oyono, Ferdinand (Cameroonian)

   Houseboy (Novel)

Paton, Alan  (South African)

   Cry, the Beloved Country (Novel)

Schreiner, Olive  (South African)

   The Story of an African Farm (Novel)

Sembene, Ousmane  (Senegalese)

   God’s Bits of Wood (Novel)

Asian and Middle Eastern

 

Bao Ninh  (Vietnamese)

   The Sorrow of War (Novel)

Choi, Sook Nyul  (Korean)

   Year of Impossible Goodbyes (Novel)

Duong Thu Huong  (Vietnamese)

   Novel without a Name (Novel)

   Paradise of the Blind (Novel)

Hosseini, Khaled  (Afghani)

    The Kite Runner (Novel)

    A Thousand Splendid Suns (Novel)

Kanafani Ghassan  (Palestinian)

   Men in the Sun (Novel)

Mori, Kyoko  (Japanese)

   Shizuko’s Daughter (Novel)

Munif, Abd al-Rahman  (Jordanian)

   Cities of Salt (Novel)

Pamuk, Orhan  (Turkish)

   My Name is Red (Novel)

Roy, Arundhati  (Indian)

   The God of Small Things (Novel)

Shaykh, Hanan al-  (Lebanese)

   The Story of Zahra (Novel)

Watkins, Yoko Kawashima  (Japanese)

   So Far from the Bamboo Grove (Novel)

Yehoshua, A. B. (Israeli)

   Mr. Mani (Novel)

European

Camus, Albert  (French)

   The Plague (Novel)

Cervantes  (Spanish)

   Don Quixote (Novel)

Chekhov, Anton  (Russian)

   The Cherry Orchard (Drama)

   Uncle Vanya (Drama)

Dinesen, Isak  (Danish, but writes about Africa)

   Out of Africa (Novel)

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor  (Russian)

   The Brothers Karamozov (Novel)

   Crime and Punishment (Novel)

   Notes from the Underground (Novel)

Dumas, Alexandre  (French)

   The Count of Monte Cristo (Novel)

   The Three Musketeers (Novel)

Eco, Umberto  (Italian)

   The Name of the Rose (Novel)

Flaubert, Gustave  (French)

   Madame Bovary (Novel)

Garcia Lorca, Federico  (Spanish)

   Blood Wedding (Drama)

   The House of Bernarda Alba (Drama)

Grass, Gunter  (German)

   The Tin Drum (Novel)

Hesse, Hermann  (German)

   Steppenwolf (Novel)

Hugo, Victor  (French)

   The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Novel)

   Les Miserables (Novel)

Ibsen, Henrik  (Norwegian)

   A Doll’s House (Drama)

   Hedda Gabler (Drama)

Koestler, Arthur  (Hungarian)

   Darkness at Noon (Novel)

Kosinski, Jerzy  (Polish)

   The Painted Bird (Novel)

Kundera, Milan  (Czech)

   The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Novel)

Moravia, Alberto  (Italian)

   The Conformist (Novel)

Pasternak, Boris  (Russian)

   Doctor Zhivago (Novel)

Remarque, Erich Maria  (German)

   All Quiet on the Western Front (Novel)

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr  (Russian)

   One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Novel)

Sophocles  (Greek)

   Oedipus Rex (Drama)

Strindberg, August  (Swedish)

   Miss Julie (Drama)

Tolstoy, Leo  (Russian)

   Anna Karenina (Novel)

   War and Peace (Novel)

Tomasi di Lampedusa, Giuseppe  (Italian)

   The Leopard (Novel)

Turgenev, Ivan  (Russian)

   Fathers and Sons (Novel)

Verne, Jules  (French)

   Around the World in Eighty Days (Novel)

   Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (Novel)

Voltaire  (French)

   Candide (Novel)

Latin American

Allende, Isabel  (Chilean)

   The House of the Spirits (Novel)

Arguedas, Jose Maria  (Peruvian)

   Deep Rivers (Novel)

Asturias, Miguel Angel  (Guatemalan)

   Men of Maize (Novel)

Bridal, Tessa  (Uruguayan)

   The tree of Red Stars (Novel)

Carpentier, Alejo  (Cuban)

   The Kingdom of This World (Novel)

Coelho, Paulo  (Brazilian)

    The Alchemist (Novel)

Danticat, Edwidge  (Haitian)

   The Farming of Bones (Novel)

Dorfman, Ariel  (Chilean)

   Death and the Maiden (Drama)

Esquivel, Laura  (Mexican)

   Like Water for Chocolate (Novel)

Fuentes, Carlos  (Mexican)

   The Death of Artemio Cruz (Novel)

   The Old Gringo (Novel)

Garcia Marquez, Gabriel  (Colombian)

   Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Novel)

   Love in the Time of Cholera (Novel)

   One Hundred Years of Solitude (Novel)

Kincaid, Jamaica  (West Indian)

   Annie John (Novel)

Menchu, Rigoberto  (Guatemalan)

   I, Rigoberto Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala (Autobiography)

Naipaul, V. S.  (Trinidadian)

   A House for Mr. Biswas (Novel)

Rulfo, Juan  (Mexican)

   Pedro Paramo (Novel)

Sanchez, Luis Rafael  (Puerto Rican)

   Macha Camacho’s Beat (Novel)

Vargas Llosa, Mario  (Peruvian)

   The Time of the Hero (Novel)

 

Native American

Dorris, Michael  (Native American)

   A Yellow Raft in Blue Water  (Novel)

Erdrich, Louise  (Native American)

   Love Medicine  (Novel)

Momaday, N. Scott  (Native American)

   House Made of Dawn (Novel)

Silko, Leslie Marmon  (Native American)

   Ceremony (Novel)

Welch, James  (Native American)

   Fools Crow (Novel)