6 Books by Non-Western Authors You Need to Read This Year
I just noticed just how much western literature I consume while I was reading Frances Chu’s If I Had Your Face. There I was reading this absolutely amazing book and wondering why I hadn’t read it sooner, when it occurred to me that I probably would never have read it if a friend hadn’t recommended it to me.
Ask my friends, and they’ll tell you I read like my life depended on it. When I first started reading, the only books that were available to me, except for a few ones by authors like Mabel Segun and Chinua Achebe, were books written by white people. It only followed that I would be subconsciously biased towards western books. When I realized this bias, I started to read books by non western authors for non western consumption and I was blown away.
So for anyone looking to start reading something different, here’s a short review of 6 books by non western authors you need to start the year with.
1. If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful to go to sleep at night and wake up rich everyday?”
Set in South Korea, the plastic surgery capital of the world, this book follows five Korean women who live in the same apartment building as they struggle with their concept of beauty; what it’s worth, and at what cost. Ara is a non-verbal, deeply traumatized hairdresser who has fallen in love with a K-pop star. Kyuri is a breathtaking beauty who has undergone numerous plastic surgeries to successfully work as a top ten percent room salon girl (or sex worker) and attract the wealthiest men. Miho is an orphan who through some stroke of luck secured a scholarship to study in New York and is back in Seoul attempting navigate her relationship with her very wealthy but absolutely rubbish boyfriend. Wonna is a pregnant woman whose disgust for her husband grows stronger every day.
I absolutely adored this book & fell in love how every single character feels well formed and complex. I also really enjoyed the eat-the-rich, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite vibes it gave off.
“I would live your life so much better than you, if I had your face”
2. Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
“If I’ve thought of my mother as callous, and many times I have, then it’s important to remember what a callus is: the hardened tissue that forms over a wound”
This book was so exquisitely written, I may or may not have shed a few tears while reading. It tells the story of a Ghanaian family that migrated to Alabama, and of Gifty, the second child. Gifty is a fifth year neuroscience phd student at Stanford studying addictive behavior in mice as a way of coping with the grief of her brother’s heroine overdose. She attempts to manage her shaky relationship with her depressed and suicidal mother, all the while grappling with slowly losing her deep rooted belief in God and religion.
A lot of people are familiar with Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel, Homegoing, but it is this one I fell in love with.
“We read the Bible how we want to read it; it doesn’t change, but we do”
3. Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
“Columbus Circle is the center of Manhattan. Manhattan is the center of New York. New York is the center of America, and America is the center of the world. So we are sitting in the center of the world, right?”
I recommended this book to my friend, Oby, and when I asked what she thought, she said it reminded her that not every time stay and pursue your dreams. Sometimes, recognize that you’re going to continue to bleed for something that isn’t working, pack your bags, and go find some other dream to pursue.
Behold the Dreamers is a slightly humorous story about Jende Jenga, a Cameroonian immigrant who has come to New York with his family to seek a better life, and actualize his dream of becoming an American citizen. He gets a job as a chauffeur for a wealthy senior executive at Lehman Brothers, gets his wife a job with the wife of his employer, and things are going well. Until Lehman Brothers collapse, his green card expires, and everything starts to go south.
“Home will never go away. Home will be here when you come back. You may go to bring back fortune, you may go to escape misfortune. You may even go just because you want to go. But when you come back, we hope you come back, home will still be here.”
4. Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi
T.W: This review shortly references assault. Please skip to the next book if it’s a trigger.
“How many were the years of my life that went by before my body, and my self, became really mine, to do with them as I wished? How many were the years of my life that were lost before I tore my body and self away from the people who held me in their grasp since the very first day?”
This book was so short (just 114 pages), and so hard to read. It begins with Firdaus, a woman on death row for killing a man, recounting her story of how she got there. She was physically, sexually or mentally brutalized by every man she meets and changes because of these.
This true life story was written and set in 1975 Egypt, so it was almost physically painful to read what women went through then, and realize things aren’t that different even now.
“Everyone has to die, Firdaus. I will die, and you will die. The important thing is how to live until you die.”
5. Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
“The second man was not sure; be blamed fate. “It was in the name,” he said. “Who would name his child first Kamu and then Kintu?”
“Someone seeking to double the curse.”
In 1750, Kintu Kidda places a curse that will plague his family for generations. Kintu breaks up into six parts, and tells the story of Kintu Kidda’s linage, and how each generation attempts to outrun the curse while trying to live their lives. Some are haunted by their childhood, some run away and try to sever all connections to their family. Some turn to cults and religion for salvation, while some hope that acceptance will save them.
Fun fact; Makumbi got the patriarch’s name from a mythical figure, Kintu, who is said to be the first person in earth.
“The mind was a curse: its ability to go back in time to regret and hop into the future to hope and worry was not a blessing.”
6. The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Dare
“Now I know that speaking good English is not the measure of intelligent mind and sharp brain. English is only a language, like Yoruba and Igbo and Hausa. Nothing about it is so special, nothing about it makes anybody have sense.”
This debut novel is an unforgettable story of a fourteen year old girl, Adunni, who only wants an education. Instead, her father sells her off to be the wife of an old man who was only interested in getting a son. Adunni runs away to Lagos where she starts work as a house help to an incredibly abusive but still does not give up her dream of an education.
The book was so well written that from the very first page, I was already invested in Adunni’s life and dreams. And the way Abi Dare tackles sexism, grief, marriage and classism is simply beautiful to see.
“My mama say education will give me a voice. I want more than just a voice, Ms. Tia. I want a louding voice.”
So there you have it, my favorite books by non-western authors. I’m always looking to read more of these books, so please recommend your favourite books :)
*All images used in this post were gotten from Pinterest.
