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See this book list and the descriptions to help select world literature titles.

World Literature: A Recommended Reading List

The following list was compiled from: Reading Lists for College-Bound Students Outstanding Books for the College Bound American Library Association (ALA), Outstanding Books for the College Bound The California Department of Education Recommended Literature for Grades 9-12

Note: Titles are listed in italics. Books are arranged by geographical setting, not by the author’s nationality.

EASTERN EUROPE

Chekhov, Cherry Orchard (and other plays) Ranevskaya, who has returned to her beloved estate several years after her young son drowned there, only to watch it slip from the family's hands. An unique adaptation of one of the great masterpieces of the theater.

Solzhenitsyn, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich The story of one man's struggle to survive in a Soviet workcamp during the Stalin era. A common carpenter, Ivan is one of millions viciously imprisoned for years on baseless charges, sentenced to the waking nightmare of Soviet work camps. This powerful novel based on historical fact is a scathing indictment of Communist tyranny, and an eloquent affirmation of the human spirit.

Tolstoy, Anna Karenina Realistic novel of a modern social criticism set in 19th century Russia. This is the double drama of Anna and of Levin. Sensual, rebellious Anna renounces her respectable marriage and fine position for a passionate involvement which offers a taste of freedom and a trap for destruction. This historical romance is considered the greatest novel of the 19th century!

Turgenev, Fathers and Sons Controversial at the time of publication, this Russian novel concerns the inevitable conflict between generations and between the values of traditionalists and intellectuals. Its hero, Dr. Bazarov, is a new man, a nihilist, uncouth and forthright in his opinions and at odds with the status quo. This is the moving story of human relationships.

WESTERN EUROPE

Boyd, Any Human Heart Told entirely in the form of diary entries, this lavishly imagined novel seeks to explore the complexity of an individual human life responding to history and change. The journal's author is a cultured, intelligent man named Logan Mountstuart. Beginning in 1923 with his schoolboy days in England, Mountstuart takes us through college, experiences in 1930s Paris, adventures as a spy for England during World War II, and, finally, his golden years and eventual death. This is a masterfully drawn historical novel, utterly convincing in its depiction of events, but Boyd (Armadillo) also explores the nuances of Mountstuart's complex interior life: his youthful ambitions, his yearning for love, and the challenges posed by loss and disappointment.

Camus, The Stranger Here is the story of an ordinary man who unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach. This haunting novel will have a profound impact.

Cervantes, Miguel de, Don Quixote This comic satire against chivalric romances describes an elderly knight who, his head bemused by reading romances, sets out on his old horse Rosinante, with his practical squire Sancho Panza, to seek adventure. In the process, he also finds love in the person of the peasant Dulcinea.

Dante, Inferno Dante Alighieri explores the regions of damnation, where the souls suffer eternal punishments appropriate to their sins. This is the classic journey into the underworld. The nine levels of Hell as well as sinners who are housed in each are described in unforgettable detail as Dante descends conically into the earth. Filled with politics and philosophy, this epic poem is at one personal and universal, providing an illuminating view into our present world as well as Dante's. We recognize the worst in human nature as well as the potential for redemption.

Dickens, Charles, A Tale of Two Cities Dickens' novel of the French Revolution. They fled to London seeking safety, and found each other--Dr. Manette, falsely imprisoned for decades; his daughter, Lucie, whose stunning beauty was matched by her loyalty and grace; and Charles Darnay, who abandoned a royal title to risk being called a traitor in France, a spy in England.

Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo Set against the tumultuous years of the post-Napoleonic era, The Count of Monte Cristo recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantes, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The story of his long imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge offers up a vision of France that has become immortal. Sentenced to life for a crime he did not commit, the hero escapes determined to exact revenge from his enemies.

Dumas, The Three Musketeers Perhaps the greatest "cloak and sword" story ever written, this is a story where the heroic young d'Artagnan and his compatriots are pitted against the evil Cardinal Richelieu and the equally wicked Lady de Winter.

von Goethe, Sorrows of Young Werther One of the world's first best-sellers, this tragic masterpiece attained an instant and lasting success upon its 1774 publication. A sensitive exploration of the mind of a young artist, the tale addresses age-old questions—the meaning of love, of death, and the possibility of redemption—in the form of Werther's alternately joyful and despairing letters about his unrequited love. Goethe's portrayal of a character who struggles to reconcile his artistic sensibilities with the demands of the world proved tremendously influential to subsequent writers and continues to speak to modern readers.

Grass, Tin Drum The Tin Drum uses savage comedy and a stiff dose of magical realism to capture not only the madness of war, but also the black cancer at the heart of humanity that allows such degradations to occur. Meet Oskar Matzerath, "the eternal three-year-old drummer." On the morning of his third birthday, dressed in a striped pullover and patent leather shoes, and clutching his drumsticks and his new tin drum, young Oskar makes an irrevocable decision: "It was then that I declared, resolved, and determined that I would never under any circumstances be a politician, much less a grocer; that I would stop right there, remain as I was--and so I did; for many years I not only stayed the same size but clung to the same attire." Here is a Peter Pan story with a vengeance. But instead of Never-Never Land, Günter Grass gives us Danzig, a contested city on the Polish-German border; instead of Captain Hook and his pirates, we have the Nazis. And in place of Peter himself is Oskar, a twisted puer aeternis with a scream that can shatter glass and a drum rather than a shadow. First published in 1959, The Tin Drum's depiction of the Nazi era created a furor in Germany.

Green (ed), King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table The immortal tales of King Arthur are full of mystery and wonder. From the magical moment when Arthur releases the sword in the stone to the quest for the Holy Grail and the final tragedy of the Last Battle, this retelling brings alive the enchanting world of King Arthur.

Hugo, Les Miserables Sensational, dramatic, packed with rich excitement and filled with the sweep and violence of human passions, Les Miserables is not only superb adventure but a powerful social document. The story of how the convict Jean-Valjean struggled to escape his past and reaffirm his humanity, in a world brutalized by poverty and ignorance, became the gospel of the poor and the oppressed.

Ibsen, Henrik, Hedda Gabler Drama in which a 19th century Norwegian woman pays the consequences of her powerful but ruthless personality. One of the most widely studied and performed works in the theatrical repertoire, this dark psychological drama, first produced in Norway in 1890, depicts the evil machinations of a ruthless, nihilistic heroine. Readers will discover in the shocking events Hedda Gabler precipitates a masterly exploration of the nature of evil and the potential for tragedy that lies in human frailty.

Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek Novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, published in Greek in 1946 as Vios kai politia tou Alexi Zormpa. The unnamed narrator is a scholarly, introspective writer who opens a coal mine on the fertile island of Crete. He is gradually drawn out of his ascetic shell by an elderly employee named Zorba, an ebullient man who revels in the social pleasures of eating, drinking, and dancing. The narrator's reentry into a life of experience is completed when his newfound lover, the village widow, is ritually murdered by a jealous mob.

Keneally, Schindler's List Here is the stunning novel based on the true story of how German war profiteer and prison camp Director Oskar Schindler came to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other single person during World War II. In this milestone of Holocaust literature, the author uses the actual testimony of Schindler's Jews to brilliantly portray the courage and cunning of a good man in the midst of unspeakable evil.

Lewis, C.S., Out of the Silent Planet (and the rest of the trilogy) On a walking trip, Dr. Ransom, Cambridge philologist, encounters two old school friends by whom he is, quite unexpectedly, abducted and drugged. Waking from this bad treatment, Ransom finds himself en route to a distant planet, Mars- or Malacandra, as its inhabitants call it. Accompany Dr. Ransom through the unknown onto the weird planet Malacandra, and revel in the voyage and in the strange beauty and the strange horror which await him.

Machiavelli, The Prince For over 400 years, this has been the basic handbook of politics, statemanship and power. Written by an Italian nobleman whose name became a synonym for crafty plotting, this fascinating document sets down the rules and moves in the ageless game of politics. The result is this highly readable, witty and shrewd formula that is required reading for anyone interested in politics and power.

Malory, Morte d'Arthur The rousing epic of King Arthur and his court has had a lasting effect on the traditions and literature of the English-speaking peoples. These well-known tales represent the bridge between pagan and Christian, Druid and Roman. Arthur emerges at the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of a British nation.

More, Sir Thomas, Utopia Thomas More's description of Utopia, an island supporting a perfectly organized and happy people. Book I is a dialogue which presents a perceptive analysis of contemporary social, economic, punitive, and moral problems in England; the second book is a narrative describing Utopia, a country run according to the ideals of the English humanists, where poverty, crime, injustice, and other ills do not exist.

Ondaatje, The English Patient A poetic novel of four damaged lives in an Italian monastery as World War II ends. The exhausted nurse, Hana; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burn victim who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning.

Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front "I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair..." This is the testament of Paul Baumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army of World War I. They become soldiers with enthusiasm, but everything they have been taught breaks into pieces when they experience the horror of war.

Renault, The King Must Die The story of the mythical hero Theseus, slayer of monsters, abductor of princesses and king of Athens. He emerges from these pages as a clearly defined personality; brave, aggressive and quick. The core of the story is Theseus' adventure in Crete.

Rose, Twelve Angry Men Could you sit with eleven other people and decide someone's fate? This short play in three acts studies the interaction between jury members. A great look at stereotyping, justice, and fairness.

Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac Does she fall in love with his looks or with his words? This is an immortal play in which chivalry and wit, bravery and love are forever captured in the timeless spirit of romance. Set in Louis XIII's reign, it is the moving and exciting drama of one of the finest swordsmen in France, gallant soldier, brilliant wit, and tragic lover with a big nose.

Sartre, Jean-Paul, No Exit and Three Other Plays Existential drama portrays the alienation of modern man. No Exit is the unforgettable portrayal of hell, The Flies is a modern reworking of the Electra-Orestes story, Dirty Hands is about a young intellectual torn between theory and praxis, and The Respectful Prostitute is a scathing attack on American racism.

Trevor, The Story of Lucy Gault In 1920s Ireland, a family's privileged status is threatened, and like others before them, they must decide whether to remain or leave their cherished home. Lucy is nine years old when her father, a wealthy Irish army captain married to an Englishwoman, shoots at and wounds one of a trio of locals trying to set his Irish country house, Lahardane, afire. Captain Gault and his wife, Heloise, decide they must leave for England and safety, but Lucy, who has known no other home but Lahardane, flees into the woods on the eve of their departure and cannot be found. Eventually convinced she has drowned at a nearby beach, her parents leave for a life of wandering and grieving exile in Europe, utterly out of touch with their old life. Lucy, however, is discovered, starved but alive, days later by two faithful retainers, who with the aid of a family lawyer keep the house open as Lucy grows into womanhood. The possibility of love enters her life, but her passionate attachment to the remote place repels her potential suitor and she lives on alone. Eventually, after the death of her mother, her father returns to live with her for a while. She even gets to know the wounded youth who once tried to burn down the house, now an elderly man in a mental institution. Lucy ends her days at Lahardane, out of touch with the modern world, but still in thrall to the past.

Wells, H.G., The Time Machine At the beginning of the twentieth century, a scientist builds a machine that takes him into the future where he encounters two very different civilizations.

Wells, H.G., War of the Worlds In this book, H. G. Wells invented the myth of invasion from outer space. Martians land near London, conquering all before them, and ruin the metropolis; the fate of civilization and even of the human race remains in doubt until the very last. The book is disturbingly realistic both because of its setting and because of its characters.

Wiesel, Elie, Dawn Elisha is a young Jewish man, a Holocaust survivor, and an Israeli freedom fighter in British-controlled Palestine; John Dawson is the captured English officer he will murder at dawn in retribution for the British execution of a fellow freedom fighter. The night-long wait for morning and death provides Dawn, Elie Wiesel’s ever more timely novel, with its harrowingly taut, hour-by-hour narrative. Caught between the manifold horrors of the past and the troubling dilemmas of the present, Elisha wrestles with guilt, ghosts, and ultimately God as he waits for the appointed hour and his act of assassination. Dawn is an eloquent meditation on the compromises, justifications, and sacrifices that human beings make when they murder other human beings.

White, T.H., The Once and Future King Based on medieval Arthurian legends, The Once and Future King is a twentieth-century version of young Arthur's quest for the sword Excalibur and his claim to the throne of England. Including many well-known and much-loved episodes with Merlyn, the sorcerer; Morgan La Fay, the witch; and knights jousting and hounds engaged in the hunt, White's novel adds to the lore surrounding the person of King Arthur.

Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days Around the World in Eighty Days is one of the most exciting tales of adventure ever written. Accompanied by his faithful valet, Phileas Fogg has vowed to make his way across the globe in a mere 80 days. A breathless series of triumphs, mishaps, and near disasters strike the daring duo as they make use of every form of transportation to bring them closer to their travel goal.

Vreeland, Susan, Girl in Hyacinth Blue A professor reveals to a collegue a painting he has kept secret for years, which he believes is a Vermeer, and which has a history from the time of inception through World War II. The story of the painting begins to unfold in a series of events as it moves through each owner's hands and the secrets quietly surfaces, illumintaing poignant moments in multiple lives.

ASIA AND AFRICA

Achebe, Anthills of Savannah The novel takes place in the fictional West African country of Kangan, where a coup has toppled the former dictator. Three men, friends since childhood, have all attained positions of prominence in the new government. Sam is Kangan's president; Chris Oriko, a former journalist, is Commissioner for Information; and Ikem Osodi, a journalist and poet, is now editor of the National Gazette newspaper. Chris's lover is Beatrice Okoh, a highly educated civil servant; Ikem's girlfriend is the semiliterate shopgirl Ewele. When the novel begins, Chris and Ikem both realize that their old friend Sam is not the kind of president they had hoped he would be. Sam is insecure in his position and intoxicated with power, and he has grown increasingly imperious and paranoid. A recent referendum to make Sam "President for Life" failed when one region of the country, Abazon, refused to vote. To punish the people of Abazon, Sam has denied them access to water despite conditions of drought in their dry savannah land....

Bao Ninh, The Sorrow of War Kien, an ex-soldier and struggling writer, tries to come to grips with his painful youth, shattered love, and the horrors of the Vietnam conflict. Kien, the protagonist of this rambling and sometimes nearly incoherent but emotionally gripping account of the Vietnam war, is a 10-year veteran whose experiences bear a striking similarity to those of the author, a Hanoi writer who fought with the Glorious 27th Youth Brigade. The novel opens just after the war, with Kien working in a unit that recovers soldiers' corpses. Revisiting the sites of battles raises emotional ghosts for him, "a parade of horrific memories" that threatens his sanity, and he finds that writing about those years is the only way to purge them. Juxtaposing battle scenes with dreams and childhood remembrances as well as events in Kien's postwar life, the book builds to a climax of brutality. A trip to the front with Kien's childhood sweetheart ends with her noble act of sacrifice.

Bosse, Malcolm, The Examination Fifteen-year-old Hong and his older brother Chen face famine, flood, pirates, and jealous rivals on their journey through fifteenth century China as Chen pursues his calling as a scholar and Hong becomes involved with a secret society known as the White Lotus.

Buck, The Good Earth The novel, about peasant life in China in the 1920s, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1932. The Good Earth follows the life of Wang Lung, from his beginnings as an impoverished peasant to his eventual position as a prosperous landowner. He is aided immeasurably by his equally humble wife, O-Lan, with whom he shares a devotion to the land, to duty, and to survival. Buck combines descriptions of marriage, parenthood, and complex human emotions with depictions of Chinese reverence for the land and for a specific way of life.

Dai Sijie, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamtress This beautifully presented novella tracks the lives of two teens, childhood friends who have been sent to a small Chinese village for "re-education" during Mao's Cultural Revolution. Sons of doctors and dentists, their days are now spent muscling buckets of excrement up the mountainside and mining coal. But the boys-Luo and the unnamed narrator-receive a bit of a reprieve when the villagers discover their talents as storytellers; they are sent on monthly treks to town, tasked with watching a movie and relating it in detail on their return. It is here that they encounter the little seamstress of the title, whom Luo falls for instantly. When, through a series of comic and clever tricks and favors, the boys acquire a suitcase full of forbidden Western literature, Luo decides to "re-educate" the ignorant girl whom he hopes will become his intellectual match. That a bit of Balzac can have an aphrodisiac effect is a happy bonus. Ultimately, the book is a simple, lovely telling of a classic boy-meets-girl scenario with a folktale's smart, surprising bite at the finish.

Gordimer, Nadine, July's People When war break out in South Africa, a fugitive white family takes refuge with their black servant, July. So imagine their quandary when the blacks stage a full-scale revolution that sends the Smaleses scampering into isolation. The premise of the book is expertly crafted; it speaks much about the confusing state of affairs of South Africa and serves as the backbone for a terrific adventure.

Golden, Arthur, Memoirs of a Geisha Nitta Sayuri, a young Japanese woman who was taken from her home at the age of nine and sold into slavery as a geisha, discovers a rare opportunity for freedom when the outbreak of World War II forces an end to the only life she has ever known.

Gordimer, Nadine, The Pickup While Nobel Prize-winner Gordimer's trenchant fiction has always achieved universal relevance in capturing apartheid and its lingering effects in South Africa, this new work attains still broader impact as she explores the condition of the world's desperate dispossessed. To Julie Summer, rebellious daughter of a rich white investment banker, the black mechanic she meets at a garage is initially merely an interesting person to add to her circle of bohemian friends. But as their relationship swiftly escalates, Julie comes to understand her lover's perilous tightrope attempts to find a country that will shelter him. Abdu, as he calls himself (it's not his real name), is an illegal immigrant from an abysmally poor Arab country. Now on the verge of deportation from South Africa, he's forced to return to his ancestral village. Julie insists on marrying him and going with him, despite his fears that she does not understand how primitive conditions are in the desert town where his strict Muslim family lives. Abdu (now Ibrahim) is astonished when she willingly does manual labor to earn his family's respect. They clash, however, over his decision to try once again to gain entry into a country that discriminates against immigrants from his part of the world. Gradually realizing that she has finally found a center to her heretofore aimless life, Julie matures; in many ways, she has become more cognizant of reality than her frantically hopeful husband.

Gordimer, Nadine, My Son's Story The story of a man's evolution as a political activist and the toll it takes on his family and on him. As a schoolboy playing truant bumps into his revered father coming out of a cinema with a woman which set against a backdrop of daily life in segregated South Africa. It shows what it really was like to live a life determined by the struggle to be free.

Hazzard, The Great Fire The time is 1947-48, and the place is, primarily, East Asia. Obviously, then, this is a locale much altered--by the events of World War II, of course, and, as we see, physical destruction and psychological wariness and weariness lay over the land. Our hero, and indeed he fills the requirements to be called one, is Aldred Leith, who is English and part of the occupation forces in Japan; his particular military task is damage survey. He has an interesting past, including, most recently, a two-year walk across civil-war-torn China to write a book. In the present, which readers will feel they inhabit right along with Leith, by way of Hazzard's beautifully atmospheric prose, he meets the teenage daughter and younger son of a local Australian commander. And, as Helen is growing headlong into womanhood, this novel of war's aftermath becomes a story of love--or more to the point, of the restoration of the capacity for love once global and personal trauma have been shed.

Hesse, Siddhartha As a youth, the young Indian Siddhartha meets the Buddha but cannot be content with a disciple's role; he must work out his own destiny and solve his own doubt--a tortuous road that carries him through the sensuality of a love affair with a beautiful courtesan, the temptation of success and riches, the heartache of a struggle with his own son, to final self-knowledge.

Hilton, Lost Horizon Here is an adventure of the mind and the spirit as well as of the body. It is a strange tale about a man who found himself completely removed not only from the life he'd been living, but from all that we call the civilized world. In a remote part of Tibet, Hugh Conway's companions in this story are an American financier, an English missionary, and a young Englishman in the consular service.

Hosseini, The Kite Runner Amir, haunted by his betrayal of Hassan, the son of his father's servant and a childhood friend, returns to Kabul as an adult after he learns Hassan has been killed, in an attempt to redeem himself by rescuing Hassan's son from a life of slavery to a Taliban official.

Ibuse, Black Rain Black Rain is centered around the story of a young woman who was caught in the radioactive "black rain" that fell after the bombing of Hiroshima. lbuse bases his tale on real-life diaries and interviews with victims of the holocaust; the result is a book that is free from sentimentality yet manages to reveal the magnitude of the human suffering caused by the atom bomb. The life of Yasuko, on whom the black rain fell, is changed forever by periodic bouts of radiation sickness and the suspicion that her future children, too, may be affected. lbuse tempers the horror of his subject with the gentle humor for which he is famous. His sensitivity to the complex web of emotions in a traditional community torn asunder by this historical event has made Black Rain one of the most acclaimed treatments of the Hiroshima story.

Ishiguro, Artist of the Floating World In An Artist of the Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro offers readers of the English language an authentic look at postwar Japan, "a floating world" of changing cultural behaviors, shifting societal patterns and troubling questions. Ishiguro, who was born in Nagasaki in 1954 but moved to England in 1960, writes the story of Masuji Ono, a bohemian artist and purveyor of the night life who became a propagandist for Japanese imperialism during the war. But the war is over. Japan lost, Ono's wife and son have been killed, and many young people blame the imperialists for leading the country to disaster. What's left for Ono? Ishiguro's treatment of this story earned a 1986 Whitbread Prize.

Jin, Waiting Lin Kong struggles to balance his life between the two women he loves and the country that is trying to rule his life. This novel captures the poignant dilemma of an ordinary man who misses the best opportunities in his life simply by trying to do his duty as defined first by his traditional Chinese parents and later by the Communist Party. Reflecting the changes in Chinese communism from the '60s to the '80s, the novel focuses on Lin Kong, a military doctor who agrees, as his mother is dying, to an arranged marriage. His bride, Shuyu, turns out to be a country woman who looks far older than her 26 years and who has, to Lin's great embarrassment, lotus (bound) feet. While Shuyu remains at Lin's family home in Goose Village, nursing first his mother and then his ailing father, and bearing Lin a daughter, Lin lives far away in an army hospital compound, visiting only once a year. Caught in a loveless marriage, Lin is attracted to a nurse, Manna Wu, an attachment forbidden by communist strictures. According to local Party rules, Lin cannot divorce his wife without her permission until they have been separated for 18 years. Though inaction is a risky subject and the thoughts of a cautious man make for a rather deliberate prose style (the first two sections describe the moments the characters choose not to act), the final chapters are moving and deeply ironic, proving again that this poet and award-winning short story writer can deliver powerful long fiction about a world alien to most Western readers.

Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible Novel about a troubled white American family in Africa is narrated by a missionary's four funny, smart, brave daughters, who are caught up in the political upheaval of what was called the Congo in 1961.

Kipling, Rudyard, Kim One of the great adventure books of all time, Kim is the story of the orphaned son of an Irish soldier. A secret mission for the British and a bond with a Tibetan lama in search of a sacred river soon lead Kim into a life of spies and secrets, danger and high excitement. It is also a profound look at the differences between the East and West.

Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve Married as a child bride to a tenant farmer, Rukmani had never seen, she worked side by side in the field with her husband to scrap a living out of the land. With courage she met the changing times and fight poverty and disaster. She saw one of her infants die of starvation, her daughter become a prostitute, and her sons leave the land for jobs which she distrusted. Here is an Indian novel comparable in many ways to Cry, the Beloved Country -- a novel that will capture your heart.

Martel, Yann, The Life of Pi Pi Patel, having spent an idyllic childhood in Pondicherry, India, as the son of a zookeeper, sets off with his family at the age of sixteen to start anew in Canada, but his life takes a marvelous turn when their ship sinks in the Pacific, leaving him adrift on a raft with a 450-pound Bengal tiger for company.

Mishima, Yukio, Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea English translation of a Japanese novel tells of Noboru, a thirteen-year-old boy who becomes involved with a gang of savage youths who turn their deadly attentions on Noboru's prospective stepfather.

Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country Novel about a black man's country under white man's law. When this novel first appeared, it was compared favorably with Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and praised for its lack of bias in presenting "a calm and clear statement, in human terms, of South Africa." The author wrote about his own observations of the social and moral disintegration of South Africa, the drift of young men to Johannesburg and the consequent problem of urbanization and growing frustration and crime within the townships, above all the crime of man's inhumanity to man.

Rushdie, Midnight's Children In this 1980 Booker Prize-winning novel, two children born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947--the moment at which India became an independent nation--are switched in the hospital. The infant scion of a wealthy Muslim family is sent to be raised in a Hindu tenement, while the legitimate heir to such squalor ends up establishing squatters' rights to his unlucky hospital mate's luxurious bassinet. Switched babies are standard fare for a Hindi film, and one can't help but feel that Rushdie's world-view--and certainly his sense of the fantastical--has been shaped by the films of his childhood. But whereas the movies, while entertaining, are markedly mediocre, Midnight's Children is a masterpiece, brilliant written, wildly unpredictable, hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure.

Tsukiyama, Women of the Silk When Pei Chung is eight years old, her father leaves her at the house of Auntie Yee so that she can work in the silk factory. Her grief at the unexplained abandonment is softened by the kindness of Yee and the other girls, and slowly she begins to thrive in her new independence. The friendship between Pei and Lin, who is the support of her once wealthy and powerful family, is forged with the lives of the silk workers who begin to demand better conditions. The China of 1919-1938, when the Japanese threat became a reality, is woven into the threads of factory life and that of families faced with ruin. The characters are drawn with fine detail. Small village life contrasts vividly with an exciting visit to Canton, and ceremonies are exquisitely described. This fascinating story is beautifully written and slightly reminiscent of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth.

Wilentz, Martyr's Crossing An ill Palestinian child dies at an Israeli-border checkpoint while the young post commander is pressing headquarters for permission to allow the boy and his mother to cross into Israel for medical care. The Palestinian political leaders proclaim the boy a martyr, rallying crowds with a cry for vengeance: "Find the soldier." The Israeli military's doctor fashions a version of the event to shield the army from blame. From this realistic beginning, Martyrs' Crossing dramatizes how easily tragic events escalate into violence. The mother of the dead boy is American-born Marina Hajimi, who married Hassan, a Palestinian. A Hamas activist, he is imprisoned in Israel. Marina's father is an eminent American cardiologist, an intellectual who fled Palestine with his family in 1948 and who is critical of a Palestinian authority he believes is corrupt. Lieutenant Ari Doron, empathetic and "unassailably honest," finds himself affected by the pain and the beauty of this woman whose son is dead because he refused to disobey orders. The major characters are principled people, torn by grief and guilt but unwilling to be manipulated for political purposes. Some of the other characters are less nobly motivated. Teens who are interested in the Middle East will come away from the novel with a better understanding of why the conflict so defies resolution.

THE AMERICAS

Allende, The House of the Spirits The novel follows three generations of three families, each of which represents a social class with its particular culture and political outlook. This historical fiction is based on Isabel Allende's own childhood growing up in Chile, her family and relatives, and her experiences as a journalist covering her country's political turmoil. The story is narrated by Clara's granddaughter, Alba, who is piecing together her family's past using notebooks and diaries.

Borland, When the Legends Die Here is an extraordinary novel about man, nature, and courage; if you liked "The Call of the Wild" or "The Light in the Forest", try this story. Thomas Black Bull's family returned to the old Indian ways when they went into hiding after his father killed another brave, but soon his parents die and he is left to get by on his own.

Garcia Marquez, Gabriel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold A man returns to the town where a baffling murder took place 27 years earlier, determined to get to the bottom of the story. Just hours after marrying the beautiful Angela Vicario, everyone agrees, Bayardo San Roman returned his bride in disgrace to her parents. Her distraught family forced her to name her first lover; and her twin brothers announced their intention to murder Santiago Nasar for dishonoring their sister. Yet if everyone knew the murder was going to happen, why did no one intervene to stop it? The more that is learned, the less is understood, and as the story races to its inexplicable conclusion, an entire society--not just a pair of murderers—is put on trial. A spectacular wedding, a sudden scandal, and a murder to which an entire town appears to be an accessory are the elements of this extraordinary short novel.

Garcia Marquez, Gabriel, One Hundred Years of Solitude The story follows 100 years in the life of Macondo, a village founded by José Arcadio Buendía and occupied by descendants all sporting variations on their progenitor's name: his sons, José Arcadio and Aureliano, and grandsons, Aureliano José, Aureliano Segundo, and José Arcadio Segundo. Then there are the women--the two Úrsulas, a handful of Remedios, Fernanda, and Pilar--who struggle to remain grounded even as their menfolk build castles in the air. If it is possible for a novel to be highly comic and deeply tragic at the same time, then One Hundred Years of Solitude does the trick. Civil war rages throughout, hearts break, dreams shatter, and lives are lost, yet the effect is literary pentimento, with sorrow's outlines bleeding through the vibrant colors of García Márquez's magical realism.

Haley, Roots After Haley grew up and became a writer, he began to search for documentation that might authenticate the stories of his family he'd heard as a child. It took ten years and a half million miles of travel but finally he traced his genealogical line. As the first black American writer to trace his origins back to their roots, Alex Haley has told the story of 25,000,000 Americans of African descent. Roots speaks to people everywhere because it tells the story of the human spirit.

Heller, Catch 22 In this satirical novel, antihero Captain John Yossarian is stationed on an airstrip on a Mediterranean island in World War II and is desperate to stay alive. The "catch" involves a mysterious Air Force regulation which states that a man is considered insane if he requests to be relieved of his missions.

Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms An unforgettable story of love and war on the Italian front during World War I. The love between Lieutenant Henry and Catherine Barley glows with intensity unrivaled in modern literature.

Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls Timeless epic of Spanish Civil War portraying every facet of human emotions. This is the story of Robert Jordan, a young American attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain. It tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal.

Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises The story of a group of American and English patriots living in Paris and their excursion to Pampalona. It captures the angst of the post-World War I generation, known as the Lost Generation, and centers around the flamboyant Lady Brett Ashley and the hapless Jake Barnes. In an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love and vanishing illusions, this is the Lost Generation.

Heyerdahl, Kon Tiki This is the record of an astonishing adventure -- a journey 4300 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean by raft. Intrigued by Polynesian folklore, biologist Thor Heyerdahl suspected that the South Sea Islands had been settled by an ancient race from thousand of miles to the east. Here is the experiment that proved it was possible!.

Hickam, October Sky It was 1957, the year Sputnik raced across the Appalachian sky, and the small town of Coalwood, West Virginia, was slowly dying. Faced with an uncertain future, Homer Hickam nurtured a dream: to send rockets into outer space. The introspective son of the mine’s superintendent and a mother determined to get him out of Coalwood forever, Homer fell in with a group of misfits who learned not only how to turn scraps of metal into sophisticated rockets but how to sustain their hope in a town that swallowed its men alive. As the boys began to light up the tarry skies with their flaming projectiles and dreams of glory, Coalwood, and the Hickams, would never be the same.

Johnson, Charles R., Middle Passages In this savage parable of the African American experience, Rutherford Calhoun, a newly freed slave eking out a living in New Orleans in 1830, hops aboard a square rigger to evade the prim Boston schoolteacher who wants to marry him. But the Republic turns out to be a slave clipper bound for Africa. Calhoun, whose master educated him as a humanist, becomes the captain's cabin boy, and though he hates himself for acting as a lackey, he's able to help the African slaves recently taken aboard to stage a revolt before the rowdy, drunken crew can spring a mutiny.

Keyes, Flowers for Algernon Flowers for Algernon is the journal of Charlie Gordon, a mentally retarded adult who becomes a genius after undergoing a brain operation. Keyes gives Charlie Gordon a voice that conveys the full range of emotions Charlie experiences before and after the operation. Keyes conveys the drama with such intensity that it becomes almost painful to listen: the yearning of an amiable adult who longs to be as smart as those around him, the pain of the transformed man who must live with the newfound memories of cruel childhood rejection, and finally the horror of his diminishing intellectual capacity.

Kingsolver, Pigs in Heaven When a young Cherokee tribal lawyer comes to the door to claim Taylor's illegally adopted Indian daughter, the white woman must face the fact that her stable life is about to be torn apart. The story follows her and six-year-old Turtle across the West as they flee from the threat of separation and exist on minimum-wage earnings. Meanwhile, Taylor's mother, Alice, leaves her second husband and goes to stay with her cousin in Heaven, Oklahoma. There she meets Cash, a full-blooded Cherokee, who has been living outside the reservation, but yearns to return to his roots. The richness of Indian tribal life is seen through the eyes of Cash, Alice, and Annawake Fourkiller, the lawyer. There are some wonderful scenes revealing Cherokee customs and lifestyles. The stories of the different characters are woven together with humor and sensitivity. When Taylor and Turtle come to the reservation to face their future, readers will feel the adoptive mother's helplessness as she admits that she, too, might have let the child down. The characters are ordinary, yet noble and memorable, and the ending is just and gratifying. The issue of Indian children being adopted outside the tribe is addressed with respect from all sides.

Lee, G., China Boy The story of Kai Ting's coming of age in the San Francisco slums could be the story of any sensitive young boy struggling to overcome the bullies on the mean streets of a big city. Change the Chinese to Yiddish or Italian and the tale would be the same. Brutalized by a stepmother determined to expunge all traces of his Chinese mother from the home, Kai finds himself the punching bag for every bully in the neighborhood. His salvation is the YMCA; his mentors, a group of retired boxers. China Boy resonates with strong characterizations, evocative descriptions of San Francisco in the 1950s, and the righteous indignation of abused innocence.

Le Guin, Ursula, The Left Hand of Darkness Genly Ai is an emissary from the human galaxy to Winter, a lost, stray world. His mission is to bring the planet back into the fold of an evolving galactic civilization, but to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own culture and prejudices and those that he encounters. On a planet where people are of no gender--or both--this is a broad gulf indeed. The inventiveness and delicacy with which Le Guin portrays her alien world are not only unusual and inspiring. In the end, this individual attempts to bring the peoples of Grthen into the Ekumen.

Patchett, Bel Canto In an unnamed South American country, a world-renowned soprano sings at a birthday party in honor of a visiting Japanese industrial titan. His hosts hope that Mr. Hosokawa can be persuaded to build a factory in their Third World backwater. Alas, in the opening sequence, just as the accompanist kisses the soprano, a ragtag band of 18 terrorists enters the vice-presidential mansion through the air conditioning ducts. Their quarry is the president, who has unfortunately stayed home to watch a favorite soap opera. And thus, from the beginning, things go awry. Among the hostages are not only Hosokawa and Roxane Coss, the American soprano, but an assortment of Russian, Italian, and French diplomatic types. Reuben Iglesias, the diminutive and gracious vice president, quickly gets sideways of the kidnappers, who have no interest in him whatsoever. Meanwhile, a Swiss Red Cross negotiator names Joachim Messner is roped into service while vacationing. He comes and goes, wrangling over terms and demands, and the days stretch into weeks, the weeks into months. The author flits in and out of the hearts and psyches of hostage and terrorist alike, and in doing so reveals a profound, shared humanity.

Steinbeck, Cup of Gold In the 1670s Henry Morgan, a pirate and outlaw of legendary viciousness, ruled the Spanish Main. He ravaged the coasts of Cuba and America, striking terror wherever he went. Morgan was obsessive. He had two driving ambitions: one to possess the beautiful woman called La Santa Roja, the other, to conquer Panama, the "cup of gold.".

Steinbeck, The Pearl Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the Gulf beds and getting by. Then he emerges from a dive with a pearl as large as a sea gull's egg, and with the pearl comes hope, the promise of comfort and a better life. This is a story of classic simplicity, based on a Mexican folktale. It explores the secrets of man's nature, the depths of evil, and the possibilities of love.

Uchida, Picture Bride Carrying a photograph of the man she is to marry but has yet to meet, young Hana Omiya arrives in San Francisco in 1917. She is one of several hundred Japanese "picture brides" whose arranged marriages brought them to America in the early 1900s. Her story is connected with others who are caught up in the cruel turmoil of World War II, when West Coast Japanese Americans are uprooted from their homes and imprisoned in desert detention camps. Enjoy this historical novel and discover Hana's strength to survive.

Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey Reconstruction of five lives lost when the finest bridge in all Peru collapses. "On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." With this celebrated sentence Thornton Wilder begins The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction and a novel read throughout the world. By chance, a monk witnesses the tragedy. Brother Juniper then embarks on a quest to prove that it was divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who perished in the tragedy. His search leads to his own death -- and to the author's timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition.

Source for the above list: “Suggestions for Students in English 2.” Oxnard High School Library. 22 May 2008 .

Also consider works from the following authors (may repeat some of the above):

Chinua Achebe Isak Dinesen Alberto Moravia S. Y. Agnon E. M. Forster Mordechi Richler Ilse Aichinger Gabriel Garcia Marquez Alice Munro Isabel Allende Nikolai Gogol Vladimir Nabokov Jerzy Andrzejewski William Golding V. S. Naipaul Margaret Atwood Robert Graves Alan Paton Isaac Babel Hermann Hesse Cesar Pavese James Berry Wolfgang Hildesheimer Santha Rama Rau Heinrich Boll Aldous Huxley Rainer Maria Rilke Jorge Luis Borges Kazuo Ishiguro Ignazio Silone Mikhail Bulgakov Yuri Kazakov Isaac Bashevis Singer Dino Buzzati Milan Kundera Alexander Solshenitsyn S. Byatt Stanislaw Lem Niccolo Tucci Italo Calvino Primo Levi Mario Vargas-Llosa Karl Capek Jacov Lind Elie Wiesel Carlo Cassola Clarice Lispector Emile Zola Camillo Jose Cela Naguib Mahfouz Julio Cortazar Thomas Mann