A Literary Epcot: Part 2
A reading guide filled with fiction from around the world
In May 2021, as the world very slowly began to reopen before retreating again under a new strain of Covid, I wrote a travel memoir guide titled A Literary Epcot that included some of my favorite travel writing from around the world. Having not traveled in some time, writing the post served as an opportunity to go someplace new without leaving the comfort and safety of home.
Now, four years later, although the world once again looks very different, the value of learning about somewhere else remains the same. Whereas I used travel memoirs to guide my previous armchair world tour, this time I am using literary fiction written by authors from the area they write about in the novel. I tried to choose stories that incorporate the setting into the writing, i.e. not just a book set in a country, but a book that is also at least somewhat about the country.
Obviously there are many places not included on this list and for the places that are, one author’s writing about their home will be manifestly different than another. However, that’s the beauty of armchair travel. There’s always another book to pick up and another place to explore.
Check out the original travel-memoir Literary Epcot journey here:
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Africa
The Eternal Audience of One - Rémy Ngamije - Namibia & South Africa
The Eternal Audience of One is written by a Rwandan-born Namibian author about the pan-African diaspora living in Windhoek, Namibia and Cape Town, South Africa. The novel follows Seraphin, a law student studying at Remmes in South Africa, but begins while Seraphin is at home in Windhoek for the summer holiday. Seraphin and his family are Rwandan, and having fled Rwanda right before the genocide, they have re-established themselves in Windhoek with other refugees. Despite their desire to assimilate, they are forever marked as an "other," particularly by native Namibians. Seraphin enrolled in law school for the chance to leave Windhoek and move somewhere more cosmopolitan, and as he nears graduation he begins to realize that despite his parents' and family friends' high expectations, he is not particularly interested in becoming a lawyer. The second half of the book takes place in Cape Town, following Seraphin and his friends. In contrast to his life in Windhoek, Seraphin takes full advantage of being a young adult in a big city, and readers observe Seraphin make mistakes and grow as a Black man in a post-apartheid country that still prioritizes whiteness. I thoroughly enjoyed this entertaining and provocative debut.
Afterlives - Abdulrazak Gurnah - German East Africa
Afterlives is Abdulrazak Gurnah’s first book since he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. This book is a sweeping historical saga set in East Africa in the early 20th century during German colonial rule. Ilyas, a protagonist, is kidnapped by German soldiers to fight for them against a growing rebellion. His sister, orphaned after he leaves, relies on a local family until they become so brutal that she has to use her own wiles to escape. Hamza, the third main character in this story, was also a soldier in the German army who returns to his hometown after the war to recover what was lost. I highly recommend this novel if you’re looking for a story from perspectives that are not often considered.
Call and Response - Gothataone Moeng - Botswana
Call and Response is a debut short story collection by a young Botswanan author set in the village of Serowe and Gaborone, the capital city of the country. Each story focuses on a different young person struggling with questions of expectation, tradition, and generational conflict. In one story, a young widow wears traditional mourning clothes for a year to protect herself from the speed at which everyone else seems to have moved on from her husband’s death. In another, a boy raised by his grandmother and uncle comes of age in conjunction with the growth of a new, independent Botswana; charting a new life as a professor while also taking on the responsibility of maintaining the family’s cattle herd. I really enjoyed getting a glimpse into the communities, cities, and expectations of ordinary Botswanan people, many living on the cusp of the country’s political change.
How Beautiful We Were - Imbolo Mbue - fictional African village resembling a village in Cameroon
Mbue writes about the impacts of government and corporate colonialism in a fictional African village in the 1980s after oil is discovered under the land. Although the setting is fictional - the general experience was too common and far reaching to be assigned to one real place, explained Mbue - the village and story feel strikingly realistic. After the oil refinery’s actions begin poisoning and killing the village’s children, village leaders try to get the corrupt national government to do something. It is only after the American company’s representatives are taken hostage and the government subsequently massacres the villagers that the international community begins to pay attention. Even with the attention, however, in a story repeated in villages and countries around the world, nothing happens and eventually the environmental degradation becomes too great for the village to sustain itself. Mbue uses a first person plural narrative to fill the gaps of the story that individual characters might not be able to tell. None of the novel’s twists and turns feel particularly surprising, but that might be the whole point; a story with shock value has been dulled by the amount of times corruption and environmental damage has taken place and left ordinary people as collateral damage.
The Americas
Mecca - Susan Straight - California, United States
Mecca, set in the inland towns and canyons of Southern California, is a love letter of sorts to the communities that make up this portion of the American West. The book opens with Johnny Frías, a highway patrolmen and the child of California’s Indigenous people and Mexican settlers. His love of the hot and dry road, which he experiences on his patrol motorcycle, reflects a version of California often placed in the shadow of its more famous beaches and celebrities. While his job has had an appropriate amount of excitement, nothing will compare to his rookie year when he killed a man assaulting a young woman in the hills near his parents’ home. The plot of the book is difficult to comprehensively describe because Straight quickly veers away from Johnny to tell the story of the community around him, including the family of the young woman who was assaulted and the undocumented maid who works for them. Each thread is united by the deep roots connecting each character to their homes and the racism, injustice, and struggle that comes with this birthright. Straight writes with such clarity and purpose that I couldn’t help but be drawn in from the very start.
Night of the Living Rez - Morgan Talty - Penobscot Nation, United States
Night of the Living Rez is a collection of twelve stories set in current times on the Penobscot Reservation in Maine. Although each story is distinct, many of the characters repeatedly appear throughout the book, creating a layered effect. In one story, two friends attempt to rob a tribal museum and while one gets caught, the other hides in a nearby sweat lodge to avoid the authorities. In another, a boy is left to watch his teenage sister’s baby when tragedy ensues. Each of the stories grapple with issues of family, community, poverty and grief while attempting to give life to modern issues facing one indigenous community. Talty himself grew up on the Penobscot Indian Island Reservation and it is clear that his sharply observed stories are influenced by his life and childhood.
Velvet Was the Night - Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Mexico City, Mexico
The 1970s in Mexico City was a time of unrest. There were frequent student protests, discontent with the government, and a fragmented intelligence apparatus paranoid about communists agitating for revolution. Within this context sit the book’s protagonists: Maite, a politically disinterested secretary, and Elvis, a member of the Hawks, an unofficial arm of the government tasked with squashing dissidents and activists. The book begins when Maite’s neighbor Leonora asks her to look after her cat while she goes away. When Leonora does not return, Maite gets sucked into the mystery of finding her and quickly discovers that because of Leonora’s political activities, many other people, including Elvis, are trying to find her as well. Moreno-Garcia does an excellent job weaving together her plot with the political and cultural environment of 1970s Mexico City.
North Woods - Daniel Mason - Massachusetts, United States
In many ways, the protagonist of North Woods is a patch of land in western Massachusetts. Eventually, that land will be settled by a British soldier and veteran of the Seven Years War, who is determined to make his living growing apples. When he dies fighting in the Revolutionary War, the house and orchard are passed to his twin daughters to carry out his life’s dreams. The sisters grow old as spinsters, the land is bought by a successful painter, then passed to an owner of a button factory. So moves time, as one generation after the next discovers the area and its beauty, attempts to claim and conquer it as their own, and discovers that in the eternal struggle between man and nature, nature nearly always wins.
It is a narrative feat to simultaneously tell the stories of individual characters, a few acres, and the country writ large. Each chapter added a different layer to pre-existing foundations laid by the people, animals, and nature that inhabited the land of the previous generation. This book is an incredible blend of structural ingenuity, narrative prowess, and writing craft.
Infinite Country - Patricia Engel - Colombia
As Infinite Country begins, readers are introduced to Talia, a teenager being held in a correctional facility for adolescent girls in Colombia. Talia is desperate to return to her father in Bogotá so that she can board a flight to the United States where her mother and estranged siblings now live. Despite its length, this novel is packed with so much in the way of themes, perspectives, and approaches, moving the story forward in a masterful way. Engel successfully uses snippets of each character to tell the larger story of family, immigration, and the search for home. By interweaving Talia’s escape from the Colombian prison with the experiences of her family members, Engel grants her readers a stunning window into one family’s struggle for a better future amidst the harsh realities of the American immigration system.
How the One Armed Woman Sweeps Her House - Cherie Jones - Barbados
How the One Armed Woman Sweeps Her House is a drama that takes place in Baxter Beach, Barbados centered around violence, class, and an absence of opportunity. In addition to the traditional plot, the book teaches readers about the history and effects of colonialism on the island through a wide range of characters. The story begins on the night of a robbery turned murder that is disrupted by the robber’s wife going into labor. What happens next is told through the eyes of everyone involved, even those involved only peripherally, and paints a scene of the seedy side of a resort town whose beaches mask the real lives of the people who live there.
Asia
Concerning My Daughter - Kim Hye-jin - South Korea
Concerning My Daughter, translated from its original Korean, is the story of a contentious mother-daughter relationship set within changing cultural times. The mother, widowed and approaching her seventies, works as a caregiver at a state-funded nursing home caring for a woman who chose her career over having a family, leaving her with no one to look after her in her old age. The work is grueling and the mother would have preferred to retire years ago, but her only child, a thirty-something daughter named Green, has no stable work or traditional marriage prospects. Attempting to alleviate Green’s financial burdens, the mother invites her to move in, not expecting that Green would also invite her long-term girlfriend to come as well. The mother can not accept her daughter’s definition of family, growing increasingly concerned that she will end up alone and childless. This book is a fascinating exploration of family dynamics and their compatibility with traditional cultural values.
Now You See Us - Balli Kaur Jaswal - Singapore
Cora, Donita, and Angel are all Filipina women working as domestic staff in Singapore when tragedy strikes: Flor, a fellow maid, is arrested for murdering her employer. The three don’t know Flor very well, but each is convinced that Flor is being used as a scapegoat to protect the elite. The three women, each with different paths that took them away from home and to Singapore to work, have varying interest in helping set Flor free. Cora, who left the Philippines under mysterious circumstances and who has been working in Singapore the longest, understands the risks that could come from speaking out, while Donita, young, brash and new to the island, just wants justice for her friend. Along the way, the backgrounds of the three women are revealed as well as the dark undertones of the thriving domestic help economy in Singapore. This book is fast-paced and engaging, serving as a great example of how fiction can expose readers to issues and places they might previously have known little about. After I finished reading, I immediately had to google the Singaporean locations referenced and look at a map to understand how the geography played into the story.
Fault Lines - Emily Itami - Japan
Mizuki is a housewife living in Tokyo with her work-a-holic husband and her two young children. Mizuki is dissatisfied with her life - she did not intend to give up her career as a singer when she had kids - but cultural pressures and her husband's busy schedule default her into the role of wife and mother. One day, Mizuki meets Kiyoshi, a restauranteur, and their relationship slowly evolves into an affair. The novel dips in and out of scenes of Mizuki's childhood and year studying abroad in New York, her childcare routine, and the idyllic visions of the Japanese countryside that serve as the backdrop to Mizuki's affair. Throughout this short and carefully crafted novel sit the omnipresence of the fault lines that run underneath Tokyo and Japan. Lingering in the back of Mizuki's consciousness is the knowledge that the next big earthquake could arrive at any moment, prompting tsunamis and other untold destruction. Perhaps it is this understanding of the fragility of the life around her that causes Mizuki to begin an affair and reclaim the life that she wanted for herself. Or perhaps it is the threat the earthquakes pose for her children that drives her to give them a life of stability at the book's sudden and poignant conclusion.
The Woman in the Purple Skirt - Natsuko Imamura - Japan
Every day, the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan secretly watches the Woman in the Purple Skirt as she sits in the park, rides the bus, and looks for a job. The Woman in the Yellow Cardigan is obsessed with the Woman in the Purple Skirt and her antics, making sure that her favorite bench is always available for when she needs to use it and clandestinely placing job advertisements on the seat next to her to encourage her to apply. One day, the Woman in the Purple Skirt takes the bait and is hired as a cleaner by the same hotel where the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan works. Now, the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan has even more access to observe The Woman in the Purple Skirt as she waits for the moment that she will introduce herself and become friends. The Woman in the Purple Skirt, translated from its original Japanese, is an extremely clever work of fiction. The novel is very slim, leaving space only for the descriptions of the women and the specific actions in their days. While the premise is eerie, the book is also humorous and reality bending, as readers are left to question what is actually taking place and what are just the machinations of an obsessed stalker.
Age of Vice - Deepti Kapoor - India
A car crashes in the early hours of the morning on a New Delhi street. Five people are dead, including a pregnant woman. The man found behind the wheel of the expensive car that caused it all, Ajay, is clearly not its owner. The book that follows is divided into three sections. The first follows Ajay, a young lower caste boy from Uttar Pradesh who is sold off as a child to pay his family’s debts. Through hard work and luck, Ajay finds himself in the good graces of Sunny Wadia, the playboy son of a rich father with ties to crime and corruption. Ajay quickly becomes Sunny’s right-hand man and fixer, including coordinating his secret dalliances with Neda, a young Delhi journalist whose editor wants her to cover the slum clearances carried out by Sunny’s family. The second half of the story is told in Neda’s perspective, largely dealing with the traumatic after effects of the car crash as well as a reflection on her relationship. The final third comes from Sunny who is struggling with the weight of his father’s expectations and his reputation following the crash. This book is long but spans a range of Indian society, in this dramatic, flashy novel.
Europe
The Postcard - Anne Berest - France
In January of 2003 a generic postcard arrives at Anne Berest’s parents’ home in Paris with the names of four family members written on the back, all of whom had been killed in Auschwitz. At the time, the family is alarmed - is this some kind of practical joke? a threat? who sent it? - but over time, the postcard is put in a drawer and forgotten. Many years later, Anne, after having a daughter of her own, feels compelled to determine the origins of the postcard. Along with her mother, who has done her own investigation into the plight of the family, Anne learns the history of these lost loved ones while also discovering her Jewish identity within the context of a secular country with anti-semitic undertones. I feel somewhat ridiculous admitting that it wasn’t until about halfway through this book that I realized that the story was semi-autobiographical. Although the first clue should have been that the author’s and protagonist’s names are the same, once I connected the dots, the questions of identity, nationalism, religion and homeland took on a more personal and profound bent.
The Orchard - Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry - Russia
Anya and Milka are best friends coming of age in the Soviet Union in the 1980s as the country opens up and then crumbles. As members of the perestroika generation, Anya, Milka, and their classmates have a unique vantage point within the Soviet consciousness. They are old enough to have lived under the Soviet Union's iron fist but young enough to have hope for the future as new leadership and policies signal change to come. At home, Anya's parents and grandmother talk frequently about the hardships of the Second World War, life under Stalin, and argue over the foundations of the Soviet Union. Amongst friends, however, Anya and Milka experience a life freer than her parents when they read banned books, listen to Queen, learn English, and talk about traveling the world. But a microcosm of Soviet political conflict exists even within this perestroika generation: one friend argues for change while another who’s family benefited during the height of the Communist era argues for stasis. As Anya and Milka enter young adulthood the Soviet Union collapses, and so too do the lives and dreams that Anya and Milka have built together. The Orchard is Gorcheva-Newberry's debut novel, and in many ways it mirrors the experiences of her own life. Above all, however, this is a book about a beautiful friendship navigated through the dangerous waters of circumstance, politics, and hardship.
Young Mungo – Douglas Stuart - Scotland
Young Mungo follows a young boy in the Protestant tenements of Glasgow in a post-Thatcher era of unemployment and strife. Mungo is fifteen-years-old with an innocence that sharply contrasts with his gang-leader brother, Hamish, and his alcoholic mother, Maureen. Mostly raised by his older sister Jodie, Mungo spends his days at school with the assumption that his future will begin at age sixteen when he can drop out and become a laborer. He is not interested in girls, and as a result, his family sees and treats him as younger than he really is. One day, while wandering around his neighborhood, Mungo comes across a pigeon dovecote maintained by James, a Catholic boy a year older than him who lives down the street. Mungo and James become friends and then develop a romantic relationship, which they must keep secret from everyone around them. This is a book that will break your heart. It is filled with striking details about a common life of poverty with limited hope for the future. It is also a breathtaking story of a young boy attempting to discover who he is within a society that does not allow him many options.
The Applicant - Nazli Koca - Germany
The Applicant is written in the form of the diary of Leyla, a Turkish twenty-something, while she awaits a German court’s decision on whether or not she can retain her student visa and stay in Berlin. Told over the course of 10 months, Leyla begins her diary on the day that she starts work as a cleaner in a hostel, a job where she scavenges the items left behind by tourists to fund her partying and writing. Leyla left her mother and sister behind in Turkey to deal with the debts left by her deceased father and is determined to not return to a country that she feels will not welcome her and her left-wing ideology. With few options left to support herself, Leyla begins a relationship with a conservative Swedish tourist, who promises her a life in Sweden if their relationship can sustain the 2-year visa waiting period. The diary, which both records her day-to-day and serves as a space to reflect on her previous life and future aspirations, is the perfect template for a character as contemplative as Leyla. It deftly explores issues of longing, potential, and the politics of immigration.
Oceania
Birnam Wood - Eleanor Catton - New Zealand
After hearing about a devastating landslide on New Zealand’s South Island, Mira decides to assess the now cut-off and abandoned land as a potential location for a new outpost of Birnam Wood, the guerrilla gardening group that she leads. Birnam Wood’s mission is to plant crops, sometimes by permission and other times through trespass, on abandoned or underused stretches of land throughout New Zealand as a way to send a message about our capitalist society’s waste and inefficiency. As the book opens, the group is struggling to make ends meet financially and retain its membership. The landslide has created a massive opportunity for growth and publicity, which Mira is determined to take advantage of. When she arrives, she is surprised to find the quirky American billionaire Robert Lemoine already there, who offers the land and a sizable quantity of startup money to Birnam Wood. Lemoine is the CEO of a large company that specializes in surveillance drones, and it is almost immediately obvious to the reader that Lemoine has darker motivations attached to his gift, which are largely unknown to Mira and the group.
This book is gripping from start to finish and is probably best described as a slow burn with a fantastic structure. The book is told in alternating perspectives and as a result, readers know about the idiosyncrasies and motivations of each of the main characters - including Birnam Wood’s second-in-command, a disgruntled former member, and the true owner of the land - as the book unfolds. However, all of this internal plotting is not known to the other characters, leading to intrigue and peril.
All That’s Left Unsaid - Tracey Lien - Sydney, Australia
As soon as she’s able, Ky Tran leaves the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta to go college and become a journalist. 1990s Cabramatta, home to thousands of Vietnamese refugees like members of her family, is devastated by violent gangs and a heroin epidemic. After Ky receives a call that her beloved younger brother Denny has been brutally assaulted and murdered while celebrating his high school graduation, she is shocked. Denny was a good kid, was never in trouble, and had excellent grades. The police appear indifferent to Ky’s pleas for answers, overwhelmed by the scourge of violence facing the city, and accepting as true the dubious claim that there were no witnesses. Home for Denny’s funeral, Ky takes it upon herself to investigate what actually happened, hoping that she, a member of this community, can convince people to talk.
All That’s Left Unsaid is a beautiful book. Alternating between Ky’s perspective and the perspectives of the people at the restaurant that night, readers are exposed not only to the story of Denny and Ky, but also to the lingering impacts of the war in Vietnam, colonialism, poverty, addiction, and the struggle to survive in an unfamiliar place. I was captivated by the very first sentence of this haunting story and urge everyone to pick it up.
The Sun Walks Down - Fiona McFarlane - South Australian outback
When six-year-old Denny Wallace goes missing during a dust storm in a small town in the South Australian outback, the entire town is mobilized to find him. It is 1883, and a missing white boy is the source of much consternation amongst a population hoping to wrangle and tame the frontier. Fiona McFarlane harnesses the voices of everyone involved in the search - family members, including Denny’s precocious fifteen-year-old sister; an artist couple; a newlywed and her police chief husband; Indigenous trackers; and Indigenous farmhands - to tell the story not just of the search, but also of the community that has been built in the desert. Other than the Indigenous population, very few people in this town were actually born in Australia, creating a semi-diverse collection of people who have all come to this patch of semi-arable land with the hope of reinvention. I was impressed by McFarlane’s ability to tell the stories of so many different types of people all within the service of the central plot of finding Denny. Each character was uniquely built and contributed to a larger conversation about colonization, survival, and striving within a land already containing its own history.
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You can also check-out the original travel memoir Literary Epcot here: