In the following collection, you’ll find novels, memoirs, short stories, books of poetry, graphic novels, and yes, even a travel guide. Because many of these are works in translation, we made every effort to note the original publish date where possible, even if there are large gaps between the first release and the version we are recommending. (It often takes years for work to be translated into English.) But how did we choose what countries to include, and better yet, what books? Canada – The Blind Assassinby Margaret Atwood:A novel within a novel that spans much of the twentieth century as it explores the life of its protagonist. In a book about people traveling around the world, I was hoping for something more flashy. More adventurous. More... questy. Senegal – So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ: In a letter to an old friend, a recently widowed schoolteacher recounts her struggle after her now-deceased husband took a second wife.

Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) – Allah Is Not Obligedby Ahmadou Kourouma:A ten-year-old Ivorian boy is orphaned, travels to Liberia to find his aunt, is captured by rebel forces, and forced into child soldiery. In 1903, James Willis Sayre, an American theatre critic and arts promoter, set a world record for circling the earth using public transport: 54 days, 9 hours and 42 minutes. [13] Nepal – Arresting God in Kathmandu by Samrat Upadhyay:A novel that explores the dueling natures of desire and spirituality in the lives of men and women in Nepal’s capital city.

Sri Lanka

Favorite Quotes: "We found that modern mechanical invention instead of disenchanting the universe, had really afforded the means of exploring it's marvels the more surely. Instead of going round the world with a rifle, for the purpose of killing something...this bold youth simply went round the globe to see the people who are on it; and since he always had something to show them as interesting as anything that they could show him, he made his way among the nations." -Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

It's a subtle, inferential book, somber and reflective. On one randomly-flipped-to spread, there are only 10 words, on 10 panels.Ukraine – Wave of Terror by Theodore Odrach:A firsthand fictionalized account ofthe Stalinistoccupation of Belarus. The Mountains Sing is something of a duet: Alternating between the perspectives of family matriarch Diệu Lan and her granddaughter Hương, the novel spans nearly a century of Vietnamese history, covering everything from the French colonial period up to the present day. It’s a gripping read about the long-lasting consequences of war. Sudan – Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih:After returning to his homecountry after years studying in Europe, a young man becomes the confessor of a familiar face from his childhood.