Books about Reunion & worldwide literature

A recent exchange with Ann Morgan, who's currently reading her way round the world, got me thinking about Reunion Island books in English. As far as I'm aware, with the exception of 'Bourbon Island 1730', the list I came up with contains only books that I have been written directly in English and not translated. In fact as far as I know there are no English translations of books by well-known Reunionese authors like Daniel Vaxelaire or Axel Gauvin, although the latter's books have been translated into German.

Books about Reunion I haven't read myself (but which are all on my Bookmooch wish list!):

• Reunion: An Island in Search of an Identity by Laurent Medea
• Monsters and Revolutionaries: Colonial Family Romance and Metissage by Françoise Verges
• Island Born Of Fire: Volcano Piton de la Fournaise by Dr Robert B. Trombly

Bourbon Island 1730

Books I've read myself:

• Crags and Craters: Rambles in the Island of Reunion by William Dudley Olivier (this is my favourite).
• The Last Colony: An Experience of Reunion Island by Michael Steane (an e-book but full of inaccuracies)
• Six Months in Reunion: A Clergyman's Holiday, and How He Passed it by Patrick Beaton (I didn't like this much).
• Bourbon Island 1730 by Appollo & Lewis Trondheim (a graphic novel)
• Island Awakening by Lynne Martin (romantic fiction).
• Dead Sexy by Kathy Lette (a "satire on the sex war")
• Second Chance and its sequel Second Chance Sister by Linda Kepner (romantic fiction - thinly disguised sequels to François Truffaut's film The Mississippi Mermaid)

I've written reviews of all of the above books.

Also: Bonnes Vacances!: A Crazy Family Adventure in the French Territories by Rosie Millard is about a 4 month tour of the DOM-TOMs Rosie made with her husband and four young children to make a documentary series for the Travel Channel ("Croissants in the Jungle"). Its final chapter covers Réunion (briefly); see my review of the book here.

In the introduction I mentioned Ann Morgan who is currently reading her way around as many of the globe’s 196 independent countries as she can, sampling one book from every nation. (She's also recently included a Rest of The World wildcard section, hence our exchange about Reunion Island). However as she asked herself: what counts as a story? Is it by a person born in that place? Is it written in the country? Can it be about another nation state? While in some respects she's still answering that question she had to lay down her terms and so decided to limit herself to all narratives that could be read to full effect by one reader on their own e.g. memoirs, novels, short stories, novellas, biographies, narrative poems and reportage, but not non-narrative poetry and plays.

It got me wondering about which countries I'd already read literature from, and after a quick tour of my bookshelves (and my memory!) this is the (non-exhaustive) list I came up with, in English and French:

• Algeria - L'étranger [The Outsider] - Albert Camus [Author/Setting]
• Australia - The Secret River - Kate Grenville [Author/Setting]
• Belgium - L'Enfant de Noé - Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt [Author/Setting]
• Botswana - The Kalahari Typing School for Men - Alexander McCall Smith [Setting; Author is British]
• Brazil - Rouge Brésil [Brazil Red] - Jean-Christophe Rufin [Setting; Author is French]
• Cameroon - La saison de l'ombre - Léonora Miano [Author/Setting] (added November 2013)

The Kalahari Typing School for Men

• Canada - Where White Horses Gallop - Beatrice McNeil [Author/Setting]
• Central African Republic - Princesse aux Pieds Nu - Evelyne Durieux [Author/Setting]
• Burma - The Piano Tuner - Daniel Mason [Setting; Author is British]
• China - Leaving Mother Lake: A Childhood at the Edge of the World - Yang Erche Namu [Author/Setting]
• Czech Republic - L'Insoutenable légèreté de l'être [The Unbearable Lightness of Being] - Milan Kundera [Author/Setting]
• Cuba - Our Man In Havana - Graham Greene [Setting; Author was British]
• Democratic Republic of Congo - The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver [Setting; Author is American]
• Denmark (& Greenland) - Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow - Peter Høeg [Author/Setting]
• Egypt - Woman at Point Zero - Nawal El Saadawi (translated by Sherif Hetata) [Author/Setting]
• French Polynesia (Tahiti) - Breadfruit: A Novel - Célestine Hitiura Vaite [Author/Setting] [August 2014 - I read the French translation L'Arbre à Pain by Henri Theureau]
• Germany - The Book Thief - Markus Zusak [Setting; Author is Australian]
• Haiti - Island Beneath the Sea - Isabel Allende (translated by Margaret Sayers Peden) [Setting; Author is Chilean American]

"Island Beneath the Sea"

• Hawaii - Comfort Woman - Nora Okja Keller [Author/Setting]
• Iceland - L'homme du Lac [The Draining Lake] - Arnaldur Indridason (translated by Eric Boury) [Author/Setting]
• India - A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry [Author/Setting]
• Indonesia - Krakatoa - Simon Winchester [Setting; Author is British]
• (Inner) Mongolia - Wolf Totem - Jiang Rong (translated by Howard Goldblatt) [Author/Setting]
• Iran - Jamais Sans Ma Fille [Not Without My Daughter] - Betty Mahmoody [Author/Setting]
• Ireland - Angela's Ashes - Franck McCourt [Author/Setting]
• Israel - The Red Tent - Anita Diamant [Setting; Author is American]
• Italy - The Baron in the Trees - Italo Calvino (translated by Archibald Colquhoun) [Author/Setting]
• Jamaica (& Dominica) - Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys [Author/Setting]
• Japan - Out - Natsuo Kirino [Author/Setting]
• Kiribati - Paradis [avant liquidation] - Julien Blanc-Gras [Setting; Author is French] (June 2014)
• Lebanon - The Fifth Mountain - Paulo Coelho [Setting; Author is Brazilian]
• Madagascar - Muddling Through In Madagascar - Dervla Murphy [Setting; Author is Irish]
• Malaysia (Borneo) - My Life in Sarawak - Margaret Brooke [Author/Setting]
• Mauritania - Le Tambour des Larmes - Beyrouk [Author/Setting]
• Mauritius - Paul & Virginie - Bernardin de St Pierre [Setting; Author was French]
• Mayotte - Mon Mari Est Plus Qu'un Fou : C'est Un Homme - Nassur Attoumani [Author/Setting] 
• Netherlands - Girl with a Pearl Earring - Tracy Chevalier [Setting; Author is American]
• New Zealand - Behind Closed Doors - Ngaire Thomas [Author/Setting]
• Nigeria - Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe [Author/Setting]
• North Korea - The Aquariums of Pyongyang - Kang Chol-Hwan [Author/Setting]
• Norway - Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder (translated by Paulette Møller) [Author/Setting]
• Pakistan - The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid [Author/Setting]
• Rodrigues - Voyage à Rodrigues - JMG Le Clezio [Setting; Author is French]
• Russia - Dans Les Forets de Sibérie - Sylvain Tesson [Setting; Author is French]
• Seychelles - Travelling Hopefully - Maggie Makepeace [Setting; Author is British]
• South Africa - Disgrace - JM Coetzee [Author/Setting]
• South Korea - Who Ate Up All The Shinga? - Park Wan-Suh (translated by Yu Young-nan) [Author/Setting]
• Spain - The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón [Author/Setting]
• Sweden - Millennium Trilogy - Steig Larsson (translated by 'Reg Kreeland') [Author/Setting]
• Tibet - Voyage d'une Parisienne à Lhassa [My Journey to Lhasa] - Alexandra David-Néel [Setting; Author was French]
• Trinidad  - A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul [Author/Setting]
• Tromelin - Les Naufrages de l'ïle Tromelin - Irène Frain [Setting; Author is French]
• Turkey - My Name Is Red - Orhan Pamuk (translated by Erdağ Göknar) [Author/Setting]
• United Arab Emirates - The Wink of the Mona Lisa and other stories from the Gulf - Mohammad Al Murr (translated from the Arabic by Jack Briggs) [Author/Setting] [October 2015]
• Uzbekistan (& Iran) - Samarcande [Samarkand] - Amin Maalouf [Setting; Author is from Lebanon]
• Vietnam - L'Amant [The Lover] - Marguerite Duras [Author/Setting]
• Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia) - The Grass is Singing - Doris Lessing [Author/Setting]  [August 2014]

Samarcande

Notes:

• I've arbitrarily excluded the UK, France and the USA as I've read so many books from these countries I'd have trouble choosing just one!
• If I've read several books from a country I've generally just listed my favourite.
• I've also taken liberties by listing some non-independent regions (e.g. Rodrigues, Hawaii, Tibet, Tromelin).
• I excluded some books (such as Ann Patchett's Bel Canto, or William Boyd's African novels) that take place in unidentified countries.
• I also excluded books (such as Elie Wiesel's Night) whose action takes place in several countries.
• If I've read a book in French but an English translation exists I've added the English title in brackets [].
• I've included books not written by natives of the country in question.

My conclusions:

I have vast swathes of the planet where I haven't read any literature from, for example South America or the Pacific! Places like South East Asia or Central Asia are patchy too. Although I list Paul Coelho and Isabel Allende the books of theirs that I read were not set in their native countries. And despite living and travelling for three years in Asia I've mainly read Korean books (North and South) but very little from the many other countries we travelled to in the region. I need to broaden my horizons even more.

What about you? Do you enjoy reading books from other countries? Do you have any books to recommend? Is literature from your native (or adopted) country easy to find in English?

P.S. Here's the link to Ann Morgan's site: A Year Of Reading The World. Other reading around the world blogs I've come across are: Reading the World, The Rushlight List and World Lit Up.

This post originally appeared on A Smart Translator's Reunion.

Related articles

• Island awakening: book review
• Press article round-up
• Cimetière Marin, St Paul
• Whale-watching
• The 'blogosphere'
• Bourbon Island 1730: book review

48 hours in Shanghai

We've just spent the weekend in Shanghai thanks to a two night stay we won at the Park Hyatt Shanghai. 

The Park Hyatt is the world's highest hotel above ground, and is in the world's third highest building - the Shanghai World Finance Center (SWFC). We already visited Shanghai in August last year, so this time we were able to make the most of the hotel, do some shopping, and see some friends. In August the weather was very hot and the sky very blue as you can see in the photos below. Next to the SWFC is the JinMao Building, which houses the Grand Hyatt hotel.

JinMao Building on the left, SWFC on the right

The JinMao Building is itself the world's twelfth tallest building.

ditto, seen from the ground

Pudong skyline, seen from the Bund,
with the pink Oriental Pearl Tower on the left.

The weather wasn't very good this weekend so no blue skies, anyway this is the view from our room on the 81st floor. The hotel is situated between the 79th and 93rd floors. Reception is on the  87th floor, and breakfast was in the restaurant on the 91st floor.

View from our room at night, JinMao Tower on left.

same view by day

As can be expected the room was extremely comfortable and included a toilet whose lid lifted automatically when you walked in, and which flushed automatically when you walked out !

bedroom (photo  © Hyatt)

bathroom (photo © Hyatt)

On the way back to the airport on Sunday we took the high speed Maglev train, which covers 30km in just over 7 minutes. You can see our top speed below :

China, Part 2 - Yunnan, Hainan, Shanghai

On leaving Tibet we flew to Shangri-La. Unfortunately Shangri-La is not 'paradise on earth', just the Chinese town of Zhongdian which has been renamed for tourism purposes. (Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. Hilton describes Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise, and particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia — a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world).

in Shangri-La town

Our first visit in the area was just north of Shangri-La, to the 300-year-old Ganden Sumtseling Gompa Tibetan monastery, which is home to around 600 monks.

Ganden Sumtseling Gompa monastery, near Shangri-La

at Ganden Sumtseling Gompa monastery

ethnic Tibetan woman working in the fields near the monastery 

village roofs

The town itself is home to the world's largest prayer wheel (superseded in April 2012 by another even bigger prayer wheel in Heyin Town, Guide County, Qinghai Province, measuring 26.285 metres in height and 10.22 metres in diameter, and weighing 200 tons - see here).

large prayer wheel, Zhongdian

Next we headed to Tiger Leaping Gorge, 16 km long, which is one of the deepest gorges in the world (3900m).

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Nearby is the first bend of the Yangtze river - the place where the river curves and thus stays in China instead of flowing out of the country like the Mekong.

First bend of the Yangtze river

Continuing our journey south we then stayed in Lijiang - an old town which is a maze of cobbled streets and wooden buildings. The whole county of Lijiang was placed on UNESCO's world heritage list in 1999.

our hotel, Lijiang

Lijiang has been the base of the Naxi minority for about 1400 years. They form one of the 56 recognized ethnic groups officially recognised by the Republic of China. The Naxi script is an independently derived hieroglyphic writing system - probably the only hieroglyphic writing system still in use today.

Naxi script

The old town of Lijiang is criss-crossed by a web of canals that once brought the city's drinking water from a spring in Black Dragon Pool Park (see below). 

in Lijiang

pool, Lijiang

If there are three pools, one was used for drinking, one for washing clothes, and one for washing vegetables.

waterwheel, Lijiang

unidentified squirrel-like animal, Lijiang

Black Dragon Pool Park, north Lijiang; the pool was built in 1737

We also visited the old village of Baisha 8km north of Lijiang, an early Naxi stronghold. “Baisha” means “white sand” and not surprisingly it got its name from the natural white sand in the area.

Baisha village

Lijiang also has a new town.

statue of Mao, Lijiang new town

taichi, Lijiang new town

On leaving Lijiang we travelled south to Dali, which lies on the western edge of Erhai lake (erhai means 'ear-shaped'), at an altitude of 1900m. 

Erhai lake, near Dali

The main inhabitants of the region are the Bai ethnicity, who settled in the area about 3000 years ago; today they number about 1.5 million.

my husband with our guide, who was wearing traditional Bai costume

Dali's most famous sight are the Three Pagodas, three independent towers arranged on the corners of an equilateral triangle. The tallest of the three, the Qianxun Pagoda, has  16 tiers that reach a height of 70 metres and is one of the tallest pagodas in China’s history. It was originally built in the 9th century by engineers from Xian. The two smaller pagodas are both 10 tiers and 42 metres high. Behind the pagodas is Chongsheng temple.

the three pagodas, Dali

Dali Catholic Church has to be one of the most unusual churches to ever be built. Constructed in 1938 by the French in the style of traditional Chinese architecture, it has three sections of double-tiered eaves. During the Cultural Revolution in China the church was badly destroyed and it was closed. In 1984 the church was renovated by the Religious Department and has been listed under Historical Protection since 1985.

Catholic church, Dali

On leaving Dali we flew to Kunming, Yunnan province's capital and largest city. It's known as 'Spring City' for its equable climate. Like Dali it also has pagodas, known as the Eastern and Western pagodas, which were constructed in the late eighth or early ninth century, under the rule of the Kingdom of Nanzhao. The two are about 200 metres apart.

one of the two pagodas, Kunming

Yuantong temple is the largest Buddhist complex in Kunming. Over 1000 years old, it has seen many renovations.

Yuantong temple, Kunming, complete with incense smoke

The temple was built at the same time as the pagodas.

Yuantong temple, Kunming

South of Kunming is Lake Dian, which is about 40 km long and China's eighth largest lake. It was originally the model for the Kunming Lake in the Summer Palace in Beijing. Unfortunately the lake's current green colour is because the water is now highly polluted - so much so that the water is even unfit for agricultural or industrial use.

Lake Dian

On the western side of the lake are Xi Shan - the Western hills.

Xi shan (Western Hills) near Kunming

Seven kilometres east of Kunming is Golden Temple, a Taoist temple actually made of bronze that was once the summer residence of a 17th century warlord.

Golden temple, near Kunming

In the park surrounding the temple are replicas of Dian culture bronzes; the Dian people lived around Lake Dian from the 4th centiury BC until 109 BC.

replica of the ox and tiger table that became a symbol of Yunnan

We then flew to Hainan, an island off China's south coast a week of rest and relaxation. At 19° north of the equator it enjoys a tropical climate.

We were staying in a hotel not far from Sanya, Hainan's main resort town.

West island, off the coast of Sanya, Hainan

East island, off the coast of Sanya, Hainan

coast, near Sanya, Hainan

Next it was time to fly to Shanghai, China's economic hotspot.

Shanghai's iconic skyline, seen from the Bund

In 1842 Shanghai was a small town based on fishing and weaving. The British opened their first concession there that year, and the French followed suite in 1847. By 1853 Shanghai had already overtaken all other Chinese ports.

the same skyline at night

An International Settlement was established in 1863, the Japanese arrived in 1895, and the city was parcelled up into autonomous concessions, immune from Chinese law.

Broadway mansions Art Deco hotel, Shanghai

By the 1930s the city had 60 000 foreign residents and was the busiest international port in Asia.

Shanghai is also a busy commercial port

The city is divided into two areas: Pudong, east of the Huangpu river, and Puxi, west of the Huangpu river. The Huangpu is a tributary of the Yangtze river, which we saw in Yunnan.

the Bund seen from the Pudong side

Puxi is the more historical part of the city.

the Bund seen from the Pudong side

the Bund seen from the Pudong side

skyscrapers, Pudong, Shanghai

We admired the Park Hyatt hotel, the world's highest hotel above ground, situated between the 79th and 93rd floors of the Shanghai World Finance Center (SWFC). Little did we suspect that 8 months later we'd be back in Shanghai, staying in the hotel itself, having won a two-night stay there! (see here).

JinMao building (left); SWFC/park Hyatt (right)

We did however manage to sneak up in the lift and take some photos from the 79th floor! At the time the SWFC was the world's third tallest building.

view of Shanghai from the SWFC

view of Shanghai from the SWFC

Our visit to Shanghai coincided with the 2010 World Expo so we paid it a visit one day.

Chinese pavilion, World Expo

As the weather was extremely hot and the queues were long we limited our visits to the British and French pavilions - as passport holders we didn't need to queue up for either of those pavilions.

South Korean pavilion, World Expo

Nepalese pavilion, World Expo

Singapore pavilion, World Expo

Estonian pavilion, World Expo

The French Pavilion featured six paintings and one sculpture on loan from the Musée d'Orsay. The paintings included works by Paul Cézanne,Jean-François Millet, Édouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin, while the sculpture was Auguste Rodin's The Age of Bronze'. 

exterior of French pavilion

The French pavilion won 3rd prize for best development of theme in the pavilion A category during the expo.

interior, French pavilion

The UK pavilion was built with 60,000 translucent acrylic rods that produced effects when the wind blew and was called the "Seed Cathedral" and nicknamed the "Dandelion".

exterior, British pavilion

The pavilion won Best Pavilion at the Expo.

interior, British pavilion

On leaving Shanghai we headed back up to Beijing by train, from where my husband left to go back to South Korea, while I flew to North Korea.

If you enjoyed this post you might also like:

• 48 hours in Shanghai - April 2011 stay in the Park Hyatt, Shanghai
• July & August 2010 trip itinerary - Mongolia, China, Tibet
• Steppe-ing Through Mongolia - our trip to Mongolia - this is the most visited post on my blog
• Jolting through the Mongolian steppe - a short video
• China, Part 1 - Beijing, Xian, Xining - the first part of our trip to China
• The Highest Railway in the World - the train journey from Xining to Lhassa
• On The Roof Of The World - our trip to Tibet
• The Tibetan way of working - a short video we filmed at Jokhang temple
• North of the Border - my trip to North Korea, which came at the end of our two-month trip to Mongolia, Tibet and China.
• Vladivostok To Moscow : Travelling Across A Quarter Of The Globe by Train - the previous summer (2009) we travelled on the Transsiberian across Russia & Siberia.

Suggested reading:

• Leaving Mother Lake: A Girlhood at the Edge of the World - Yang Erche Namu