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.

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• Bourbon Island 1730: book review

48 hours in Tokyo

We've just spent the third and final of the three two-night stays we'd won in Park Hyatt hotels at the Tokyo hotel, famous as the hotel where the film Lost in Translation is set.

Park Hyatt Tokyo

The room was very luxurious as can be expected, with much attention to detail, even the Q-tips (cotton swabs) were individually wrapped.

our room, 47th floor

As we were on the 47th floor at over 200 metres above sea level the views were fantastic. To the south east we could see the Meiji Shrine complex :

view towards south-east from our room

and to the north-east the Tokyo Metropolitan Government complex (far left in the photo) which has observatories on the 45th floor.

view north-north-east from our room

view east-north-east

close-up, Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower

NTT Docomo Yoyogi building

publicity airship

The gym was also on the same floor and the views were great if you were on a treadmill !

The first night we had dinner in an izakaya in Shinjuku, the area where the hotel is located. We didn't have the stir-fried hormones on the menu though !

Afterwards we wandered round Kabukicho which is an entertainment district near Shinjuku station with many restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. 

club in Kabukicho

Kabukicho street

Kabukicho street

The next day after breakfast,

breakfast is in the Girandole restaurant

we headed to the Ginza/Hibiya area, and walked through Hibiya Park

We also saw a demonstration nearby, but not being able to read Japanese we don't know what they were protesting about.

That night we had dinner in the New York Grill restaurant. We went back next morning to take some photos as the light was better at that time of day.

I don't think we've been to any Asian city without going to its Apple store.  On this trip we went to both the Ginza and Shibuya stores !

Shibuya apple store

Then we wandered back to the hotel via Omotesando.

You can read about our two-week trip round Japan by rail in April 2010 here.

Here's the post about 48 hours in Shanghai, the first of the three two-night stays we won in Park Hyatt hotels.

Suggested reading:

Out: A Novel by Natsuo Kirino is about four women who work the night shift in a Tokyo bento box factory, and who find their lives twisted beyond repair. This grim crime novel won Japan's top mystery award, the Grand Prix.

Tokyo Fiancee by Amelie Nothomb. A complex story of first love set in late 1980s and early 90s Tokyo. Amélie is a 21-year-old Belgian student studying Japanese in Tokyo when she begins tutoring Rinri, a sweet, shy and wealthy 20-year-old, in French. The relationship quickly evolves into a friendship and, soon after that, into romance.

Japan

After successfully crossing Russia by train on the Trans-Siberian railway, largely thanks to the Trailblazer guide book, we decided to invest in their Japan by Rail guide, buy a Japan Rail Pass, and be gluttons for punishment again. As the distances are not so great this time however we spent less time on trains, and more time sight-seeing.

Our city of arrival was Fukuoka, also known as Hakata, on the island of Kyushu, Japan's third largest island. It's actually the part of Japan situated the closest to Korea (you can catch a ferry from Busan), but we flew from Seoul. Our first Japanese meal after arrival was noodles in a pork-bone broth with slices of roasted pork, green onions and red pepper. At this particular restaurant you buy a ticket from a machine, sit in a cubicle, place the ticket on the counter below the curtain in front of you, and after a few minutes a pair of disembodied hands places the food in front of you.

Ramen in pork-bone broth

As Fukuoka itself doesn't have an enormous amount to see, the next day we headed to Nagasaki, widely known along with Hiroshima as one of two sites where the atom bomb was dropped in 1945. (In Saipan three months before I had seen the site where the bombs were stored and from where the planes carrying them took off from).

epicentre of the A-bomb blast, Nagasaki

The bomb exploded at 11:02am on August 9th 1945 about 500 metres above this black stone monolith (above).

Peace Park, Nagasaki

About 150 000 people were killed or injured, and one-third of the city was destroyed. In fact this one blast killed more people than all the bombing raids in Britain during WWII.

garlands of paper cranes at Peace Park, Nagasaki

The Peace Park is built on the site of an old prison that was destroyed in the explosion, and is just next to the hypocentre.

statue in Peace Park

After this sobering visit, we continued our gastronomic adventures back in Fukuoka with tonkatsu - breaded pork cutlet served with shredded cabbage and miso soup.

Tonkatsu

Another meal saw us discovering okonomiyaki which is a Japanese savoury pancake/pizza/omelette. The batter is made of flour, grated nagaimo (a type of yam), water or dash (stock), eggs and shredded cabbage, and usually contains other ingredients such as green onion, meat (generally pork or bacon), octopus, squid, shrimp, vegetables, kimchi, mochi (rice-cake) or cheese.

an uncooked okonomiyaki on the hotplate

Our restaurant was a do-it-yourself establishment where every table had its own hotplate, but as we didn't really know what we were doing a member of staff came and helped us!

two cooked okonomiyakis

Then it was time for us to change cities, travelling to Hiroshima in one of Japan Rail's famous shinkansen, or bullet trains.

shinkansen to Hiroshima

Hiroshima is actually the Japanese city that I liked the most. It's a manageable size, the people are very friendly, and is not at all as depressing as I imagined it might be, despite its history. The bomb was dropped here at 8:15am on August 6th 1945, three days before Nagasaki.

A-bomb dome

The "A-bomb dome" is what is left of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. It is now on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The bomb detonated almost directly above the building, which probably explains why it was left standing.

at the Children's Peace Monument

On the other side of the river lies Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park, which contains the key World War II sites in Hiroshima. In the park the Children's Peace Monument can be easily identified by its colourful paper cranes. One of the main features of the Park is the Peace Memorial Museum, with exhibits and displays about the day the bomb was dropped, and its aftermath.

watch stopped at 8:15 on display in the Peace Memorial Museum

While in Hiroshima we participated in an International Exchange home visit for a day, and Mrs Yoshie Yamamoto very kindly welcomed us into her home, served us tea, and allowed us to try on her collection of kimonos.

I'm quite small (1m57) but Mrs Yamamoto is tiny!

My husband and I

Mrs Yamamoto's traditional Japanese footwear

Hiroshima's history is not only about the A-bomb, for example it also has a castle originally built in the late 16th century (as the castle was destroyed in 1945 a replica was built in 1958).

Hiroshima castle

Close to Hiroshima is probably one of Japan's most iconic sights: the big vermilion O-torii gate standing in water at Miyajima island.

you need to take a ferry to get to Miyajima

The gate is situated 200 metres from the Itsukushima Shrine, which was originally founded in the 6th century, although the present structure is a 16th century copy of 12th century buildings. 

the gate is 16 metres high and is built of camphor wood

There has been a gate since 1168, but the current gate is the 18th version and was built in 1875.

the gate looking back towards the mainland

Near the shrine is the Go-ju-no-to or Five-Storied Pagoda.

Five-storied pagoda

The pagoda dates from 1407 and is 27 metres tall.

close-up

The island is home to quite a few (permanently hungry) deer.

It also has a number of hotels, restaurants and shops.

group of Japanese high-schoolers visiting Miyajima

Our next stopping point in Japan was one of its most famous cities - Kyoto.

In the train to Kyoto (five-toed socks are fairly common in Japan)

Kyoto was the nation's capital and Imperial home until 1868, and is still the cultural and touristic capital of the country. Some parts of the city are considered to be of such historial importance that laws prohibit brightly coloured signs.

MacDonald's usual bright red is not allowed near Kyoto temples

Ginkaku-ji is known as the Temple of the Silver Pavilion as when it was built in the 15th century the outer walls were originally going to be covered in silver.

The two-storey building is surrounded by a dry garden known as the Sea of Sand.

this pile of sand is said to symbolise Mount Fuji

I loved the way the bamboo has been used for this stairway

view from the Pavilion looking west over Kyoto

Alongside a canal near the Pavilion is the Path of Philosophy, lined with cherry trees. A famous scholar is said to have taken his daily constitutional here.

 Philosopher's Walk (Tetsugaku-no-michi)

Heian Jingu is one of Japan's most important shrines.

wishes on trees (you tie it to the tree and hope it comes true).

at Heian Shrine

in the street

beggar near Kiyomizu-dera temple

We spent one day visiting the city of Nara, 40km south of Kyoto, which was established as Japan's first permanent capital in 710 until the capital moved to Kyoto in 794.

Most of the city's popular sites are in Nara Koen (Nara Park), and the biggest draw is the Todai-ji temple complex.

The Great Buddha of Nara is 16.2m high

The main building is the world's largest wooden structure and is home to a 15-tonne bronze Buddha. There's also an enormous wooden pillar with a hole, and it's said that if you can crawl through the hole you'll attain enlightenment ...

my husband squeezing through 'the enlightenment hole'

Back in Kyoto on our last day we visited one of the city's most famous sights: the Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Originally built in the late 14th century as a villa it was later converted into a temple, and had to be reconstructed in the 1950s after a monk set fire to it.

Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion) is covered in gold leaf

in the street

The Japanese have imported a certain number of recipes from other countries, and French crêpes can be found in several places, to my delight. Although they're not quite as good as the originals, they're still delicious!

Our penultimate stop was at Hakone, beside Lake Ashi, which is a National Park and resort area near Tokyo and not far from Mount Fuji.

Mount Fuji is Japan's highest mountain (3776m)

Pirate ships disguised as pleasure boats pleasure boats disguised as pirate ships sail the lake.

the lake was formed by the eruption of a volcano

interesting menu choice

One of the attractions in the area is the Owaku-dani valley which you reach by ropeway (cable car) and which has active sulphur vents. The smell can be quite unpleasant as hydrogen sulphide gas escapes from the vents.

sulphur vents

sulphur vents

A local speciality is black eggs which have been boiled in the hot springs. Eating one is said to increase your life by 7 years.

Kuro-tamago (black eggs)

At our accommodation in Hakone we had a traditional Kaiseki dinner  consisting of aperitif, hors d'oeuvres, clear broth, a raw fish dish, broiled food, soup, rice, pickled vegetables, and a dessert

Kaiseki dinner

Finally it was time to head to the nation's capital. As it was raining the day we arrived one of our first stops was Tokyo National Museum, Japan's oldest and largest museum. I was fascinated by the collection of haniwa figures which were erected on tombs in Japan during the 4th - 6th centuries. Figures were in the shape of humans, animals or man-made objects, and may have represented aspects of the person buried in the tomb.

Haniwa figures

We also visited Senso-ji which is Tokyo's oldest temple, founded in 628.

this giant straw sandal hangs at the temple's main gate

In Japan and Korea it's fairly common for restaurants to display plastic food, and whole shops are devoted to supplying and selling (incredibly realistic) plastic food.

plastic food shop

One of the distinctive buildings on Tokyo's skyline is Tokyo Tower, a 332m-high communications and observation tower.

Nearby is Zojo-ji temple where in one particular garden at the cemetery rows of statues of children represent unborn (miscarried, aborted, stillborn) children. Parents can choose a statue in the garden and decorate it with small clothing and toys. 

statues in the unborn children garden

In the Odaiba part of the city a leisure and commercial development  complex has been built, including the Fuji Television Building.

the unique architecture of Fuji TV HQ

We also visited the Meiji Shrine which honours the spirit of the Emperor Meiji who died in 1912, and his wife the Empress Shoken. While there we were lucky enough to see a wedding procession.

wedding procession, Meiji Shrine

wedding procession, Meiji Shrine

One of our last meals in Japan was shabu shabu, a dish where you put a thin slice of meat (or a piece of vegetable) in a pot of boiling water or broth and "swish" it back and forth  (the name shabu shabu is derived from the "swish swish" sound of cooking the meat in the pot).

On our last morning we visited the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in the Shinjuku area for its views from the 45th floor.

Little did we know that 14 months later we would be staying not far away on the 47th floor of the Park Hyatt hotel, having won a two-night stay there, in Beijing and in Shanghai!

Suggested reading:

Japan by Rail: Includes Rail Route Guide and 29 City Guides, 2nd Edition by Ramsey Zarifeh, Trailblazer guide

Fodor's Japan, 19th Edition (Travel Guide) 

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

La trace (French Edition) by Richard Collasse is only available in French.