This is a companion thread to the international films thread. List the books that you recommend that are either written by foreign authors or deal with subject matter that relates to foreign culture.

Foreigner by Nahid Rachlin (Iran) - This is an autobiographical story about a woman who was born in Iran, immigrated to the U.S., and eventually returned to Iran to visit her family. It deals with the emotions of being caught between two vastly different cultures, and it also serves as an interesting juxtaposition between Iran and the U.S. It takes place before the Islamic Revolution. I actually had the pleasure of corresponding with Nahid Rachlin via e-mail, and she is a very interesting person.

In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez (Dominican Republic) - This is loosely based on the true story of the Mirabol sisters. It takes place in the Dominican Republic during the time of the Trujillo era, and it is about four sisters who get involved with revolutionary forces against the government. The writing style is very feminine.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (China) - This book takes place during the 60's when Mao sent intellectuals to the countryside for re-education. It deals with two male friends, a suitcase of forbidden books, and their experiences with a country girl that lives in the village that they are sent to for re-education. The writing is beautiful, as is the story.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (Congo) - This book is by an American writer. It is about an American missionary family that travels to the Belgian Congo in the 60's to try to convert the natives to Christianity. The story centers mostly around the four daughters of the family and the ways in which the Belgian Congo changes them. It is a fantastic book, and I highly recommend it.

I'll continue to add to this list as I think on it.

Two works come immediately to mind as they are both by foreign authors (sort of) and concern foreign cultures: Richard's Feet by Carey Harrison and The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Both are brilliant novels regardless, but the former by Bristish-born, but American-reared (hence the "sort of") Harrison, is also one of the best works I've read on the distinctions between the Anglo and Teutonic temperaments. Encompassing the Second World War, Richard's Feet is part of a tetralogy of books dealing with four central characters whose lives are obliquely intertwined and whose paths converge in the final (as yet unpublished) novel. The differences between the English and German character are very finely drawn and he deals with everything from linguistics to sex to the waging of war, all in a highly entertaining epic.

The Autumn of the Patriarch is an ambitious (perhaps overly ambitious), intricate, and formally challenging work - the final sentence, for example, runs to over sixty pages (if memory serves; it may be longer). But it is a staggering portrait of an archetypical Latin American dictator (based in part on Marcos Pérez Jiménez of Venezuela, but incorporating traits of Trujillo, Batista, and Somoza, if not more) and the imagery - at least in Gregory Rabassa's brilliant translation - is stunning. While written in the magical realist style which made Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude so popular (and also well worth reading), it is a bit more rooted in the realism than the magic, though no less fanciful.

For international authors in general, I'd recommend Umberto Eco, Yukio Mishima, Athol Fugard, Italo Calvino, and (goes without saying?) Tolstoy. As I already included one English-language writer, other goes-without-saying types would have include Shaw, Joyce, Woolf, and Dickens (especially Bleak House[i] and, for historic interest, [i]Barnaby Rudge).

Anything by Oscar Wilde, even though he really only wrote one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. So I guess I can focus on that. Its all about image and obsession.....How vileness consumes people. Its been awhile since I've read it, so I can't elaborate much more.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, this is the best love story of all time. Need I say more?

I cant think right now.

Kim: I think it's fair to include playwrights (of course I would - my own list included Athol Fugard and G.B. Shaw, e.g.), in which case, it should be mentioned that Wilde is also responsible for perhaps the best farce ever written, The Importance of Being Earnest.

And, yeah, Notre Dame is wonderful. How could Disney have given it a happy ending?? And a sequel! (Though it looks like they're making sequels to everything now - what next? Old Yeller: Resurrection?)

Off the top of my head (lots of smiles I know)
Good information on Saudi Arabia is Robert Lacey's (sic) "The Kingdom"
Also: " A Drop of the veil". It has been so long I don't remember the author.

Wertz, this made me laugh out loud.

I think I would actually go see something as twisted as that.

All his plays are wonderful, I particularly like Lady Windermere's Fan, and the aforementioned The Importance of Being Earnest. Did you see the movie? It was excellent.

And I couldnt believe that Disney bastardized Notre Dame! I was reading the book right around the time the movie came out, and I was horrified. But Disney is master at bastardizing all things (Pochahantas? Im wondering if the Salem witch trials are next...?)

Another good forgien book, Memoirs of a Russian Punk, but Edward Limonov. His other books arent that memorable, but this one is great. Its autobiographical, about him growing up a teenager in Communist Russia.

Just thought of one more...If we're counting Canada (and why we wouldnt I couldn't say) Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen.

I assume you mean the recent one with Rupert Everett and Judi Dench, which was wonderful, rather than the older one with Michael Redgrave and Edith Evans, which was just awful. The same director did a version of Wilde's An Ideal Husband, which was also pretty good.

A novel written by Hammond Innes called 'The Golden Soak' gives an interesting insight into life within the mining communities of Western Australia during the early '70's mineral boom.

Regards........Alan