The following annotated list is a sampling of the world regional fiction that is available. All the books listed are set in various countries of the world during the 20th century. The books included were selected because of their strong regional flavors. The books’settings are so vividly drawn as to make you almost feel as if you are with the characters of the novel.
Bowles, Paul
The Sheltering Sky
The Echo Press, 1949. 318 p.
A movie version of this novel, set in North Africa is currently being filmed under the
direction of Bernardo Bertolucci. Three young Americans drifters, a married couple and a
male friend, travel to Tangier. The time is the early 1940s. The travelers, who are
wealthy, idle, superficial and bored, attempt to avoid any trace of the war. At first,
they seem untouched by the Arabian culture and the Moroccan landscape, if not slightly
repelled. Gradually, their attitudes become voyeuristic. Finally, the power and mystery of
the Saharan desert its relentless sky and unyielding people come to dominate every aspect
of their lives. A strange and mesmerizing book recalling the existentialism of Camus The
Stranger.
Cody, Liza
Rift
Scribner, 1988. 240p.
1947, Ethiopia, the beginning of the famine. A poor time for a single young female from
London to drive through the Rift Valley alone. Gives excellent feeling of the desolation
and hopelessness of the country as well as the peril of traveling alone in a foreign
country.
Eprile, Tony
Temporary Sojourner
Simon & Schuster, 1989. 222 p.
Tony Eprile, a South African now living in New York, has written a series of beautiful and
compassionate stories about his troubled homeland, about the people who suffer there and
those who suffer there and those who suffer for having left it. Woven throughout and
providing continuity, are stories of the Spiegelman family, expatriated German Jews who
have left yet another homeland and now live in the United States. Other stories focus on
jailers, students, outcast blacks, and other liberal whites. All reflect the diversity of
South African reality—the pain, the joy, the despair and hope.
McClure, James
The Sunday Hangman
Harper & Row, 1977. 262 p.
Lt. Tromp Kramer of Trekkersburg Murder and Robbery Squad and his Zulu assistant Sergeant
Micky Zondi start out to investigate what appears to be a suicide by hanging and find
themselves uncovering a series of "executions" of criminals who could not be
prosecuted by the state. As they pursue their investigation, Tromp provides vivid
descriptions of the countryside and inhabitants of the Natal region of South Africa.
Police procedures and civilian discussions point out the attitudes of whites toward blacks
and the manner in which each views and treats the other. The genuine concern and affection
Kramer feels for his "boy" must be kept between themselves, hidden from both
races. This book offers a good picture of the South African landscape and its tragic
political situation.
Tyler, W. T.
The Ants of God
The Dial Press, 1981. 278p.
Heat, dust and the beauty of the African outback are the backdrop against which we meet
McDermott, a mercenary pilot. Introspective and surprisingly charismatic, he affects both
Emily, a widow working quietly at an isolated mission, and Penny Palmer, flower child
stranded in Africa. Africa’s isolation, politically violent nature and indelible
influence changes them all.
Wood, Barbara
Green City in the Sun
Random House, 1988. 699p.
This novel traces the development of British East Africa/Kenya from 1919 to the present.
This history is told through the eyes of two families: one the Kikuyu family of Chef
Mathenge and his medicine woman wife Wachera, the other British colonial family of
Valentine Treverton and his physician sister Grace. The story includes the growing Kikuyu
unrest leading to the Mau Mau uprisings of the 1950s independence for Kenya, and the
election of Jomo Kenyata as the country’s first president.
Asia And The East
Came, Barry
Rice Wine
Weidenfeld, 1988. 255 p.
Paul Stenmark, an ambitious young bank executive, comes to the Philippines during the
Marco regime to evaluate the proposed construction of one or more dams to be financed by
his financial institution. During his visit he gains a thorough view of the countryside
and insight into the people and their political ideas. He also finds himself caught amid
the violence of opposing forces and the tensions of a country on the edge of civil war. In
the end, he barely escapes with his life.
Desai, Anita
Fire on the Mountain
Harper & Row, 1977. 146 p.
Nanda Kaul is an old woman perfectly content in her quiet house on a ridge facing the
Himalayas, in the Simla Hills of Northern India. Nothing suits her more than the peaceful
stillness of living alone. Then, Raka, her great grandchild, comes to stay. Secretive Raka
proves to be very much like Nanda Kaul. A spindly little ghost of a girl, Raka prefers
spending hours alone exploring the forests and the hills and seeking out the beautiful and
dangerous wildlife of the region—hoopoes, jackals, snakes and langurs. When an old
friend of Nanda Kaul’s appears, the story takes a bizarre twist as hidden truths
erupt with unexpected violence.
Hospital, Janette
The Ivory Swing
Dutton, 1983. 252 p.
Juliet decides to accompany her husband, David, on a research sabbatical to South India.
Once there, he becomes engrossed in his work, leaving Juliet to care for their children
and to direct household strangely dominated by the Indian servants and landlord. Others
she encounters include Prem, a member of a radical group trying to expose the village to
Marxist ideas, and Yashoda, a recently widowed woman who has been condemned by her elders
for breaking the rules of mourning. Increasingly, Juliet’s life becomes unsettled by
the problems of the Indian community around her, and before long she is questioning not
only her marriage but the values she has lived by.
Johnson, Diane
Persian Nights
Alfred A. Knopf, 1987. 352 p.
Chloe Fowler traveling with her visiting-physician husband, finds herself instead alone in
Iran, when her husband must return home to California. Pre-revolutionary Iran, with its
secret police, women seemingly invisible and unacknowledged in their black chador, and the
very rich alongside the very poor, forms the frame in which this richly evocative story is
set. Chloe passes the months of her stay as if in a dream—which at times is a
nightmare. Away from family and patterns of normal life, caught up in an exotic and
foreign culture, Chloe is beseiged both by frustration at her inability to become
acclimated and her growing fear that life in Iran is often not what it seems, and just as
often not safe.
Lord, Bette Bao
Spring Moon
Harper & Row, 1981. 464 p.
This historical novel follows the fortunes and misfortunes of an aristocratic Chines
family, the House of Chang. Set against the background of a crumbling Chinese Empire, the
Boxer Rebellion and the Communist Revolution, the book spans the years from 1892 to 1927
and, in its epilogue, is updated to 1972. Through Spring Moon, whose life is chronicled in
the novel we learn about Mandarin courtyard society and the traditional life of
China’s upper class intelligentsia. Lord’s portrayal of the Chang family and how
its members and their descendents were affected and changed by forces sweeping China in
the twentieth-century is a engrossing and rings as true as Pearl Buck’s Chinese
peasants in The Good Earth. "…This is a highly readable and fascinating account
on an important period in Chinese history….."
Matsubra, Hisako
Cranes at Dusk
Dial, 1895. 253 p.
Japan, 1945---town of Kyoto. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has caused much fear
throughout Japan. The war has brought many changes. Saya, ten -year old daughter of Shinto
priest, must absorb and reconcile the changes brought about by the Americans. Violence and
tenderness, hunger and death, all presented in a way that produces unexpected insights
into Japanese feeling, mentality, adaptability, shrewdness and strength.
AUSTRALIA
Carey, Peter
Illywhacker
Harper & Row, 1985. 600p.
Herbert Badgery is a confidence man, a con man, in Australian slang, an Illywhacker. In
1919 he lands his crippled airplane in a field outside of Geelog, New South Wales; and
Herbert Badgery, who longs only for a settled family life and to be a kind man, begins a
life-long adventure that includes Socialists, poets, parrots, poisonous snakes and the
Best Pet Shop in the World. In a story darkly humorous, Peter Carey portrays an Australia
that is exotic, brash and yet insecure and groping for its own identity.
McCullough, Colleen
The Thorn Birds
Harper & Row, 1977. 530 p.
Best-selling family saga of the Irish Catholic Cleary clan from the sheep ranch Drogheda.
The primary tale revolves around young Meggie Cleary and her haunting, doomed love for the
aristocratic Catholic priest Ralp de Bricassart. The story moves from New Zealand to
Australia to London and the Vatican .
Shute, Nevil
A Town Like Alice
Heinemann, 1981. 311 p.
When Englishwoman Jean Paget learns that a fellow prisoner of war, Australian Joe Harman,
has also survived the horrors of captivity at the hands of the Japanese in Malaya, she
travels to Australia to be with him. Their love flourishes, but new obstacles loom. Can an
Englishwoman learn to cope with the isolation of the Australian outback ? Will her
resourcefulness and her legacy—the fortune her great uncle made in the Australian
gold fields—allow her to create an Oasis in this desolate country, a town like Alice
Springs out of Willstown?
Upfield, Arthur W.
The New Shoe
University of California, 1951.
Inspector Bony, passing himself off as the vacationing owner of a sheep ranch, is
investigating the murder of a naked, unidentified man found in the locker at Split Point
Lighthouse. Bony interests himself in the local people and the surrounding land to solve
the mystery. Upfield has a remarkable gift of description, plus a thorough and intimate
knowledge of his subject matter, with very accurate geographic descriptions. Though born
in England, Australia became his home and the setting of his many books.
EUROPE
Beckwith, Lillian
A Proper Woman
St. Martin, 1986. 179p.
A sentimental love story that breathes the scents of the Hebridges: salt-spiced air,
fresh, damp earth, mingled heather and bracken. When Anna’s brother sells the family
croft, she is forced into a loveless marriage with Black Fergus the village outcast. His
drunkenness repulses Anna, but her loneliness finds solace is caring for a gentle mare in
foal. When Black Fergus abuses the horse, events are set in motion that will change
Anna’s life forever.
Binchy, Maeve
Echoes
Viking, 1985. 477p.
Clare O’Brien, daughter of a poor shopkeeper in Castlebay, Ireland, wins a
scholarship to a university in Dublin. There she falls in love with David Power, a boy
from Castlebay’s upper class, who is studying to be a doctor. They both dream of
escape but become trapped in the town once more and neglect the one thing that could save
them—their love for each other. The town, the people, the culture all combine in an
extraordinary story of love born against all odds and nearly thwarted.
Chatwin, Bruce
Utz
Viking, 1985. 477p.
Aging Kaspar Utz, the last remaining survivor of an old Czech family, is a collector of
priceless Meissen porcelain. The repressive socialist authorities allow him to keep his
vast collection in his tiny Prague apartment on the condition that he bequeath it to the
state on his death. For Utz, these figurines are remnants of past days of glory and he
spends years protecting them. How could he let the bleak state have his most precious
possession?
Cornelisen, Ann
Any Four Women Could Rob the Bank of Italy
Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, 1983. 291 p.
It starts as a sort of a joke to pass the time. Then, as the four heroines become more
exasperated than amused by the Italian macho notion that there are some things women
won’t do, they emphatically decide to commit a crime—and the scheme they concoct
involves robbing a train carrying a huge government payroll. Set in a Tuscan hill town,
this spirited, elegant, extremely funny novel grows out of the social mores of present day
Italy. The author, an American, has lived in Italy for over 30 years, and in 1974 she
received a special award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters for her sharp,
insightful writing about her adopted country.
Deighton, Len
Berlin Game
Knopf, 1983. 345 p.
In the early 1980s when there was still a Berlin Wall, Bernard Samson, working for the
British secret service, is asked to help a double agent escape from east Berlin. Traveling
to Germany, he recruits his boyhood friend to cross over the wall with him and seek out
the spy. The mission becomes complicated when details are leaked to the Soviets and the
traitor appears to be among Samson’s London colleagues. This book is the first of a
trilogy, followed by Mexico Set and London Match, which provide settings in Mexico City in
London.
Delacorta
Diva
Summit Books, 1979. 143 p.
A wild romp through the Paris streets of the seventies. Jules, a courier on motorbike,
illegally records an opera star’s performance at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees. This
tape is inadvertently switched with one indicating a drug pusher. Complicating the
situation are a Japanese executive who is trying to steal the opera tape, a prostitute who
is killed in a search for the drug tape and a pair of con artists who are involved for the
fun of it-thirteen year old Alba and her forty year old roommate, Serge.
Demetz, Hanna
House on Prague Street
St. Martin’s Press, 1980. 152 p.
Pre-World War 11 Czechoslovkia. Half-Jew Richter leaves an idyllic childhood of summers at
her grandfather’s house on Prague Street to endure the cold realities of war and the
subtle annihilation of her family. Good portrayal of the rise of Nazism and its effect on
a people. Gentle treatment of the subject of the Holocaust. Despite the horrors of war,
love can blossom between Jew and Gentile. Sequel, Journey From Prague Street.
Demille, Nelson
The Charm School
Warner Books, 1988. 630 p.
A desperate phone call to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow by an American tourist recently
arrived in his Trans Am from Smolensk engages three members of the Embassy staff in a
failed rescue of the tourist, Greg Fisher. His phone revelations concerning an encounter
with an escaped American pilot in a forest near Borodin set off a life a life threatening
chain of events for his would-be rescuers that culminate in a dramatic rescue which foils
the efforts of both the KGB and the CIA to prevent it. DeMille is an engaging story-teller
who quickly pulls the reader into the plot by convincing you that his premise is sound.
The personal relationship between the three main characters- Lisa Rhodes, Sam Hollis and
Seth Alvey-are not gratuitous but integral to the story. You won’t to put it
down—until you reach the violent conclusion which seems to have gotten away from the
author. On balance, it is an exciting read with universal appeal. Chilling food for
thought in the midst of the warming atmosphere between the USSR and the U.S. as a result
of glasnost.
Fowles, John
The Magus
Little, Brown & Company, 1976. 668 p.
Suffused with golden sunlight and the craggy coasts of Greece, this is the long and
Labyrinthine tale of Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman, who has come to the isle of
Phraxos to teach and to escape an unfortunate love affair. Nicholas finds himself, along
with a beautiful woman, under the spell of Maurice Conchis, a sinister and mystical
recluse who weaves illusions with reality in the enthralling Godgame. By turns, weird,
brutal, erotic, mysterious and theatrical.
Francis, Dick
Slayride
Ballentine,1973. 219 p.
David Cleveland, official investigator for the English Jockey Club, has been sent to
Norway to work with his friend Arne Kristiansen, official investigator for the Norwegian
Jockey Club. Arne is investigating the disappearance of Bob Sherman, British steeplechase
jockey, from the Ourevoll track with the day’s take. The investigation begins on
water, on a fjord an hour out of Oslo. David and Arne are thrown into the icy water when a
speedboat rams their dinghy. David doesn’t drown—but life in Norway continues to
be shockingly dangerous as the investigation continues.
Frison-Roche, Riger
The Raid
Harper & Row, 1962. 244p.
Centering around a revenge raid of Simon Sokki’s reindeer herd by rival Lapps and
covering only a few months, The Raid reveals the lives and customs of the fiercely proud
and independent Lapps. Soklki’s daughter Kristina, sent to school in the nearest town
against her will, escapes the confines of the town when she hears of the raid and travels
across the hostile winter tundra to return to her herd. There she finds, in trapper Paavi,
another who shares her desire to continue in the old ways, to live as a Lapp as long as
the reindeer and lichen survive.
Gunn, Neil M.
The Silver Bough
Walker and Company, 1985. 328p.
During the 1940s in the wild and remote highlands of Scotland, Simon Grant excavates a
cairn. As he works with the local people, he comes to appreciate their quiet, primitive
spirit. Then when skeletons of a mother and child as well as an ancient crock of gold are
uncovered, the townspeople react in a way that leads Grant to a spiritual renewal.
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