We’re around three quarters of the way through our blog series now, storming through the world alphabetically as we read around the world, featuring a book from every country in the world. We’ll work alphabetically through all the countries in the world and add in some smaller countries and islands too, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe!
We’ll work alphabetically and the last list ended at Portugal, we’re starting this list at Qatar.
Join us on our literary world trip as we read around the world in more than 200 books.
Qatar
Love Comes Later – Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar
When newlywed Abdulla loses his wife and unborn child in a car accident, the world seems to crumble beneath his feet. Thrust back into living in the family compound, he goes through the motions—work, eat, sleep, repeat. Blaming himself for their deaths, he decides to never marry again but knows that culturally, this is not an option…
Réunion
Stars and Keys – Lee Haring
The culture of Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Réunion, and the Comoros is a unique blend of traditions that have been brought from Africa, South Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The folktales from these islands reflect the diversity of this culture and provide a rare opportunity to observe the fluidity of traditions and the process of creolization.
Romania
The Forbidden Forest – Mircea Eliade
Set in Bucharest and other European cities, The Forbidden Forest follows the life of a public servant named Stefan, who works at the Ministry of the Economy. Stefan embarks on a spiritual quest after meeting a beautiful and mysterious woman, Ileana, at a midsummer celebration. He becomes torn between his love for his wife, Ioana, and his lust for this new mistress.
Russia
The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
Mikhail Bulgakov’s fantastical, funny, and devastating satire of Soviet life combines two distinct yet interwoven parts, one set in contemporary Moscow, the other in ancient Jerusalem, each brimming with historical, imaginary, frightful, and wonderful characters.
Rwanda
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families – Philip Gourevitch
Stories from Rwanda is a 1998 non-fiction book by The New Yorker writer Philip Gourevitch about the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which an estimated 1,000,000 Tutsis and Hutus were killed.
Samoa
The Girl in the Moon Cirle – Sia Figiel
Often fiction allows authors to tell truths that otherwise would be too painful. Sia Figiel is uninhibited in The Girl in the Moon Circle, an observation of life in Samoa for perceptive and inquisitive 10-year old Samoana. Samoana describes the detail of her life so well that we are both outraged and charmed by it.
San Marino
The Republic of San Marino – Guiseppe Rossi
Bar a Harlequin novel released in the 1970s, we struggled to find any nonfiction based in the world’s smallest republic, but if you want to find out more about this tiny place, here’s a good place to start.
Sao Tome and Principe
Equator – Miguel Sousa Tavares
t is 1905 and Luis Bernardo Valenca, a thirty-seven-year-old bachelor and owner of a small shipping company, is revelling in Lisbon’s luxurious high society. But his life is turned upside down when King Dom Carlos invites him to become governor of Portugal’s smallest colony, the island of São Tomé e Principe.
Saudi Arabia
The Ruins of Us – Keija Parssinen
Saudi-born author Keija Parssinen’s stunning debut offers the intricate, emotionally resonant story of an American expatriate who discovers that her husband, a Saudi billionaire, has taken a second bride—an emotionally turbulent revelation that blinds them both to their teenaged son’s ominous first steps down the road of radicalization
Scotland
Buddha Da – Anne Donovan
Following a chance meeting with a Buddhist monk in a Glasgow sandwich bar one lunchtime, painter and decorator Jimmy McKenna starts to develop an interest in Buddhism and begins to visit a meditation centre and go away for weekend retreats. The story is essentially about Jimmy’s new found faith, and the reaction of his immediate family to this.
We hope you’re enjoying this new blog series, we’ll be back with the next journey through literature in a few days, starting with Palau.
As the series continues, you can try this search to find the rest of the blogs in this series. Alternatively if you’re looking for a specific country so far we have covered:
Benin to British Virgin Islands
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