Some of the rules are the same: no authors I’ve read previously, no books that I’ve seen adapted into film, a baker’s dozen. New rule: works in translation with a different language each month.
I’ve ordered them, somewhat nonsensically, based on climate.
January: Russian
Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita
February: Japanese
Mishima Yukio: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
March: German
Thomas Mann: Death in Venice
April: Dutch
Harry Mulisch: The Assault
May: Spanish
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude
June: French
Michel Houllebecq: The Elementary Particles
July: Italian
Italo Svevo: Zeno’s Conscience
August: Arabic
Elias Khoury: Gates of the Sun
September: Anglo-Saxon
Beowulf (Seamus Heaney translation)
October: Chinese
Mo Yan: The Republic of Wine
November: Yiddish
Isaac Bashevis Singer: Enemies
December: Norwegian
Knut Hamsun: Hunger
Bonus book:
Portuguese
Jorge Amado: Dona Flor and her Two Husbands
It felt odd to omit all of India but I couldn’t find anything I was interested in that wasn’t written originally in English. I bumped Portuguese in favor of Arabic — the list was too heavy on Romance languages. Within any given language, I went with contemporary over classic.
(I read some excerpts from Beowulf in high school but it was a different translation and I’ve wanted to read this one anyway, plus it’s my project and I can cheat if I want to.)
This Ask Metafilter thread was invaluable, although the project is somewhat different: Which books are most representative of each country?.
December 15, 2007 @ 1:42 pm
December 15, 2007 @ 2:19 pm
December 19, 2007 @ 10:11 pm
December 20, 2007 @ 5:58 am