Sri Lanka

Cinnamon Gardens
Shyam Selvadurai

Selvadurai is a Sri Lankan–Canadian author whose first book, Funny Boy, won a slew of awards, including the Books in Canada First Novel Award. It's coming-of-age story set in Sri Lanka where Selvadurai grew up. As with any hyphenated writer who's lived in more than one country, I faced the question of where I should considered them to be "from". Selvadurai was born to a Sinhalese mother and a Tamil father, which led his family to emigrate to Canada during the interethnic tension of the Sri Lankan civil war when Selvadurai was 19. Since Selvadurai spent his formative years in Sri Lanka, and sets his novels all there, I figure he is a safe bet for my Sri Lanka entry. I would, however, be particularly interested in reading some authors writing in the post-civil-war period to understand how the country has been affected by that dreadful conflict.

Funny Boy is set in the run-up to this turbulent period, which is when my family also lived in Sri Lanka. As such, it had a particular resonance for me that I didn't find in Cinnamon Gardens, which is set in the high-society world of colonial-era Sri Lanka in the 1920s. Cinnamon Gardens traces the story of two relatives struggling to find their way in the genteel but overbearing manners and social graces of the period, à la Jane Austen, which I've since learned was an inspiration for the book.

Selvadurai has a new book, The Hungry Ghosts, which follows on with many of the same themes of sexuality, ethnicity, and identity in Sri Lanka. Something to pick up for my upcoming Chinese New Year trip to the Sri Lankan beach?

Lebanon

Beirut Blues, Hanan al-Shaykh
حنان الشيخ  بريد بيروت

I really had the most difficult time remembering the title of this book when I was compiling the list of countries I'd already read. I picked up this book by chance off a bookshop shelf when I was at uni, drawn by the look of the cover, with its airmail envelop chevrons and stamps. – I can confirm that it is quite difficult to find a book when all you remember is the cover!

Eventually, with a bit of applied thought, I remembered that the author was a woman, which narrowed down the field of possibilities rather considerably. Hanan al-Shaykh was born into a conservative Muslim family; this would influence her writing considerably which often focuses on the place women in Arab society.

Beirut Blues, translated into English by Catherine Cobham, is written as a series of letters – whence the cover which so captivated me – by a woman struggling to make sense of her life and the world in war-ravaged Beirut. She must choose between staying in Beirut's dangers and frustrations, or emigrating and leaving the country she loves behind.

Ireland

The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde

I read The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde's only novel, when I was in university and quite enamoured with someone who very much brought to mind the protagonist of this story.

But that was many moons ago now. I remember having difficulty imagining how or why this book was considered so salacious when it was first published. There are only vague hints of ambiguous allusions of faint whispers of anything even mildly indecorous. Those Victorians sensibilities were so easily aggrieved; I doubt I would do very well with such prudish bunch!

I've actually read Irish author Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes much more recently. What a depressing story! So depressing, in fact, that it's disheartening to think that it's a memoir, with real suffering characters, rather than a work of fiction. For my reading the world project, I'd like to focus on fiction where possible, a rule that Ann Morgan had to bend a few times when nothing else was available. Given Ireland's long literary history, I'll stick with uni-times backtracking to The Picture of Dorian Gray for the time being.

Sweden

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden, Jonas Jonasson
Analfabeten som kunde räkna

I spent my New Year in Sweden this year with a group of Swedish friends I knew from Singapore who had moved back to their charming and snowy country. And, naturally, I wanted a book by a Swedish author to accompany me on my travels. 

Despite the fact that Sweden has a long literary history and a well-read population, I actually had quite a lot of trouble finding a Swedish book to read. Not that there aren't many Swedish authors, of course. In my searches, I found dozens and dozens of Swedish thrillers and hard-boiled detective stories. Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy comes to mind, but there are heaps of others. The genre isn't really my cup of tea, so I kept searching. Ann Morgan's choice, Montecore by Jonas Hassen Khemiri, seemed interesting – an award-winning book exploring the Swedish immigrant experience – but wasn't available here in Singapore from either bookshop or my usual online retailer.

My searching continued and eventually I came across Jonas Jonasson. I'm really surprised (by my poor searching skills?) that it took so long to come up with his name. Jonasson is the author of best-selling The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, which is now being made into a movie. I'd heard of that book, of course, but had no idea that the author was Swedish!

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden is a quirky, character-driven story that's hard not to like. I found myself chuckling along as I read about the exploits of Nombeko Mayeki, an illiterate orphan from Soweto who changes the fate of Sweden in the most whimsical and picaresque way. Tack så mycket, Sweden, from throwing this one my way!