114 Books From Around The World I Want To Read Before I Die

This post is an editorial digest by Culture Trip’s Social Media Director, and a repost from Medium.com
I’ve always been an utter bookworm: from my teenage years spent reading the likes of Anna Karenina and Crime and Punishment, to university where I studied and devoured French and German literature at Oxford, to ‘real’ adulthood where I find myself drawn to anything that doesn’t smell of airport bestsellers.

I can read like a madwoman, but there is method in the madness. Let me tell you about it: I’ve no time for bad literature, or accidental book choices. Most of the books you’ll see me reading have gone through a meticulous selection process: for years, I’ve been keeping a carefully curated list of all the books I want to read before I die – a lot of it filtered to fascinating, little-known contemporary novels, as opposed to the classics which I’ve already covered. Call me a control freak, but I really care about the quality of my intellectual consumption. And so should you.

Now, I want to share this mini-library with you. It contains all the books on my personal list I haven’t yet read.

A few points to note before you get reading:

1. The vast majority of ‘books to read before you die’ lists are terribly biased towards American and British literature. My list is biased towards the whole world. Around 80% of it is literature in translation. All available in English. Categorized by region, and then alphabetically.

2. This is my Wish List. Books I’ve yet to read, or books I want to re-read. Every time I read one, I’ll mark it as such and add in a date.

3. The list is subjective. I am no book critic. I just pick my reading very carefully.

EUROPE

ASIA & PACIFIC

20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth | Author: Xiaolu Guo | Country of Origin: China

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers | Author: Xiaolu Guo | Country of Origin: China

Arresting God in Kathmandu | Author: Samrat Upadhyay | Country of Origin: Nepal | Read: January 2016

Behind The Beautiful Forevers | Author: Katherine Boo | Country of Origin: India | Read: August 2016

Bombay Stories | Author: Saadat Hasan Manto | Country of Origin: India

Cat Country | Author: Lao She | Country of Origin: China

Censoring an Iranian Love Story | Author: Shahriar Mandanipour | Country of Origin: Iran

The City Son | Author: Samrat Upadhyay | Country of Origin: Nepal | Read: February 2016

Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer | Author: Cyrus Mistry | Country of Origin: India

Colours Of The Mountain | Author: Da Chen | Country of Origin: China

The Corpse Exhibition: And Other Stories of Iraq | Author: Hassan Blasim | Country of Origin: Iraq

The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up | Author: Liao Yiwu | Country of Origin: China

The Demon Seed and Other Writings | Author: M.T. Vasudevan Nair | Country of Origin: India

The English Teacher | Author: R.K. Narayan | Country of Origin: India

Goat Days | Author: Benyamin | Country of Origin: India

The God of Small Things | Author: Arundhati Roy | Country of Origin: India

Haroun and the Sea of Stories | Author: Salman Rushdie | Country of Origin: India

I Have the Right to Destroy Myself | Author: Young-Ha Kim | Country of Origin: South Korea

In an Antique Land | Author: Amitav Ghosh | Country of Origin: India

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders | Author: Daniyal Mueenuddin | Country of Origin: Pakistan

Kitchen | Author: Banana Yoshimoto | Country of Origin: Japan. Loved the author’s name.

Life and Death are Wearing Me Out | Author: Mo Yan | Country of Origin: China

Noli Me Tangere | Author: José Rizal | Country of Origin: The Philippines

Please Look After Mother | Author: Kyung-Sook Shin | Country of Origin: South Korea

The Prophet | Author: Kahlil Gibran| Country of Origin: Lebanon

Revenge | Author: Yoko Ogawa | Country of Origin: Japan

Rickshaw Boy | Author: Lao She | Country of Origin: China

Songs of Blood and Sword | Author: Fatima Bhutto | Country of Origin: Afghanistan

The Sound of the Mountain | Author: Yasunari Kawabata | Country of Origin: Japan

The Vivisector | Author: Patrick White | Country of Origin: Australia

The White Tiger | Author: Aravind Adiga | Country of Origin: India/Australia

The Woman in the Dunes | Author: Kōbō Abe | Country of Origin: Japan

Women Without Men | Author: Shahrnush Parsipur | Country of Origin: Iran

AFRICA

A General Theory of Oblivion | Author: José Eduardo Agualusa | Country of Origin: Angola

A Grain of Wheat | Author: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o | Country of Origin: Kenya

Americanah | Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Country of Origin: Nigeria

The Cairo Trilogy | Author: Naguib Mahfouz | Country of Origin: Egypt

The Famished Road | Author: Ben Okri | Country of Origin: Nigeria

The Fishermen | Author: Chigozie Obioma | Country of Origin: Nigeria

July’s People | Author: Nadine Gordimer | Country of Origin: South Africa

Leaving Tangier | Author: Tahar Ben Jelloun | Country of Origin: Morocco

Life & Times of Michael K | Author: J.M. Coetzee | Country of Origin: South Africa

Taxi | Author: Khaled Al Khamissi | Country of Origin: Egypt

This Blinding Absence of Light | Author: Tahar Ben Jelloun | Country of Origin: Morocco

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families | Author: Philip Gourevitch | Set in: Rwanda

Woman at Point Zero | Author: Nawal El-Saadawi | Country of Origin: Egypt

THE AMERICAS

2666 | Author: Roberto Bolaño | Country of Origin: Chile

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius | Author: Dave Eggers | Country of Origin: USA

A Bend in the River | Author: V. S. Naipaul | Country of Origin: Trinidad & Tobago | Read: September 2016

The Chosen | Author: Chaim Potok | Country of Origin: USA

Dirty Havana | Author: Pedro Juan Gutiérrez | Country of Origin: Cuba

Dune | Author: Frank Herbert | Country of Origin: USA

The Feast of the Goat | Author: Mario Vargas Llosa | Country of Origin: Peru

Giovanni’s Room | Author: James Baldwin | Country of Origin: USA

In Cold Blood | Author: Truman Capote | Country of Origin: USA

The Labyrinth of Solitude | Author: Octavio Paz| Country of Origin: Mexico

A Little Life | Author: Hanya Yanagihara | Country of Origin: USA

Middlesex | Author: Jeffrey Eugenides | Country of Origin: USA

The Namesake | Author: Jhumpa Lahiri | Country of Origin: India/USA

Near to the Wild Heart | Author: Clarice Lispector | Country of Origin: Brazil

The Orphan Master’s Son | Author: Adam Johnson | Country of Origin: USA

Portnoy’s Complaint | Author: Philip Roth | Country of Origin: USA

The Snow Leopard | Author: Peter Matthiessen | Country of Origin: USA

Stoner | Author: John Williams | Country of Origin: USA

Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? | Author: Raymond Carver | Country of Origin: USA

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