With the world beginning to shut down again, armchair travelling will once more be the order of the day.
The idea for this post came from Scott Pack and Judith Robinson’s Around the World in 10 books event at the London Library earlier this year, which left me wondering if I could create a similar tour from the translated German literature on my shelves. Of course I can! Only not in 10. Will 25 do? 😂
Neither are we travelling in a circle. We’re really snaking from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back again. Links to my reviews. Favourites are asterisked.
Feel free to add more destinations in comments. Here we go.
Norwegian Arctic – A Woman in the Polar Night – Christiane Ritter *
Russia The Last Summer – Richarda Huch
Scotland The Peacock – Isabel Bogdan *
Czechia The Last Resort – Johannes Urzidil (TBR)
Hungary Summer Resort – Esther Kinsky (TBR)
Romania The Last World – Christoph Ransmayr (TBR)
Turkey The Blacksmith’s Daughter – Selim Ozdogan *
Georgia The Eighth Life – Nino Haratischvili *
Iraq The Village Indian – Abbas Khider (TBR)
Lebanon The Storyteller – Pierre Jarawan *
Spain (Lanzarote) New Year – Juli Zeh (TBR)
Portugal Night Train to Lisbon – Pascal Mercier (TBR)
Western Sahara Sand – Wolfgang Herrndorf
Rwanda One Hundred Days – Lukas Bärfuss
South Africa The Wall – Max Annas
Antarctica The Ice-Cold Heaven – Mirko Bonné (TBR)
Indonesia Love and Death in Bali – Vicki Baum
Papua New Guinea Imperium – Christian Kracht *
South Korea – The Great Homecoming – Anna Kim (TBR)
Japan I Called Him Necktie – Milena Michiko Flašar *
Argentina/Brazil South American Letters – Stefan and Lotte Zweig (TBR)
Venezuela/Cuba/Peru/Ecuador/Mexico Measuring The World – Daniel Kehlmann *
USA The Perfect American – Peter Stephan Jungk (TBR)
Canadian Arctic The Discovery of Slowness – Sten Nadolny (TBR)
Greenland All The Land – Jo Lendle
Now if you’re brave enough to sail eastwards across the Arctic Ocean, to Svalbard, you’ll disembark at the original embarkation point. Gute Reise!
Beautiful post, Lizzy! Some of the places I could add are these :
Norway / US / Canada / Deep Sea – The Swarm by Frank Schätzing
Burma – The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker
India – Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
Norway – Unformed Landscape by Peter Stamm
Thanks for the additions, Vishy.
Love the map!
How about:
Nigeria – The German Crocodile by Ijoma Mangold, tr. by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp
Perfect – started reading it last week.
Italy: Daughters – Lucy Fricke