April 23 is UNESCO World Book Day – and just because the Global Voices team loves blogs, doesn’t mean we have forgotten other forms of the written word! In fact, because we think reading literature is such an enjoyable way to learn about another culture, we have a fun challenge for all Global Voices contributors and readers, and bloggers everywhere.
The Global Voices Book Challenge is as follows:
2) Write a blog post about it during the week of April 23.
UPDATE: Tag your posts with #gvbook09 so we can find your posts.
If you would like to know what you should be reading from Vietnam, Bolivia, Mozambique or New Zealand, or any other country, just ask in the comments below! Someone is sure to give you suggestions.
And if you have any recommendations for any must-read works from your own country, please leave a comment too.
Once you have read your book (and written a post!) let us know – we’d love to discover what you learned on your literary expedition.
Feel free to use the images above and below to spread the word of the Global Voices Book Challenge!
63 comments
Thank you guys for this awesome idea. These are the kind of initiative we need to increase cultural understanding among populations through the World wide web.
I’m very interested in reading something about social-interpersonal issues and everyday life in china, vietnam and thailand culture. Any idea? I know I’m a little difficult :)
Life in China : I would suggest Ha Jin’s books : “Waiting”, “In the pond”
and for Vietnam, Duong Thu Huong, “Terre des oublis”.
Thanks Suzanne! Hope I’ll find the Duong Thu Huong book!!
Hi everyone, please tag all your posts related to the Book Challenge with #gvbook09 so we can find them.
Thanks! Happy reading.
Great idea! I posted an announcement on my blog. Now I have to think about which book to read…
There is a huge list as part of a larger, similar reading challenge here:
http://orbisterrarumchallenge.blogspot.com/2009/01/books-read-in-2008-by-ot-challengers.html
Both Algerian-born and francophone, and strong characters :
Assia Djebar(“Femmes d’Alger dans leurs appartements” – “L’Amour, la fantasia”)
Malika Mokkedem “Mes hommes”
It might be helpful if you were to have everyone put a common tag on their blog post so we can easily search for the reviews! Perhaps #GVBook (can be used for Twitter too).
Kate
Hi Kate, thanks for the comment – we updated the post above already asking people to use #gvbook09
Solana
Yes indeed the two are the same. Daughter of Destiny is an updated version that was published in the recent years.
cheers
Raza
P.S. A few more links:
http://pakteahouse.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/a-case-of-exploding-talent-books-from-pakistan/
AND
http://pakteahouse.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/%e2%80%98reconciliation%e2%80%99-by-benazir-bhutto-excerpts/
What a wonderful source of information! A friend and I are teaching a course on global literature for U.S. teachers and I’m sending them all to this site. We’ve read Atta’s Everything Good Will Come and They Rained Fire on Us From the Sky by Deng, Deng and Ajak. What works should we read from other parts of Africa?