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Reading the Commonwealth: a selection of fiction from Commonwealth countries

Experience the cultures of the Commonwealth through these great titles. ll of them are available in our catalogue

The Commonwealth is comprised of a truly diverse range of nations. Remarkable literature has been inspired by this vibrant mix of cultures, landscapes and people.

We have made a selection of the best writing from around the Commonwealth, most of it contemporary with some modern classics. It is by no means a comprehensive list. We hope you treat it as a starting point for exploring more great writing from around the world.

• Africa
• Canada and the Caribbean
• Eurasia
• South East Asia and South Pacific
• Commonwealth Writers' Prize

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Africa

Botswana

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series Alexander McCall Smith
Make a pot of tea and curl up with these charming books. Get to know one of literature's most engaging female characters, Precious Ramotsowe.

Mozambique

Under the frangipani Mia Couto
A policeman is inhabited by the spirit of a dead man when investigating a murder mystery. A mythical tale that is part-thriller, part-fable.

Nigeria

Things fall apart Chinua Achebe
A gripping study of the problem of European colonialism in Africa. One of Africa's most significant novels.

Waiting for an angel Helon Habila
Lucid and heart-wrenching. Vividly captures the despair of young Nigerians.

The famished road Ben Okri
Booker Prize-winning spiritual masterpiece. The horrors of every day life in a poor Nigerian settlement, described through the eyes of a child.

Purple hibiscus Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Kambili grows up under the stifling authority of her stern preacher father. When she is sent to live with her aunt, a whole new world of freedom is opened up to her.

South Africa

Gardening at night Diane Awerbuck
Follows a young girl's life from childhood to adulthood and her eventual escape from the mining ghost town in which she was raised.

The other side of silence Andre Brink
A harrowing tale set in the early twentieth century. Hanna attempts to escape a life of abuse in an orphanage by travelling to colonial South Africa.

Disgrace JM Coetzee
After sexually harassing one of his students, David Lurie retreats to his daughter's isolated farm. Vivid and uncomfortable. Depicts a country suffering after years of racial oppression.

Boy Lindsey Collen
A story of sexual and social awakening set in exotic Mauritius. Winner of the 2005 Commonwealth Writers' prize - Africa Region.

Bitter fruit Achmat Dangor
Follows the lives of Silas and Lydia Ali, a couple of mixed-race ancestry, and their son. Set in post-apartheid South Africa.

Tsotsi Athol Fugard
A young, black hoodlum in South Africa, who leads a group of violent criminals, slowly discovers the meaning of compassion. Now a critically acclaimed film.

The good doctor Damon Galgut
A young, idealistic doctor is sent to a run down rural hospital. A bleak, accurate depiction of modern South Africa.

The pickup Nadine Gordimer
A collection of ten short stories exploring the lives of characters facing up to unforeseen circumstances.

The Madonna of Excelsior Zakes Mda
Energetic and beautifully observed. It's 1971. Nineteen citizens of Excelsior are charged with breaking the Immorality Act forbidding sex between black and white.

Cry the beloved country Alan Paton
An inspiring classic of South African literature. The story of a Zulu pastor and his son set in the deeply troubled South Africa of the 1940s.

Frankie and Stankie Barbara Trapido
Based on the author's own experiences of growing up in Durban. We follow Dinah through childhood and into adolescence, marriage and voluntary exile in London.

Tanzania

Zanzibar Giles Foden
Portrays the events surrounding the Al-Qaida bombings of the East African American embassies in 1998.

Uganda

Abyssinian chronicles Moses Isegawa
Set in a tribal village during Idi Amin's reign of terror. A Midnight's children for modern Uganda.

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Canada and the Caribbean

Canada

The blind assassin Margaret Atwood
Iris Chase lives in the shadow cast by her younger sister Laura. Why did she drive off a bridge at 25 and why does Iris feel bitter and guilty half a century later?

Latitudes of melt Joan Clark
Discovered as a baby on an ice pan in the North Atlantic, Aurora is adopted by the villagers of Drook. Many years later a stranger arrives in the village asking questions.

The cunning man Robertson Davies
The story of 'the cunning man', from boyhood to old age. He's a doctor but also possibly a shaman. An exploration of religion, psychosomatic illness, love and death.

Happiness Will Ferguson
Edwin, a low level editor is about to throw out a manuscript for a new self help book, however a chain of events start that effect his life and will be felt by the whole world.

Life of Pi Yann Martel
This is the story of the surviving crew of a sinking ship: a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, a 450 pound Royal Bengal tiger and Pi - a 16-year-old Indian boy.

Fugitive pieces Anne Michaels
A young boy is rescued from the mud of a buried Polish city during World War II. His unlikely saviour, the scientist Athos Roussos, takes him to a Greek island.

Cereus blooms at night Shani Mootoo
A tender relationship develops when Mala, old, notoriously crazy and suspected of murder, arrives at the Paradise Alms House.

The love of a good woman Alice Munro
In this collection of stories, Alice Munro takes the lives of women and brings their hidden desires bubbling to the surface.

Cargo of orchids Susan Musgrave
A story of addiction and violence told by a woman waiting on death row for murdering her child.

Larry's party Carol Shields
The moment Larry accidentally puts on someone else's jacket, the paths of his life unfold before him with the same twists and turns as the mazes he creates.

The stone carvers Jane Urquhart
Written in the cadences and colour of legend, this richly imagined tale moves from Germany to Canada to France to achieve an intriguing and satisfying whole.

The Caribbean

At the full and change of the moon Dionne Brand (Trinidad)
Trinidad 1824. Marie Ursule leads the mass suicide of her fellow plantation slaves. This is her story and that of her descendants.

Bethany Bettany Fred D'Aguiar (Guyana)
In the Caribbean town of Boundary, three generations of the Abrahams family live together. After her mother's death, Bethany is blamed for all the family's problems.

The autobiography of my mother Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua)
Set in the Caribbean, the story is narrated by a 70-year-old woman reminiscing on her life.

A house for Mr Biswas VS Naipaul (Trinidad)
Mr Biswas is not naturally rebellious, but circumstances change this. His tumbledown house becomes a potent symbol of the search for identity in a post-colonial world.

Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys (Dominica)
Following her marriage to a young Englishman, a Creole heiress is driven to madness by poisonous rumours.

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Eurasia

England

Arthur and George Julian Barnes
Imaginative historical novel throwing new light on present-day notions of what it is to be British.

Snobs Julian Fellowes
A wonderfully witty insight into the world of the English upper-class.

The line of beauty Alan Hollinghurst
A modern day Brideshead revisited set in Thatcher's 1980s Britain.

Small island Andrea Levy
Multi award winning, focusing on a little explored part of Commonwealth history. Handles themes of prejudice, loss and love with great grace and humour.

Atonement Ian McEwan
A depiction of love and war, class, childhood and England.

White teeth Zadie Smith
A comic epic of multicultural Britain telling the story of immigrants over a 40 year period.

Scotland

Case histories Kate Atkinson
Jackson Brodie investigates three crimes that span 34 years. Winner of the Saltair Society 2005 Scottish Book of the Year award.

Quite ugly one morning Christopher Brookmyre
Tartan noir. Wickedly entertaining and vivacious thriller. First in the series of Jack Parlabane novels.

Personality Andrew O'Hagan
A 13-year-old girl with a beautiful singing voice grows up above a chip shop on the Scottish island of Bute. She realises her family's dream of fame but at great cost.

Joseph Knight James Robertson
A gripping eighteenth century story, moving from the battlefields of Culloden to the plantations of Jamaica, to sophisticated Edinburgh and to the back streets of Dundee.

Marie and Mary Nigel Tranter
The story of two ill-fated queens of Scotland: Mary Queen of Scots and her mother, Marie de Guise.

Trainspotting Irvine Welsh
Portrays the drug culture of working class Edinburgh. Horrifying, repulsive and hilarious.

Wales

The hiding place Trezza Azzopardi
The story of a Maltese family living in Cardiff in the 1960s.

Eve Green Susan Fletcher
After the sudden death of her mother, eight-year-old Eve is sent from the city to her grandparents' tiny Welsh village.

One moonlit night Caradog Pritchard
Set in a Welsh slate-quarrying village during World War I, against a background of appalling deprivation. Disturbing, challenging and deeply sad.

Aberystwyth mon amour Malcolm Pryce
Follows the fortunes of Aberystwyth's only private investigator, Louie Knight.

Wales half Welsh John Williams
A collection of short stories by the best contemporary Welsh writers.

Northern Ireland

Reflections Jo Bannister
Brodie Farrell is enlisted by the police to find the long-lost aunt of two girls whose mother has been murdered.

The arrival of Fergal Flynn Brian Kennedy
A coming-of-age story set in 1980s Belfast. Fergal embarks on a passionate love affair with a handsome local priest, who discovers his hidden talent for singing.

Call me the breeze Patrick McCabe
Joey Talon searches for a sense of belonging and redemption in his politically torn home town of Scotsfield.

Love and sleep: a romance Sean O'Reilly
Following the first IRA cease-fire, Niall returns to Derry. He attempts to face up to the pain of his past as he becomes involved in a dangerous relationship.

The ballroom on Magnolia Street Sharon Owens
Shirley and Mary Winters attend the Magnolia Street ballroom every Saturday night, both searching for love. A warm and uplifting story.

Bangladesh

Brick Lane Monica Ali
Tells the story of Hazneen who arrives in England from Bangladesh at the age of 18 for an arranged marriage.

Seasonal adjustments Adib Khan
Iqbal Chaudhary left his native Bangladesh for Australia in the middle of the Pakistani Civil War. Eighteen years later he returns and is reunited with his upper-class family.

India

The house of blue mangoes David Davidar
Set in southern India, the book traces the lives of three generations of the Dorai family. Solomon Dorai, headman of Chevathar, tries to preserve the village from both catastrophe and change.

The Impressionist Hari Kunzru
When his true parentage is revealed, a half-Indian, half-English boy is ejected from his pampered life. He reinvents himself throughout his life to survive, embracing the various interesting circumstances that come his way.

A river sutra Gita Mehta
A retired bureaucrat runs a rest house on the banks of the holy river Narmada. He encounters people whose stories involve spiritual and life issues.

A fine balance Rohinton Mistry
Set in Indira Gandhi's India, two tailors and a student share a widowed seamstress's flat. The four struggle to survive in the 'State of Internal Emergency'. Winner of the 1996 Commonwealth Writer's Prize.

The god of small things Arundhati Roy
Set in Kerala, the twins Rahel and Esthappen learn their whole world can change in a day. The story of an Indian family's tragic decline as a consequence of forbidden love. Winner of the 1997 Man Booker Prize.

A suitable boy Vikram Seth
Based on his parent's courtship, it tells the story of Lata and her mother's attempts to find her a suitable husband. An epic novel encompassing four extended families in the post-colonial India of the 1950s.

Q & A Vikas Swarup
A poor, uneducated waiter suspected of cheating on television's 'Who will win a billion?' has to explain how he knew the answers. As each answer is accounted for, his life is revealed.

Pakistan

Maps for lost lovers Nadeem Aslam
Two lovers, who had been 'living in sin' in an English-Pakistani community, are murdered to protect the honour of the woman's family. The book takes place in the 12 months after the murders.

Salt and saffron Kamila Shamsie
Aliya meets and eventually falls for a man from another class on her flight home to Pakistan from the United States. She decides to find out what happened to her 'Not Quite Twin' aunt who ran away with the family cook.

Cracking India Bapsi Sidhwa
Set in 1940s India during the time of Independence and the Partition. It is the story of those times as told through the eyes of Lenny, a young girl living in Lahore with her extended Parsee family.

Sri Lanka

A change of skies Yasmine Gooneratne
Follows the story of a Sri Lankan family's immigration to Australia.

Anil's ghost Michael Ondaatje
Anil, a forensic anthropologist, returns to Sri Lanka, a country torn apart by civil war, to investigate a campaign of organised murder.

Funny boy Shyam Selvadurai
A coming-of-age novel of a Tamil boy in Sri Lanka, as told in six stories. It is set in the seven years leading up to the 1983 riots. Arjun must come to terms with his homosexuality and then cope with the political violence of his country.

When memory dies A Sivanandan
A family saga following three generations of Sri Lankans from the 1920s to the 1980s.

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South East Asia and South Pacific

Malaysia

The Harmony Silk Factory Tash Aw
Set in 1940s Malaysia. The story of Johnny Lim, textile merchant, petty crook, and his marriage to Snow Soong, the most beautiful woman in the Kinta Valley. Winner of the Whitbread Best First Novel award 2005.

The rice mother Rani Manicka
Lakshmi leaves her village in Ceylon at 14 with her new husband to live in Malaysia. What follows is the story of four generations of her family.

New Zealand

Long hot summer Barbara Anderson
It's summer in 1936 in a seaside town in New Zealand. Bored, Lana joins an amateur production involving locals and Maoris organised by James.

The strength of the sun: a novel Catherine Chidgey
Recuperating after a car accident in England, Patrick tries to pick up the pieces of his life. On the other side of the world, Colette receives mail from the mysterious Patrick.

Ellie and the shadow man Maurice Gee
This story depicts one woman's journey from adolescence to adulthood and the various emotions and experiences she encounters along the way.

The bone people Keri Hulme
Kerewin, a despairing part-Maori artist is convinced that her solitary life is the only way to face the world. Then the mute boy Simon enters her life.

Sky dancer Witi Ihimaera
Feisty Skylark O'Shea is on holiday with her mother at the coastal town of Tuapa, when strange things begin to happen and all is not as it appears.

Let me sing you gentle songs Linda Olsson
A tender and unusual friendship develops between two women when a young writer in pursuit of solitude moves in next door to an elderly recluse.

Within the kiss Charlotte Randall
An ambitious mother is tempted by an offer that will enable her daughter to become a rich and famous tennis star. Nothing in this novel is exactly as it seems.

Singapore

Wind and water Chin Geok Ang
The story of the Ong Family, members of Singapore's Chinese community, as told by three generations of women.

The song of silver frond Catherine Lim
The story of a wealthy patriarch's enchantment with a young village egg-seller.

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Commonwealth Writers' Prize - Past winners

• 2005 Small island Andrea Levy
• 2004 A distant shore Caryl Phillips
• 2003 The polished hoe Austin Clarke
• 2002 Gould's book of fish Richard Flanagan
• 2001 True history of the Kelly gang Peter Carey
• 2000 Disgrace J M Coetzee
• 1999 Eucalyptus Murray Bail
• 1998 Jack Maggs Peter Carey
• 1997 Salt Earl Lovelace
• 1996 A fine balance Rohinton Mistry
• 1995 Captain Corelli's mandolin Louis de Bernières

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Commonwealth Writers' Prize - Shortlist 2006

The shortlist is made up of the 2006 regional winners. The overall winners - best book and best first book - are announced in Melbourne on 14 March 2006.

Africa

Best Book: The sun by night Benjamin Kwakye
Best First Book: Tropical fish: stories out of Entebbe Doreen Baingana

Canada and the Caribbean

Best Book: Alligator Lisa Moore
Best First Book: Suspended sentences: fictions of atonement Mark McWatt

Eurasia

Best Book: On beauty: a novel Zadie Smith
Best First Book: Lazy eye Donna Daley-Clarke

South East Asia and South Pacific

Best Book: The secret river Kate Grenville
Best First Book: The Harmony Silk Factory Tash Aw

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Overall Winners 2006

Best book: The secret river Kate Grenville

Best first book: Suspended sentences: fictions of atonement Mark McWatt

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Further information

Links

Within this site
Yarra City Council

External sites (Yarra City Council accepts no responsibility for the information or opinions contained within external sites)
Victoria's Virtual Library

Information supplied by: Electronic communications & design officer - 9205 5214 - 20 January 2006

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