Senegal – South Africa
by Christina S
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It is no secret to my friends and family that I love cookbooks. I will read them like other people read novels. Throughout this series I have put in cookbooks when I can find country specific ones, but often many are more regional and multi-country. Therefore, I am very happy that I can include 3 cookbooks in this leg of our journey, and they look so good!
If you ever want to get to know a region or country beyond the tourist level, immerse yourself in the food and how the people relate to the food they prepare. It speaks to you about tradition, the region, and the people in a way that scholars cannot. In many ways, food is it’s own language and narrative.
I would love to inspire you to check out one or more of our many cookbooks and try some of the dishes. When you are reading a novel or biography of a certain location, it is an added dimension of the experience to be able to make and taste something referenced in the book. Don’t be shy about trying something new in your own kitchen. So many “exotic” ingredients can be found either on line or at a local specialty market and the internet is a great resource for watching videos on how to prepare and use an unfamiliar ingredient.
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Senegal
At Night All Blood is Black: a novel by David Diop
A ‘Chocolat’ soldier with the French army during World War I, Senegalese Alfa Ndiaye’s friend Mademba Diop is in the same regiment. Injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man’s Land. Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa’s mind. He sees this refusal as cowardice. To avenge the death of his friend and find forgiveness for himself, every night Alfa sneaks across enemy lines to find and murder a blue-eyed German soldier, returning with the German’s severed hand. As rumors circulate that Alfa is a soul-eater, how far will he go to make amends to his dead friend?
Senegal : modern Senegalese recipes from the source to the bowl by Pierre Thiam
Senegal will transport you deep into the country’s rich, multifaceted cuisine. You’ll feel the sun at your back and the cool breeze off the Atlantic, hear the sizzle of freshly caught fish hitting the grill, and bask in the tropical palm forests of Casamance. Learn to cook the vibrant, diverse food of Senegal, such as soulful stews full of meat falling off the bone; healthy ancient grains and dark leafy greens with superfood properties; fresh seafood grilled over open flame, served with salsas singing of bright citrus and fiery peppers; and lots of fresh vegetables and salads bursting with West African flavors.
The Most Secret Memory of Men: a novel by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr
In 2018, Diégane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer, discovers a legendary book in Paris, published in 1938 and entitled Le labyrinthe de l’inhumain (The Maze of Inhumanity). No one knows what happened to the author, once referred to as the “Black Rimbaud,” after his book created a scandal. Diégane is fascinated and decides to look for the mysterious T.C. Elimane. On his path, he confronts the great tragedies of history such as colonialism and the holocaust. From Senegal to Argentina to France, will he get to the truth at the center of the maze? Alongside his investigation, Diégane, becomes part of a group of young African writers in Paris. They check each other out, talk, drink, make love … a lot, and philosophize about the role of exile in artistic creation.
Three Strong Women: a novel by Marie NDiaye
The story of three women who say no: Norah, a French-born lawyer who finds herself in Senegal, summoned by her estranged father to save another victim of his paternity; Fanta, who leaves a contented life as a teacher in Dakar to follow her boyfriend back to France, where his depression and dislocation poison everything; and Khady, a penniless widow put out by her husband’s family with nothing but the name of a distant cousin in France. As these three lives intertwine, each woman manages an astonishing feat of self-preservation against those who have made themselves the fastest-growing and most-reviled people in Europe.
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Serbia
Dictionary of the Khazars : a lexicon novel in 100,000 words by Milorad Pavić
Written in two versions, male and female (both available in Vintage International), which are identical save for seventeen crucial lines, Dictionary is the imaginary book of knowledge of the Khazars, a people who flourished somewhere beyond Transylvania between the seventh and ninth centuries. Eschewing conventional narrative and plot, this lexicon novel combines the dictionaries of the world’s three major religions with entries that leap between past and future, featuring three unruly wise men, a book printed in poison ink, suicide by mirrors, a chimerical princess, a sect of priests who can infiltrate one’s dreams, romances between the living and the dead, and much more.
The Book of Blam by Aleksandar Tisma
a modern-day retelling of the book of Job. The war is over. Miroslav Blam walks along the former Jew Street, and he remembers. He remembers Aaron Grün, the hunchbacked watchmaker; and Eduard Fiker, a lamp merchant; and Jakob Mentele, a stove fitter; and Arthur Spitzer, a grocer, who played amateur soccer and had non-Jewish friends; and Sándor Vértes, a lawyer who was a Communist. All dead. As are his younger sister and his best friend, a Serb, both of whom joined the resistance movement; and his mother and father in the infamous Novi Sad raid in January 1942—when the Hungarian Arrow Cross executed 1,400 Jews and Serbs on the banks of the Danube and tossed them into the river. Blam lives. The war he survived will never be over for him.
The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric
A great stone bridge built three centuries ago in the heart of the Balkans by a Grand Vezir of the Ottoman Empire dominates the setting of Andric’s stunning novel. Spanning generations, nationalities, and creeds, the bridge stands witness to the countless lives played out upon it: Radisav, the workman, who tries to hinder its construction and is impaled on its highest point; to the lovely Fata, who throws herself from its parapet to escape a loveless marriage; to Milan, the gambler, who risks everything in one last game on the bridge with the devil his opponent; to Fedun, the young soldier, who pays for a moment of spring forgetfulness with his life. War finally destroys the span, and with it the last descendant of that family to which the Grand Vezir confided the care of his pious bequest – the bridge.
Early Sorrows: for children and sensitive readers by Danilo Kiš
Originally published in Belgrade in 1969 and never before translated into English, Early Sorrows is a stunning group of linked stories that memorialize Danilo Kis’s childhood. Kis, a writer of incomparable originality and eloquence, famous for his books The Encyclopedia of the Dead, Hourglass, and A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, was born in 1935 in Subotica, Yugoslavia, near the Hungarian border. The twenty pieces that make up Early Sorrows strike various tones––from dreamy pastorals to exercises in horror. Kis’s ingenuity, lyricism, and tonal subtlety are caught in all their luster by Michael Henry Heim. Early Sorrows centers on Andreas Sam, a highly intelligent boy whose life at first seems secure. His mother and sister dote on him; he excels at school; when he is hired out as a cowherd to help with the family’s finances, he reads the day away in the company of his best friend, the dog. He can only sense that terrible things may be going on in the world. Soon soldiers are marching down the road, and then one day, many people from the village are herded together and taken away, among them, his father, the dreamer.
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Seychelles
The Edge of Eden: a novel by Helen Benedict
In 1960, when her husband, Rupert, a British diplomat, is posted to the remote Seychelle Islands in the Indian Ocean, Penelope is less than thrilled. But she never imagined the danger that awaited her family there. Her sun-kissed children run barefoot on the beach and become enraptured by the ancient magic, or grigri, in the tropical colonial outpost. Rupert, meanwhile, falls under the spell of a local beauty who won’t stop until she gets what she wants. Desperate to save her marriage, Penelope turns to black magic, exposing her family to the island’s sinister underbelly. Ultimately, Penny and her family suffer unimaginable casualties, rendering their lives profoundly and forever changed. Helen Benedict’s acerbic wit and lush descriptions serve up a page-turner brimming with jealousy, sex, and witchcraft in a darkly exotic Eden.
GRK – Operation Tortoise by Joshua Doder
Tim is in paradise. Vacationing with his parents, the Raffifis, and Grk in the Seychelles, he is looking forward to two weeks of fun. But one afternoon, while walking the beach with Grk, Tim stumbles over a body in the sand. Washed up from the ocean and barely alive, the man utters a few words and then dies. Frantic to help the police discover the cause of the man’s death, Tim and Grk search for clues on their own. But what starts out as a baffling mystery soon becomes a bone-chilling investigation as they encounter armed guards who’ll shoot to kill, a mad scientist’s dream laboratory, and a powerful man determined to live forever, no matter what the cost.
For Your Eyes Only: a James Bond Novel 007 by Ian Fleming
A pulse-pounding collection of stories by Ian Fleming featuring global icon and legendary spy James Bond/007. When sudden emergencies arise, James Bond is there to meet them.
Whether dealing with the assassination of a Cuban thug in America, the destruction of an international heroin ring, or a mysterious death in the Seychelles, 007 gets the job done in his own unmistakable style.
For Bond it is just routine. For anyone else- certain death.
Seychelles Idyll by Ronald Austin
‘Seychelles Idyll’ is an evocative, gripping novella set in a remote part of the British Empire at around the time when colonial rule was coming to an end. With miniscule resources, those involved in preparing for the handover to independence in the Seychelles had to deal with problems that had arisen from years of neglect, racism, and old-fashioned colonial snobbery. The situation was made more complicated by international powers having an interest in the outcome. In order to assist in turning the Seychelles police into a modern service capable of dealing with the oncoming demands of independence, Ed Morris, a police inspector from London is sent to help. Seen through his eyes the events that take place are complicated, demanding, hilarious, and entertaining.
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Sierra Leone
Blood Diamonds: tracing the deadly path of the world’s most precious stones by Greg Campbell
First discovered in 1930, the diamonds of Sierra Leone have funded one of the most savage rebel campaigns in modern history. These “blood diamonds” are smuggled out of West Africa and sold to legitimate diamond merchants in London, Antwerp, and New York, often with the complicity of the international diamond industry. Eventually, these very diamonds find their way into the rings and necklaces and brides and spouses the world over.
Blood Diamonds is the gripping tale of how diamond smuggling works, how the rebel war has effectively destroyed Sierra Leone and its people, and how the policies of the diamonds industry―institutionalized in the 1880s by the De Beers cartel―have allowed it to happen.
Sweet Salone : recipes from the heart of Sierra Leone by Maria Bradford
As a small country on the west coast of Africa, throughout its history Sierra Leone has always embraced diversity – and this willingness to discover and grow has shaped Sierra Leone’s rich food culture. Forged by history, people and place, the cuisine is completely unique. Maria Bradford’s recipes, inspired by her grandmother’s cooking, have at their heart the traditional meals of Maria’s childhood, introducing delicious Afro-fusion dishes and flavors. Characterized by key ingredients including tamarind, beans, sesame seeds, mango, chili and pineapple, in Maria’s hands these ingredients become something truly special. Moreover, she tells the story of the cuisine and the people, shedding light on everyday life through exclusive location photography.
Radiance of Tomorrow: a novel by Ishmael Beah
At the center of Radiance of Tomorrow are Benjamin and Bockarie, two longtime friends who return to their hometown, Imperi, after the civil war. The village is in ruins, the ground covered in bones. As more villagers begin to come back, Benjamin and Bockarie try to forge a new community by taking up their former posts as teachers, but they’re beset by obstacles: a scarcity of food; a rash of murders, thievery, rape, and retaliation; and the depredations of a foreign mining company intent on sullying the town’s water supply and blocking its paths with electric wires. As Benjamin and Bockarie search for a way to restore order, they’re forced to reckon with the uncertainty of their past and future alike.
Ancestor Stones: a novel by Aminatta Forna
Abie returns home from England to West Africa to visit her family after years of civil war, and to reclaim the family plantation, Kholifa Estates, formerly owned by her grandfather. There to meet her are her aunts: Asana, Mariama, Hawa, and Serah, and so begins her gathering of the family and the country’s history through the tales of her aunts. Asana, lost twin and head wife’s daughter. Hawa, motherless child and manipulator of her own misfortune. Mariama, who sees what lies beyond. And Serah, follower of a Western made dream. Set against the backdrop of a nation’s descent into chaos, it is the take a family and four women’s attempts to alter the course of their own destiny.
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Singapore
The Great Reclamation: a novel by Rachel Heng
Set against a changing Singapore, a sweeping novel about one boy’s unique gifts and the childhood love that will complicate the fate of his community and country. Ah Boon is born into a fishing village amid the heat and beauty of twentieth-century coastal Singapore in the waning years of British rule. He is a gentle boy who is not much interested in fishing, preferring to spend his days playing with the neighbor girl, Siok Mei. But when he discovers he has the unique ability to locate bountiful, movable islands that no one else can find, he feels a new sense of obligation and possibility—something to offer the community and impress the spirited girl he has come to love. By the time they are teens, Ah Boon and Siok Mei are caught in the tragic sweep of history: the Japanese army invades, the resistance rises, grief intrudes, and the future of the fishing village is in jeopardy. As the nation hurtles toward rebirth, the two friends, newly empowered, must decide who they want to be, and what they are willing to give up.
For as long as she can remember, Samantha Song has dreamed of writing for a high-society magazine—and she’d do anything to get there. But the constant struggle to help her mom make ends meet and her low social status cause her dream to feel like a distant fantasy. Now Samantha finds herself working at a drab PR firm. Living vicariously through her wealthy coworker and friend, Anya Chen, is the closest she’ll get to her ideal life. Until she meets Timothy Kingston: the disillusioned son of one of Singapore’s elite families—and Samantha’s one chance at infiltrating the high-society world to which she desperately wants to belong. To Samantha’s surprise, Timothy and Anya both agree to help her make a name for herself on Singapore’s socialite scene. But the borrowed designer clothes and plus-ones to every glamorous event can only get her so far. The rest is on Samantha, and she’s determined to impress the editor in chief of Singapore’s poshest magazine.
How We Disappeared: a novel by Jing-Jing Lee
Singapore, 1942. As Japanese troops sweep down Malaysia and into Singapore, a village is ransacked, leaving only two survivors and one tiny child. In a neighboring village, seventeen-year-old Wang Di is strapped into the back of a troop carrier and shipped off to a Japanese military brothel where she is forced into sexual slavery as a “comfort woman.” After sixty years of silence, what she saw and experienced still haunts her. In the year 2000, twelve-year-old Kevin is sitting beside his ailing grandmother when he overhears a mumbled confession. He sets out to discover the truth, wherever it might lead, setting in motion a chain of events he never could have foreseen.
Now You See Us: a novel by Balli Kaur Jaswal
Corazon, Donita, and Angel are Filipina domestic workers—part of the wave of women sent to Singapore to be cleaners, maids, and caregivers. An explosive news story shatters Singapore’s famous tranquility—and sends a chill down the spine of every domestic worker. Flordeliza Martinez, a Filipina maid, has been arrested for murdering her female employer. The three women don’t know the accused well, but she could be any of them; every worker knows stories of women who were scapegoated or even executed for crimes they didn’t commit. Shocked into action, Donita, Corazon, and Angel will use their considerable moxie and insight to piece together the mystery of what really happened on the day Flordeliza’s employer was murdered. After all, no one knows the secrets of Singapore’s families like the women who work in their homes
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Slovakia
Dark Dreams by Michael Genelin
Jana and Sofia were best friends in school. Sofia suffered a brutal crime at the hands of a Communist Party bigwig, whom Jana vowed to bring to justice someday. Jana is now a commander in the Slovak police force, and Sofia is a member of parliament, engaged in a scandalous affair with a married fellow MP. One day, Jana walks into her living room to find an enormous diamond dangling from the ceiling. Who has left her this gift, and what does it mean?
Seeing People Off: a novel by Jana Beňová
There is a liveliness and effervescence to Jana Benová’s prose that is magnetic. Whether addressing the loneliness of relationships or the effectiveness of rat poison, her voice and observations call to mind the verve and sophistication of Renata Adler or Jenny Offill, while remaining utterly singular. Seeing People Off follows Elza and Ian, a young couple living in a humongous apartment complex outside Bratislava where the walls play music and talk, and time is immaterial.
Drawing on her memories, everyday interactions, observations of post-socialist realities, and Elza’s attraction to actor, Kalisto Tanzi, Seeing People Off is a kaleidoscopic, poetic, and deeply funny portrait of a relationship.
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Slovenia
The Fig Tree by Goran Vojnovic
The Fig Tree is a novel composed of the intertwining stories of the family of Jadran, a 30-something who tries to piece together the story of his relatives in order to better understand himself. Because he cannot understand why Anja walked out of their shared life, he tries to understand the suspicious death of his grandfather and the withdrawal of his grandmother into oblivion and dementia. With all his might, Jadran tries to understand the departure of his father in the first year of the war in the Balkans as he also tries to comprehend his mother, with her bewildering resentment of his grandfather, and her silent disappointment with his father.
Slovenian Cuisine: from the Alps to the Adriatic in 20 ingredients by Janez Bratovž
Winner of the Gourmand Award for Best Chef Book; a love-letter to the region, by the internationally-renowned chef and father of modern Slovenian cuisine. With beautifully written introductory essays for each new stop and robust narrative elements, it follows a road trip around Slovenia in search of the finest ingredients in the country, and the best producers of them. Each chapter profiles an ingredient key to the culture, and the passionate producer or farmer who supplies it, before delving into two select recipes for each—one interpretation of a traditional Slovenian dish and one modern presentation—which highlight the product and showcase its versatility.
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Solomon Islands
Devil-Devil: a Sister Conchita and Sergeant Kella mystery by Graeme Kent
It’s not easy being Ben Kella. As a sergeant in the Solomon Islands Police Force, as well as an aofia, a hereditary spiritual peacekeeper of the Lau people, he is viewed with distrust by both the indigenous islanders and the British colonial authorities. In the past few days he has been cursed by a magic man, stumbled across evidence of a cargo cult uprising, and failed to find an American anthropologist who had been scouring the mountains for a priceless pornographic icon. Then, at a mission station, Kella discovers an independent and rebellious young American nun, Sister Conchita, secretly trying to bury a skeleton. The unlikely pair of Kella and Conchita are forced to team up to solve a series of murders that tie into all these other strange goings-on. Set in the 1960s in one of the most beautiful and dangerous areas of the South Pacific.
Solomon Time: adventures in the South Pacific by Will Randall
Will Randall, a young English schoolmaster, had such a chance — and took it. He uprooted his conventional First World life and let himself be blown to one of the farthest and most beautiful corners of the earth, the Solomon Islands of the South Pacific. In the entertaining tradition of Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country, this is the story of Solomon Time.
From the first, it’s an improbable journey. In a chance encounter on a rugby field, Randall meets a doddering old man known as “the Commander,” who has retired to England after running a cocoa plantation in the South Pacific for thirty years. Six months later, the Commander dies and his will is read: he wants someone to travel to his beloved, long-missed island — where his plantation has fallen into ruin — and devise a way for the natives to support themselves. If successful, they might avoid poverty, build a new school, and even fend off the greedy developers circling their peaceful waters.
It’s a mission of noblesse oblige, yet possibly a fool’s errand, too. Randall agrees to go.
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Somalia
The war in Somalia transforms a simple village girl into a self-confident woman who even swims and drives a car. She is Duniya, a widow with three children. Gifts is a beguiling tale of a Somali family, its strong matriarch, and its past wounds that refuse to heal. As the story unfolds, Somalia is ravaged by war, drought, disease, and famine, prompting industrialized nations to offer monetary aid—”gifts” to the so-called Third World.
Desert Flower: the extraordinary journey of a desert nomad by Waris Dirie
Waris Dirie ran away from her oppressive life in the African desert when she was barely in her teens, illiterate and impoverished, with nothing to her name but a tattered shawl. She traveled alone across the dangerous Somali desert to Mogadishu—the first leg of a remarkable journey that would take her to London, where she worked as a house servant; then to nearly every corner of the globe as an internationally renowned fashion model; and ultimately to New York City, where she became a human rights ambassador for the U.N.
Crossbones: a novel by Nuruddin Farah
A dozen years after his last visit, Jeebleh returns to his beloved Mogadiscio to see old friends. He is accompanied by his son-in-law, Malik, a journalist intent on covering the region’s ongoing turmoil. What greets them at first is not the chaos Jeebleh remembers, however, but an eerie calm enforced by ubiquitous white-robed figures bearing whips. Meanwhile, Malik’s brother, Ahl, has arrived in Puntland, the region notorious as a pirates’ base. Ahl is searching for his stepson, Taxliil, who has vanished from Minneapolis, apparently recruited by an imam allied to Somalia’s rising religious insurgency. The brothers’ efforts draw them closer to Taxliil and deeper into the fabric of the country, even as Somalis brace themselves for an Ethiopian invasion.
Call Me American: a memoir by Abdi Nor Iftin
Abdi Nor Iftin first fell in love with America from afar. As a child, he learned English by listening to American pop artists like Michael Jackson and watching films starring action heroes like Arnold Schwarzenegger. When U.S. marines landed in Mogadishu to take on the warlords, Abdi cheered the arrival of these real Americans, who seemed as heroic as those of the movies. Sporting American clothes and dance moves, he became known around Mogadishu as Abdi American, but when the radical Islamist group al-Shabaab rose to power in 2006, it suddenly became dangerous to celebrate Western culture. Desperate to make a living, Abdi used his language skills to post secret dispatches to NPR and the Internet, which found an audience of worldwide listeners. But as life in Somalia grew more dangerous, Abdi was left with no choice but to flee to Kenya as a refugee. In an amazing stroke of luck, Abdi won entrance to the U.S. in the annual visa lottery, though his route to America was filled with twists and turns and a harrowing sequence of events that nearly stranded him in Nairobi. Now a proud resident of Maine and on the path to citizenship, Abdi Nor Iftin’s dramatic, deeply stirring memoir is truly a story for our time: a vivid reminder of why western democracies still beckon to those looking to make a better life.
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South Africa
Cat Tales for Mariette: an unexpected friendship on the Camdeboo Plains of South Africa by Michael Brown
Set in the dusty Karoo desert town of Aberdeen, South Africa, “Cat Tales for Mariette” tells of the unexpected friendship that forms between Michael Brown and a dying woman, Mariette Van Wyk. The two bond over Michael’s sharing cat stories from his many years of life shared with cats. Mariette’s unfulfilled longing to experience the presence of cats in her life comes to fruition through cat tales over tea and cookies in the hospital. As Mariette takes the final steps of her journey, these stories magically bring insight, healing, and resolution to her past and also to Michael’s.
Born a Crime: stories from a South African childhood by Trevor Noah
Noah’s path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, at the time such a union was punishable by five years in prison. As he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist, his mother is determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. With an incisive wit and unflinching honesty, Noah weaves together a moving yet funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time.
Coldsleep Lullaby: a mystery by Andrew Brown
In the sleepy Cape Winelands of South Africa the body of a young woman is found drifting in a river, and Detective Eberard Februarie is called in to investigate the case. It doesn’t help matters that the young woman―Melanie Du Preez―was the daughter of a prominent local citizen. Professor du Preez is a lecturer in the University’s Faculty of Law, and a conservative activist in the defense of the Afrikaans culture. Has a murder happened here, and if so, is the motive politics or something much more personal?
The Promise: a novel by Damon Gaigut
A modern saga that could only have come from South Africa, brilliantly written by Booker Prize-shortlisted author Damon Galgut. Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family gradually comes apart after the death of their matriarch. Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of a changing South Africa; Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life’s unfulfilled promises; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt. Reunited by three funerals over three decades, the dwindling family reflects the atmosphere of its country — an atmosphere of resentment, renewal, and possibility. The Promise is an epic drama that unfurls against the unrelenting march of history.
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Booked Solid in Santa Fe 