In Earth, Sea, Sky, the authors' lyrical translations and explanations of Maori poetry and traditional wisdom are presented alongside Craig Potton's evocative New Zealand landscape photographs. This result of the collaboration of internationally proven talents will appeal to New Zealanders and visitors alike, who will appreciate sensitive and thoughtful insight into the Maori world. Buy

Labels: Culture, Environment, Literature, New Zealand

Agu, the precocious, gentle son of a village schoolteacher father and a Bible-reading mother, is dragooned into an unnamed West African nation's mad civil war - a boy forced, almost overnight, to shoulder a soldier's bloody burden. The pre-teen protagonist is moulded into a fighting man by his demented guerrilla leader and, after witnessing his father's savage slaying, by an inchoate need to belong to some kind of family, no matter how depraved. Buy

Labels: Children, Literature, Uganda

First published in 1937, Out of Africa is not free of the colonial or racist attitudes of its time; yet, within that context, Isak Dinesen is an enlightened observer and participant as she describes the experience of British East Africa before World War II. Buy

Labels: Biography, Kenya, Literature

"Everything Didion writes grows out of close observation of the social landscape of El Salvador. And it is quite impossible to deny the artistic brilliance of her reportage. She brings the country to life so that it ends up invading our flesh" - NY Times review. Buy

Labels: El Salvador, Literature, Politics

Gathered from some of the more than 40 ethnic groups of Kenya, these stories are brought to you both as original translations and as lively, ready-to-use retellings. The fascinating account of McNeil's own experiences while collecting the tales is woven throughout the book. Buy

Labels: Kenya, Literature

"And They Didn't Die brilliantly chronicles the untold predicaments of women caught between custom, white law, and the migrant system. Much of its power lies in Ngcobo's talent for complication and nuance, and for her refusal of dogma. . . . It explores what happens when women start asking questions: about cattle and the land, about female power, about tradition, about violence, about sex."--Anne McClintock, Voice Literary Supplement. Buy

Labels: Literature, South Africa, Women

Cry, the Beloved Country is a beautifully told and profoundly compassionate story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, set in the troubled and changing South Africa of the 1940s. The book is written with such keen empathy and understanding that to read it is to share fully in the gravity of the characters' situations. It both touches your heart deeply and inspires a renewed faith in the dignity of mankind. Buy

Labels: Literature, South Africa

Romanian poet, philosopher and editor Petreu shows in this dense but fresh work that many Romanian intellectuals were seduced by fascist ideology during the interwar years, and that philosopher Cioran, an "aphorist of humorous despair," was haunted by this legacy for the rest of his life. Buy

Labels: History, Literature, Romania

Costa Rica: A Traveler's Literary Companion has been compiled in an attempt to provide tourists with a different perspective on the country. Each of the twenty-six remarkable stories in this collection has been selected to reflect the geographical area in which it is set. Story settings range from the high valleys of the central plateau to the flatlands of the Caribbean coast to the plains of Guanacaste. Buy

Labels: Costa Rica, Literature

An excellent compilation of some of the greatest writers Russia has ever produced, including sections on Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenyev, Lermentov, Tolstoy, Blok, Babel, Kharms, Bulgakov, and many others. There are stories, plays and poems in this anthology, giving the reader a fine selection of the rich variety of literature that Russia had contributed to the world. Buy

Labels: Literature, Russia

When the original Thai version of Letters from Thailand appeared in Bangkok in 1969, it was promptly awarded the SEATO Prize for Thai Literature. This new English translation reveals it as one of Thailand's most entertaining and enduring modern novels, and one of the few portrayals of the immigrant Chinese experience in urban Thailand. Buy

Labels: Literature, Thailand

Gitanjali is a sweet collection of poems and songs from Nobel Prize winning poet Rabindranath Tagore. These are songs that touch on love, faith, truth, life in general. Tagore has written from the heart. Buy

Labels: India, Literature

"I read this book while living in Tanzania as a volunteer from 2000-2002. I found it very helpful in understanding East African post-colonial attitudes. For that, it was an invaluable book to read, and it helped me put my own self and work into context. I would recommend this book to anyone doing Peace Corps in Kenya or Tanzania. As a work of fiction, it is fascinating, and I was easily absorbed into the storyline, and the love story involved" - Amazon Review. Buy

Labels: Kenya, Literature

"Russell Banks takes us on a sumptuous and thrilling trip of perfect prose into Africa, through dreams, nightmares and through the life of Hannah Musgrave Sundiata. The characters in this book are so vividly depicted, so tangible that for the five days that I read this book, I became Hannah. I walked with her, felt her pain, saw things from her eyes and lived her amazing life. She will stay with me forever" - Amazon Review. Buy

Labels: Ghana, Literature, Women

Argueta is considered El Salvador's greatest living writer, and this latest of his works to be translated into English will add to his reputation. A disjointed literary puzzle, the novel asks much of the reader, but the richly symbolic text offers many rewards. Buy

Labels: El Salvador, Literature

One of Chinua Achebe's many achievements in his acclaimed first novel, Things Fall Apart, is his relentlessly unsentimental rendering of Nigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism. First published in 1958, just two years before Nigeria declared independence from Great Britain, Achebe sketches a world in which violence, war, and suffering exist, but are balanced by a strong sense of tradition, ritual, and social coherence. Buy

Labels: History, Literature