eduify | write faster

By Julia H. Jackson

Before the Discovery Channel, Google Earth, and YouTube, most people couldn’t travel the world from the comfort of their own home. The World Wide Web has transformed the way we see the world, and how easily we access it. What did people do before the internet? Well, here’s one easy answer: they read more books. Writers are translators of culture, and today we’re showcasing Five Writers from Five Countries whose work might transport you further than a Ryan Air flight, and for less money.

First Stop: Japan.

Japanese writer Haruki Murakami boils down his career as a writer to one baseball game in 1978, when he went to see the Yakult Swallows compete against the Hiroshima Carp. At the time, Murakami was the owner of a jazz bar in Tokyo. Something happened that night when American ballplayer Dave Hilton hit a double; Murakami was struck with a parallel jolt of inspiration. He began his writing career the moment he got home that evening. He has since written more than a dozen books, including a nonfiction account of the 1995 Hansin earthquake. Additionally, he works as a Japanese-English translator. His own books have been translated into more than 30 languages. His literary influences include Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Chandler, and Richard Brautigan.

Murakami’s Books Include:

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994)

Underground (2000)

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2008)

Second Stop: England.

Zadie Smith wrote her first novel, White Teeth, at 25. Her portrait of urban London follows three families from three cultures, ultimately questioning identity itself. She has written four novels, edited three anthologies, contributed to major publications, and developed a musical about Franz Kafka with her partner Nick Laird. She was the 2002-2003 Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellow at Harvard University, and has taught creative writing at Columbia University. Her literary heroes include C.S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, David Foster Wallace, and Grahame Greene.

Books Smith has written Include:

White Teeth (2000)

The Autograph Man (2002)

On Beauty (2005)

Changing My Mind (2009)

Third Stop: Spain.

Lucia Extebarria’s first book set a precedent for those to follow, both fiction and nonfiction. La historia de Kurt y Courtney: aguanta esto (1996), her biography of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, shortly followed by Amor, Curiosidad, Prozac y Dudas, epitomize her straightforward approach to culture, gender, and, well, rock n’ roll. Her website asks its visitors: Are you a feminist? An animal? Are you a desperate woman? An artist?

Extebarria has written more than a dozen books: novels, poetry collections, and even self-help books. She has worked as a translator, scriptwriter, journalist, and even advertising writer.  She grew up in Spain’s Basque country during the 1960s and 1970s, when the country was transitioning from Franco’s dictatorship to  a liberal democratic state.

Books Include:

Cosmofobia (2007)

Ya no sufro por amor (2006) – I No Longer Suffer For Love

Actos de placer y amor (2005) – Acts of Pleasure and Love

Una historia de amor como otra cualquiera (2003) – A Love Story Like All the Rest

Fourth Stop: India.

Indian Writer Rohinton Mistry

Rohinton Mistry was born in Bombay in the 1950s, and emigrated to Canada in his 20s. He was working in a bank when he decided to enroll at the University of Toronto. He submitted one of his first short stories to a university competition on a whim, and as surprised as he was, it was nothing compared to the following year, when he won again. He later received a grant from the Canada Arts Council, which allowed him to quit his job at the bank, and he has been writing short stories and novels ever since. His critically-acclaimed second novel, A Fine Balance, followed a series of Indian characters from different economic classes in a lyrical, almost Dickensian fashion.

Books by Mistry Include:

Tales from Firozsha Baag (1987)

A Fine Balance (1995)

Family Matters (2002)

Final Stop: Nigeria.

Chinua Achebe (full name Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe) was born in Nigeria in 1930, which means he has lived through a lot. Perhaps best known for his 1958 novel Things Fall Apart, which depicts the life of an Igbo leader who accidentally murders a clansman, Achebe also worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in Lagos before heading the Voice of Nigeria in the 1960s. He has worked with such famous figures as Langston Hughes and James Baldwin, and famously critiqued Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. He is a master of language, and his own literary style is a mix of English, pidgin, Igbo, and African proverbs.  Achebe is important not only because of his unique voice and style, but also because he has helped promote postcolonial African writers such as Steve Biko, Nadine Gordimer, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o.

Books Include:

Things Fall Apart (1958)

No Longer at Ease (1960)

Arrow of God (1964)

A Man of the People (1966)

Anthills of the Savannah (1987)

We hope you’ve enjoyed your literary jaunt around the world. What international writers do you love to read?  Share your authors in the comments below!