Help me find litfic authors who use settings from all over the world!
July 22, 2016 9:44 PM   Subscribe

Bookfilter! I'm looking to find authors with that internationalist flair.

I love devouring the complete works of any given author that I enjoy, but I hate it when they "write what they know" and every book is set in upstate New York or rural Iowa or what have you. I want to find more authors who go out of their way to include a variety of settings and characters with unique geographical backgrounds. I'm thinking of people like Thomas Pynchon, David Mitchell or Zadie Smith. I'd also like for these authors to be women or people of color since I already read plenty of books by white dudes as it is.
posted by zeusianfog to Writing & Language (9 answers total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Geraldine Brooks
posted by Thella at 10:06 PM on July 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yoko Tawada
posted by Wobbuffet at 10:26 PM on July 22, 2016


Tiphanie Yanique
posted by weeyin at 10:33 PM on July 22, 2016


Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Start with the excellent Half of a Yellow Sun.

Isabel Allende's early works, especially The House of the Spirits, are great.

The Brief Wondreous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz is fantastic.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:43 PM on July 22, 2016 [4 favorites]


Michael Ondaatje

I can recommend lots of authors from around the world if you want a change from the US as a setting, but you want authors who set their books in various places, is that right?
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 6:52 AM on July 23, 2016


Is Naipaul too obvious a choice?
posted by .kobayashi. at 3:49 PM on July 23, 2016


Response by poster: Bloxworth, you've got it--I'm looking for authors who set their books in various places, not just authors who write in a fixed international setting.
posted by zeusianfog at 4:03 PM on July 23, 2016


Not a contemporary writer, but you could try Graham Greene.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 9:12 AM on July 24, 2016


Maybe Barbara Kingsolver? She's written seven novels so far, with four set in different parts of the Southern US (Oklahoma twice, Appalachia (Virginia, I think) and Tennessee), one set in Arizona with Nicaragua very important to the plot, one set partly in Mexico and partly in North Carolina, and one set in the Belgian Congo (as was).
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 11:25 AM on July 26, 2016


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