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Beyond the West

A recommended reading list compiled by students and faculty. These books bring readers around the world. We welcome contributions to this list. Please email suggestions to writing@bennington.edu

  • Aminatta Forna | The Hired Man
  • Aminatta Forna | The Memory of Love
  • Leslie Marmon | Silko Ceremony
  • Louise Erdrich | The Plague of Doves
  • Louise Erdrich | The Round House
  • Naguib Mahfouz | Adrift on the Nile
  • David Grossman | See Under Love
  • Anita Amirrezvani | The Blood of Flowers
  • Manoucher Parvin | Dardadel: Rumi, Hafez and Love in New York
  • Shahrnush Parispur | Women Without Men
  • Orhan Pamuk | Snow
  • Orhan Pamuk | My Name is Red
  • Orhan Pamuk | The Museum of Innocence
  • Elias Khoury | Yalo
  • Elias Khoury | Gate of the Sun
  • Hanif Abdurraquib | They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us
  • Hanif Abdurraquib | A Fortune for Your Disaster
  • Naguib Mahfouz | The Children of Gebelawi
  • Amos Oz | Black Box
  • Amos Oz | Falling Out of Time
  • A.B. Yehoshua | Mr. Mani
  • A.B. Yehoshua | A Late Divorce
  • Rudolf Anaya | Tortuga
  • Natalie Diaz | When My Brother Was an Aztec
  • Monica Youn | Blackacre
  • Jamel Brinkley | A Lucky Man
  • Christina Garcia | Monkey Hunting
  • Julia Alvarez | How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
  • Ana CastilloSo | Far From God
  • Sandra Cisneros | The House on Mango Street
  • Daniel Alarcon | War by Candlelight
  • Isabel Allende | The House of Spirits
  • Rudolf Anaya | Bless Me Ultima
  • Junot Diaz | The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
  • Christina Garcia | Dreaming in Cuban
  • Oscar Hijuelos | The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez | One Hundred Years of Solitude
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez | Memories of My Melancholy Whores
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez | Of Love and Other Demons
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez | Chronicle of a Death Foretold
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez | Love in the Time of Cholera
  • Daniel Alarcon | War by Candlelight
  • Jorge Luis Borges | The Aleph
  • Julio Cortazar | Hopscotch
  • Machado de Assis | The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas
  • Machado de Assis | Esau and Jacob
  • Carlos Fuentes | The Death of Artemio Cruz
  • Carlos Fuentes | Aura
  • Carlos Fuentes | The Old Gringo
  • Juan Rulfo | Pedro Paramo
  • Juan Rulfo | The Burning Plain and Other Stories
  • Mario Vargas|  LlosaThe Time of the Hero
  • Mario Vargas | LlosaConversation in the Cathedral
  • Chang-Rae Lee | Native Speaker
  • Chang-Rae Lee | On Such a Full Sea
  • Min jin Lee | Free Food for Millionaires
  • Danzy Senna | Caucasia
  • Arundhati Roy | The God of Small Things
  • Jhumpa Lahiri | Interpreter of Maladies
  • Vikram Chandra | Love and Longing in Bombay
  • Kiran Desai '93 | The Inheritance of Loss
  • Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni | Arranged Marriage
  • Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni | The Mistress of Spices
  • Amitav Ghosh | Sea of Poppies 
  • Amitav Ghosh | The Glass Palace
  • Jumpha Lahiri | The Namesake
  • Jumpha Lahiri | Unaccustomed Earth
  • Jumpha Lahiri | Interpreter of Maladies
  • Bharati Mukherjee | Jasmine
  • Bharati Mukherjee | Darkness
  • Bharati Mukherjee | New Miss India
  • Salman Rushdie | Shame
  • Salman Rushdie | The Satanic Verses
  • Amit Chaudhuri | The Immortals
  • Anita Desai | Clear Light of Day
  • Anita Desai | In Custody
  • Rohinton Mistry | A Fine Balance
  • Rohinton Mistry | Family Matters
  • Rohinton Mistry | Such a Long Journey
  • R.K. Narayan | The English Teacher
  • R.K. Narayan | The Painter of Signs
  • Vikram Seth | The Golden Gate
  • Vikram Seth | A Suitable Boy
  • Rabindranath Tagore | The Home and the World
  • Salman Rushdie | Midnight's Children
  • Fae Myenne Ng | Bone
  • Gish Jen | Typical American
  • Gish Jen | Who's Irish?
  • Ha Jin | Waiting
  • Ha Jin | The Crazed
  • Yiyun Li | A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
  • Yiyun Li | Kinder than Solitude
  • Amy Tan | The Joy Luck Club
  • Amy Tan | The Kitchen God's Wife
  • Jamaica Kincaid | Annie John
  • V.S. Naipaul | Miguel Street
  • Maryse Conde | Heremakhonon
  • Joseph Zobel | Black Shaq Alley
  • Paule Marshall | Brown Girl, Brownstones
  • Paule Marshall | Praisesong for the Widow
  • Jacques Roumain | Masters of the Dew
  • Edwige Danticat | Breath, Eyes, Memory
  • Edwige Danticat | Krik? Krak!
  • Taiye Selasi | Ghana Must Go
  • Helen Oyeyemi | The Opposite House
  • Helen Oyeyemi | White Is For Witching
  • Zadie Smith | White Teeth
  • Zadie Smith | On Beauty
  • Haruki Murakami | Kafka on the Shore
  • Kenzaburo Oe | Shoot the Kids
  • Yukio Mishima | The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
  • Yukio Mishima | Way of the Samurai
  • Haruki Murakami | The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
  • Yasunari Kawabata | Snow Country
  • Yasunari Kawabata | Thousand Cranes
  • Murasaki Shikibu | The Tale of Genji
  • Junichuro Tanizaki | The Makioka Sisters
  • Junichuro Tanizaki | Diary of a Mad Old Man
  • Banana Yoshimoto | Kitchen
  • Banana Yoshimoto | The Lake
  • Cao Zueqin | The Dream of the Red Chamber
  • William Saroyan | The Human Comedy
  • William Saroyan | My Name is Aram
  • David Anthony Durham | Gabriel's Story
  • Octavia Butler | Xenogenesis (Trilogy)
  • Ralph Ellison | Invisible Man
  • Christopher Paul Curtis | The Watsons Go to Birmingham
  • Toni Morrison | Beloved
  • Toni Cade Bambarra | Gorilla, My Love
  • Toni Cade Bambarra | The Salt Eaters
  • Wesley Brown | Tragic Magic
  • Wesley Brown | Darktown Strutters
  • Wesley Brown | Push Comes to Shove
  • Arna Bontemps | Black Thunder
  • Octavia Butler | Kindred
  • Octavia Butler | Parable of the Sower
  • Alice Childress | A Short Walk
  • Alice Childress | A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich
  • Ernest Gaines | A Lesson Before Dying
  • Ernest Gaines | A Gathering of Old Men
  • Thomas Glave | Whose Song and Other Stories
  • Langston Hughes | The Ways of White Folks: Short Stories of Langston Hughes
  • Zora Neale Hurston | Their Eyes Were Watching God
  • Charles R. Johnson | Middle Passage
  • Charles R. Johnson | The Sorcerer's Apprentice
  • Edward P. Jones | The Known World
  • Edward P. Jones | All Aunt Hagar's Children
  • Jamaica Kincaid | See Now Then
  • Nella Larsen | Quicksand
  • Nella Larsen | Passing
  • Clarence Major | One Flesh
  • Claude McKay | Home to Harlem
  • James Alan McPherson | Hue and Cry
  • James Alan McPherson | Elbow Room
  • Lucille Meriwether | Daddy Was a Numbers Runner
  • Toni Morrison | Song of Solomon
  • Toni Morrison | Sula
  • Toni Morrison | Jazz
  • Walter Mosle | Devil in a Blue Dress
  • Gloria Naylor | The Women of Brewster Place
  • Gloria Naylor | Mama Day
  • ZZ Packer | Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
  • Ishmael Reed | Mumbo Jumbo
  • Sapphire | Push
  • Ntozake Shange | Sassafras
  • Jean Toomer | Cane
  • Alice Walker | Meridian
  • Alice Walker | The Color Purple
  • Margaret Walker | Jubilee
  • Colson Whitehead | The Intuitionist
  • Colson Whitehead | John Henry Days
  • John Edgar Wideman | Sent for You Yesterday
  • John Edgar Wideman | Philadelphia Fire
  • Richard Wright | Native Son
  • Richard Wright | Black Boy
  • Amos Tutuola | The Palm Wine Drinkard
  • Teju Cole | Open City
  • Nuneddin Farah | Maps, Gifts, Secrets
  • Uzodinma Iweala | Beasts of No Nation
  • Zakes Mda | The Heart of Redness
  • Zakes Mda | The Madonaa of Excelsior
  • Dinaw Murayama | All Our Names
  • Okey Ndibi | Arrow of Rain
  • NoViolet Vulawayo | We Need New Names
  • Penguin Anthology of Contemporary African WritingGods and Soldiers
  • Chinua Achebe | Things Fall Apart
  • Chinua Achebe | No Longer At Ease
  • Chinua Achebe | Arrow of God
  • Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Purple Hibiscus
  • Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Half of a Yellow Sun
  • Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Americanah
  • Buchi Emecheta | Second Class Citizen
  • Buchi Emecheta | The Bride Price
  • Ben Okri | The Famished Road
  • Ben Okri | Songs of Enchantment
  • Yvonne Adhiombo OwuorDust
  • Yvonne Vera | Butterfly Burning
  • Yvonne Vera | The Stone Virgins
  • Ousmane Sembene | God's Bits of Wood
  • Bessie Head | Maru
  • Bessie Head | A Bewitched Crossroad
  • John Dominis Holt | Waimea Summer
  • Milton Murayama | All I Asking For is My Body
  • Azar Nafizi | Reading "Lolita" in Tehran
  • David Grossman | The Yellow Wind
  • Amos Oz | A Tale of Love and Darkness (memoir)
  • Gloria E. Anzaldua | Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
  • Richard Rodriguez | Hunger of Memory (memoir)
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez | Living to Tell the Tale
  • Ved Mehta | Mamaji
  • Ved Mehta | Papaji (called Daddyji?)
  • Ved Mehta | All For Love
  • Pankaj Mishra | The Romantics
  • Pankaj Mishra | From the Ruins of Empire
  • Eva Hoffman | Lost in Translation
  • Frantz Fanon | Black Skin, White Masks
  • George Lamming | In the Castle of My Skin
  • Audre Lorde | The Cancer Journals
  • Claude McKay | My Green Hills of Jamaica (memoir)
  • Aime Cesaire | Memorandum on My Martinique
  • Franz Fanon (repeated --- see 215) | Black Skin, White Masks
  • Franz Fanon | The Wretched of the Earth
  • Sei Shonagon | The Pillow Book
  • Michael J. Arlen | Exiles
  • Michael J. Arlen | Passage to Ararat
  • Peter Balakian | Black Dog of Fate
  • Alex Haley and Malcom X | The Autobiography of Malcom X
  • Bell Hooks | All About Love
  • Rickey Vincent | Funk: The Music, The People, and the Rhythm of the One
  • Robert L. Allen | The Port Chicago Mutiny
  • W.E.B. Du Bois | The Souls of Black Folk
  • James Baldwin | Another Country
  • James Baldwin | The Fire Next Time
  • James Baldwin | Nobody Knows My Name
  • Claude Brown | Manchild in the Promised Land (memoir)
  • Claude Brown | Children of Ham
  • Toi Derricotte | The Black Notebooks (memoir)
  • Harriet Jacobs | Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
  • Albert Murray | Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Albert Murry and Ralph Ellison
  • Piri Thomas | Down These Mean Streets
  • Desmond TutuNo Future Without Forgiveness
  • J.M. Coetzee | Youth
  • Ishmael Beah | A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
  • Nelson Mandela | Long Walk to Freedom
  • Donald Woods | Biko (Biography of murdered activist Steve Biko)
  • Susan Sontag | Regarding the Pain of Others
  • Yehuda AmichaiSelected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai
  • Mahmoud Darwish | The Butterfly's Burden
  • Mahmoud Darwish | Unfortunately, It was Paradise: Selected Poems
  • Farugh Farrokhzad | Sin: Selected Poems of Farugh Farrokhzad
  • Tino Villanueva | Scene From the Movie Giant
  • Martin Espada | Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover's Hands
  • Cathy Park Hong | Dance dance Revolution
  • Cathy Park Hong | Engine Empire
  • Vijay Seshadri | 3 Selections
  • Vijay Seshadri | New and Selected Poems
  • June Jordan | Directed by Desire: The Complete Poems of June Jordan
  • Audre Lorde | Chosen Poems Old and New
  • Claude McKay | Selected Poems of Claude McKay
  • Gregory Djanikian | So I Will Till the Ground
  • Peter Balakian | Ziggurat
  • Amiri Baraka | Somebody Blew Up America and Other Poems
  • Arna Bontemps | Hold Fast to Dreams: Poems Old and New
  • Lucille Clifton | Blessing the Boats: New and Collected Poems
  • Countee Cullen | Collected Poems
  • Toi Derricotte | The Undertaker's Daughter
  • Toi Derricotte | Tender
  • Rita Dove | Sonata Mulattica (this cover is so beautiful!)
  • Rita Dove | American Smooth
  • Cornelius Eady | Brutal Imagination
  • Cornelius Eady | Victims of the Latest Dance Craze
  • Nikki Giovanni | Bicycles: Love Poems
  • Nikki Giovanni | Chasing Utopia: a Hybrid
  • Langston Hughes | The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
  • Major Jackson | Holding Company  
  • Major Jackson | Hoops
  • Major Jackson | Leaving Saturn
  • Yusef Komunyakaa | Copacetic
  • Yusef Komunyakaa | Neon Vernacular
  • Clarence Major | Configurations: New and Selected Poems
  • E. Ethelbert Miller | First Light: New and Selected Poems
  • Ishmael Reed | New and Selected Poems
  • Ntozake Shange | For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide
  • Tracy K. Smith | Life on Mars
  • Margaret Walker | For My People
  • Dennis Brutus | Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader
  • Wole Soyinka | Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known
  • Carolyn Forche | The Country Between Us
  • Kimiko Hahn | Toxic Flora
  • Kimiko Hahn | The Narrow Road to the Interior
  • Richard Blanco | City of a Hundred Fires; Looking for the Gulf Motel
  • Joan Nayiyuk Kane | Hyperboreal
  • Afaa Michael Weaver | The Government of Nature; The Plum Flower Dance
  • Quan Barry | Water Puppets
  • Wanda Coleman | The World Falls Away
  • Nicole Terez Dutton | If One of Us Should Fall
  • Ross Gay | Bringing the Shovel Down
  • Nathalie Handel | Poet in Andalucia
  • Terrance Hayes | Hip Logic; Lighthead; Wind in a Box
  • Etheridge Knight | The Essential Etheridge Knight
  • Colleen McElroy | Here I Throw Down My Heart
  • Laura Reed | Instructions For My Mother's Funeral
  • Paisley Rekdal | Animal Eye
  • Glenn Shaheen | Predatory
  • Reginald Shepherd | Fata Morgana

Recent Books by Alumni, Students, and Faculty (Ongoing, updated August 2020)

  • What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man's Blues | Clifford Thompson, Faculty
  • Air Traffic: A Memoir of Ambition and Manhood in America | Gregory Pardlo, Faculty
  • Be Recorder | Carmen Giménez Smith, Faculty
  • Milk and Filth | Carmen Giménez Smith, Faculty
  • Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life | Jenny Boully, Faculty
  • The Book of Beginnings and Endings | Jenny Boully, Faculty
  • This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America | Morgan Jerkins, MFA '16
  • Seems Like a Mighty Long Time | Angela Jackson, MFA '12
  • Starlight & Error | Remica Bingham-Risher, MFA '05
  • Cape Verdean Blues | Shauna Barbosa, MFA '17
  • The Tradition | Jericho Brown, June '19 Commencement Speaker
  • A Lucky Man | Jamel Brinkley, June '19 Visiting Writer
  • How We Fight for Our Lives | Saeed Jones, June '15 Commencement Speaker