10 Books by POC Authors Worth Reading

Author:
Priya Barua
Updated date:
Jan 4, 2022

Priya is pursuing her undergrad in Law and Business Administration. She loves translated books, world cinema and French chic.

Commitment to read POC Authors. I’ve read too many books by white authors about white people and I have loved every one of them. But it was time to diversify my reading list. I went through with it and brought to you a selection of seven books by POC authors from across different countries. The books in this list are either literary or fantasy though I promise to present you with more diverse genres in the next list. Happy reading.

Time to diversify your reading list.
Photo by Asal Lotfi on Unsplash

History has failed us, but no matter.

— Pachinko, Min Jin Lee

10 Books by POC Author Worth Reading


Book	Author
Pachinko	Min Jin Lee
Paradise	Toni Morrison
Cheffe	Marie N’Diaye
Green Bone Saga	Fonda Lee
Norwegian Wood	Haruki Murakami
Gods of Jade and Shadow	Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Map of Love	Ahdaf Soueif
The Inheritance of Loss	Kiran Desai
White Teeth	Zadie Smith
French Lover	Tsalima Nasreen

1. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Pachinko, at its heart, is an immigration tale, a stunning depiction of the hardships of moving to another country, out of necessity or desire, to create a better life for their family and themselves. Set in Busan, Korea, the daughter of a crippled fisherman is forced to move to Japan after she discovers that she is pregnant by a lover who is already married. The story follows a chronological order from the early 1900s to post World War. The story revolves around the four generations of a Korean family as they build a life in Japan. The attention to detail is fantastic, the setting so deliciously researched it could qualify for a history textbook. I felt the book was written to sensitize readers about the plight of Koreans during those decades. As a reader, I always preferred interesting characters, I never read with the intention that I should connect to a character, and for that reason, I found it appealing.

2. Paradise by Toni Morrison

It’s a gritty book set in an isolated all-black town in Oklahoma. It’s difficult to condense the book into a summary which is divided into nine sections, each focusing on different characters that reside in the town. So, instead, I’ll tell you what worked for me. It’s painfully well-written, a distinct voice and everything, and what I enjoyed was the ability to delve into the minds of the characters. There’s a convent also, that provides a haven for women, a non-conventional aspect of the town, and one that is much-hated. I’d never read African-American experiences and I found certain things quite chilling. One that stuck to me; when the original founders of the town were on the move, and one of the women got pregnant, they sought help from a white town. Instead of a doctor, they sent a vet. The book also begins with one of the best first lines in the history of the literary world: They shoot the white girl first.

3. Cheffe by Marie N’Diaye

Cheffe is a French book by award-winning author Marie N’Diaye. I read the translated version of it. It’s about one woman portrayed through the eyes of an unrequited lover. Just about one woman who is neither a superstar nor a celebrity. She’s an ordinary woman, a chef and a cheffe to our narrator, and the author has used that ordinariness to create such an amazing woman. There were mixed reviews about the book, especially the writing, with several adjectives strung together, disconcerting as some called it. I quite enjoyed it, enjoyed the story and loved the beautiful descriptions of French cuisine.

4. Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee

I rarely finish trilogies. But I’m so excited to read the third and final instalment of Fonda Lee’s fantasy epic that came out recently. Oh, this wonderful woman! You can’t describe her books easily. There are so many plots and sub-plots, so many characters and their motives and desires – all woven together with delicate threads to portray a stunning picture of the Kaul Family and the island of Kekon. If you’re new to the fantasy genre, this is a must-try series. Not a surprise that the first book won the World Fantasy Award.

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Nothing beats a good book and a good cup of tea.
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5. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Norwegian Wood is a fairly old book, released in 1987 but I only read it recently during my sustained, ongoing endevour to read books from authors across the world. It’s a coming-of-age novel, written in first person by the cool, aloof Watanbe about his college years in 1960s Tokyo. There are underlying political tensions but our narrator doesn’t interact with those elements. Drugs, sex, alcohol and four suicides are what ties this book together. I initially disliked the protagonist, and only hung on to the book because of the beautiful work by the translator in recreating the Japanese milieu, but slowly, I too became fascinated with him just like the other girls in the book. There’s nothing sweet about this book or about our narrator, it’s just an account of his college days, like flipping through his diary. I really enjoyed it, and hence it’s on the list.

6. Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

This is a fantasy novel written by Canadian- Mexican author, Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Set in the Jazz Age in Mexico, the story is about Casiopea Tun who undergoes a quest to find the missing pieces of the Mayan God of Death. Oh, and she also releases his spirit. Was that a spoiler? So, together they traverse the length and breadth of Mexico which ends with the impossible task of navigating the…but that would be another spoiler. It’s the first fantasy novel I’ve read that exclusively relies on the web of Mayan mythology, staying true to its source, and history. Somewhere along the line, there seemed to be a lack of chemistry between our hero and her god, but the architecture of the writing, and the beauty of descriptions that Moreno-Garcia employs more than makes up for it.

7. The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif

Do you recognize beautiful writing? I mean, there’s Poe and Twain and Saki. Then there’s Ahdaf Soueif. It was an impossibly beautiful story written in impossibly beautiful language. It’s a love story if you must know. But not the tacky kind. Subtle. The romance between an English lady, a widow and an Egyptian Pasha set in a Cairo colonized primarily by the British. There were two stories running parallel. A descendent of the Pasha’s family who was piecing together the love story for another relative. Bit by bit, she unravels Anna’s and Sharif’s story, and what a story!

8. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

Kiran Desai won the Booker Prize for this, a truly wonderful account of a bunch of eccentric characters and the story of their lives. It’s partly set in the verdant, mountainous Kalimpong around the first central character, the orphaned Sai who lives with her grandfather. The other part of the story takes the reader to the USA around the second central character, Biju. It’s set in the backdrop of the political tensions around Gorkhaland, and mostly, it’s about a loss of identity in post-colonial India.

9. White Teeth by Zadie Smith

I’ve recommended this book in other lists as well, and I can’t stop gushing about it. Zadie’s off-beat, funny and smug narrator voice sets the scene for Archie and Samad, an Englishman and a Bengali immigrant, who nurture a relationship during the Second World War and who remain friends for the several decades after that, living close to one another in a somewhat downgrade English suburb. Their wives become friends, and their children become friends and get entangled with each other, and the ending to the story is so clever that it leaves something for the reader to ponder upon.

10. French Lover by Tsalima Nasreen

I remember this book as one of my first “adult” books; bought it at a book fair and quietly slipped it among the other books lest my mother found out I was reading “lover” books. No, I was really young and the book is about a Bengali woman on a journey to France and all of French Decadence. Much like the title, the protagonist finds a lover in a handsome Frenchman who sweeps her off her feet and introduces her to a beautiful passionate life she never thought existed. At this point, I can’t tell if I liked it or not, never reread it, but it was part of my childhood years of exploring different authors.

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.