My Five Favorite Books

I go back to this novel, about an Oxford-educated Sudanese man who returns to his native country to teach, again and again because it pulls me towards the Equator. I often reflect on the narrator’s dilemma: where has common sense gone? Some people feel that merely being born in Africa makes you a slave while others wonder if you’re a God. The story also touches on sexual attitudes as well as the rhythms of rural life in Sudan. It’s a magnetic and mysterious linking of East and West.

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I was really taken with this novel about a group of glamorous college students majoring in Classical Greek who manage to commit two crimes. I was dazzled by the prose, the perfect narrative voice and most importantly the suspense, which is maintained throughout.

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While I was reading this unusual novel, all my senses were reading with me. I smelled old places and furniture; I touched snow and water; my brain cells were fully engaged in a reflective mood. I listened to the stories of three generations of women and along with them I tasted grief.

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This dark, inventive and hilarious novel about a dysfunctional British family has ruptured characters and musings on fate and the way we live now. The author’s whirlwind of ideas cascades into the mind—from the beginning until the end.

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The savagery that engulfed South Africa during the last years of the apartheid regime echoes in the masterful narration in this novel. It reminded me of my own anxiety, fear and fury at the beginning of the Civil War in Lebanon when the question of life and death was in the air we breathed.

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