Here are 100 books that Children of Sugarcane fans have personally recommended if you like
Children of Sugarcane.
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I’m a closet historian who’s always been fascinated by the power of novels to enable readers to travel in time and space and stand in the shoes of historical characters–blending imagination and enlightenment. As a scholar, I’ve worked to uncover women’s unknown and secret histories–histories of subversion, disruption, and humor. As a South African who grew up under apartheid, I passionately believe that if we don’t confront history, we’re doomed to repeat its nastier passages. As a writer, I’ve published a sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice that showed me how immersion in another historical era can enable us to grapple with truths about our current societies.
One of the best examples of “history from below” I’ve read.
It tells the well-known story of David Livingstone’s last journey–how after he died in tropical Africa, his servants marched his body across the continent to the port of Dar es Salaam, so that it could be shipped back to England and buried there with appropriate pomp and reverence. This forms the framework for an utterly original novel that presents this epic trek from the perspective of two of Livingstone’s slave servants: his feisty Muslim cook, Halima, who brings her gossipy sardonic perspective to the enterprise, and his devout and pompous body servant Joseph, a Christian determined to do right by his master.
This work sparkles with energy and humor, as well as presenting a fresh perspective on a well-trodden path.
ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 2020 FICTION HIGHLIGHTS: Petina Gappah's epic journey through nineteenth-century Africa is 'engrossing, beautiful and deeply imaginative.' (Yaa Gyasi)
This is the story of the body of Bwana Daudi, the Doctor, the explorer David Livingstone - and the sixty-nine men and women who carried his remains for 1,500 miles so that he could be borne across the sea and buried in his own country.
The wise men of his age say Livingstone blazed into the darkness of their native land leaving a track of light behind where white men who followed him could tread in perfect safety.…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I’m a closet historian who’s always been fascinated by the power of novels to enable readers to travel in time and space and stand in the shoes of historical characters–blending imagination and enlightenment. As a scholar, I’ve worked to uncover women’s unknown and secret histories–histories of subversion, disruption, and humor. As a South African who grew up under apartheid, I passionately believe that if we don’t confront history, we’re doomed to repeat its nastier passages. As a writer, I’ve published a sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice that showed me how immersion in another historical era can enable us to grapple with truths about our current societies.
I’m in awe of this author’s trilogy of award-winning novels about Zimbabwe’s colonial history. Haunting and hypnotic, they blend magical realism, epic history, and social satire. Although they form a series with some recurring characters, all are standalone reads.
Her first, The Theory of Flight, won South Africa’s biggest literary award. The second, recommended here, is a sustained act of grace in which the author climbs into the skin of an alpha white male Rhodesian, Emil Coetzee, whose ambitions lead to his running the doomed colony’s sinister secret police. It humanizes him without excusing him in an imaginative tour de force that asks a burning question: why do we sometimes choose evil?
If you love this book (you will), Ndlovu’s third novel, The Quality of Mercy, brings the series to a redemptive close.
From 2022 Windham Campbell Prize winner Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu
Book 2 in the City of Kings trilogy, including her multiple award-winning debut novel The Theory of Flight
Set in a southern African country that is never named, this powerful tale of human fallibility—told with empathy, generosity, and a light touch—is an excursion into the interiority of the colonizer.
Emil Coetzee, a civil servant in his fifties, is washing blood off his hands when the ceasefire is announced. Like everyone else, he feels unmoored by the end of the conflict. War had given him his sense of purpose, his identity. But…
I’m a closet historian who’s always been fascinated by the power of novels to enable readers to travel in time and space and stand in the shoes of historical characters–blending imagination and enlightenment. As a scholar, I’ve worked to uncover women’s unknown and secret histories–histories of subversion, disruption, and humor. As a South African who grew up under apartheid, I passionately believe that if we don’t confront history, we’re doomed to repeat its nastier passages. As a writer, I’ve published a sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice that showed me how immersion in another historical era can enable us to grapple with truths about our current societies.
For every dreaming rebel. This novel weaves together two tumultuous periods in history–the last decades of slavery and the start of grand apartheid–and the stories of two women bursting the seams of their existence.
In 1794, Katrijn van der Caab, a freed slave, finds herself on a farm where the master’s obsession with experimentation reflects a growing fixation with racial classification. In 1961, Sister Vergilius, a nun in rural South Africa, wants to escape the confines of her order even as the political and social strictures of the time hem her in still further.
This complex book demands commitment from the reader, but it is so beautifully written that phrases still linger in my mind. And the main characters were so compelling that I tracked down the author to ask her their fates!
Katrijn van der Caab, freed slave and wigmaker's apprentice, travels with her eccentric employer from Cape Town to Vogelzang, a remote farm where a hairless girl needs their services. The year is 1794, it is the age of enlightenment, and on Vogelzang the master is conducting strange experiments in human breeding and classification. It is also here that Trijn falls in love. Two hundred years later and a thousand miles away, Sister Vergilius, a nun at a mission hospital, wants to free herself from an austere order. It is 1961 and her life intertwines with that of a gentleman farmer…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I’m a closet historian who’s always been fascinated by the power of novels to enable readers to travel in time and space and stand in the shoes of historical characters–blending imagination and enlightenment. As a scholar, I’ve worked to uncover women’s unknown and secret histories–histories of subversion, disruption, and humor. As a South African who grew up under apartheid, I passionately believe that if we don’t confront history, we’re doomed to repeat its nastier passages. As a writer, I’ve published a sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice that showed me how immersion in another historical era can enable us to grapple with truths about our current societies.
This is the novel that brought South Africa’s Lauren Beukes international plaudits, and which was serialised for Apple TV.
But she writes speculative fiction, and this has an especially zany hook–a time-travelling serial killer–so why is this a historical novel? Beukes did deep research into several key periods in US history, bringing the “shining girls” of those eras alive in ways that are breathtakingly imaginative and entertaining.
In particular, her accounts of the black women who worked in shipyards during World War 2–and the middle-class women who operated “underground railways” for abortion in the 1960s–are heartbreakingly relevant in current times. Beukes explicitly states that she wanted women–so often the passive corpses or suffering victims in crime fiction–and their histories to be front and center of this novel.
The jaw-dropping, page-turning, critically-acclaimed book of the year: a serial-killer thriller unlike any other from the award-winning Lauren Beukes. 'GONE GIRL has not exactly gone. But THE SHINING GIRLS have arrived' (The Times).
THE SHINING GIRLS is now streaming on Apple TV+, starring Elisabeth Moss and Jamie Bell
"It's not my fault. It's yours. You shouldn't shine. You shouldn't make me do this."
Chicago 1931. Harper Curtis, a violent drifter, stumbles on a house with a secret as shocking as his own twisted nature - it opens onto other times. He uses it to stalk his carefully chosen 'shining girls'…
I started writing fiction and writing aboutfiction at about the same time. My novels and stories tend to be about solitary characters pulled into the maelstrom that is contemporary Indian urban life and trying to make sense of it. I’ve always believed that to be an effective observer of your society you need to stay in tune with what your peers are doing and the last two decades in which I’ve been writing and publishing have been some of the most exciting for Indian fiction in general.
I am always looking out for talented young writers and this debut really struck me for its narrator’s very distinctive voice, both stylish and sad. An Indian Catcher in the Ryebut with a protagonist more hampered by family and circumstances, capable of greater angst, and looking for authenticity in the strangest and loneliest of places.
"And then finally I felt sadness, aided perhaps by those futile notes, by the dust that keeps thickening, by the untouchable past, the inevitable future, and by everything else that pushes us around."
Ib lives with his schizophrenic father and his "nice" mother negotiating life, not knowing what to do, steered by uncaring winds and pushy people. From his slimy, unmiraculous birth to the tragic death of a loved one, Ib wanders the city, from one thing to another, confused, lost, and alone, all the while reflecting on his predicament. He is searching for something - what he does not…
As a fantasy author, I love stories set within complex and unusual worlds. I especially enjoy worlds where the rules of physics and metaphysics are re-imagined, adding an extra dimension to the story. Most fantasy worlds are much like our own – big, spherical, ordinary climactic zones, normal physics. Magic sort of exists around the edges. A handful of fantasy worlds are different: the world is flat, layered, hollow, has physical and metaphysical laws that change when you step across a political border – or is wholly contained within an infinite House with oceans pouring through the lower levels. Those are worlds I find especially delightful to visit – and to write about!
The Pyramids of London has the most ornate, baroque alternative-history setting of any novel in the entire history of fantasy novels. Seriously. To start with, every kind of mythology is true in whatever region that mythology developed. Also, the pharaohs of Egypt have been vampires for thousands of years. Plus, when they die, vampires might become stars. Which are also gods. Plus France is ruled by the Fae. At night, when the Fae Court of the Moon arises in Paris, gravity suddenly drops dramatically.
Insert a murder mystery into this wildly ornate setting, plus fully realized characters you both believe in and root for, and off you go, on a fantastic journey through a world that is like nothing you’ve ever seen before.
In a world where lightning sustained the Roman Empire, and Egypt's vampiric god-kings spread their influence through medicine and good weather, tiny Prytennia's fortunes are rising with the ships that have made her undisputed ruler of the air. But the peace of recent decades is under threat. Rome's automaton-driven wealth is waning along with the New Republic's supply of power crystals, while Sweden uses fear of Rome to add to her Protectorates. And Prytennia is under attack from the wind itself. Relentless daily blasts destroy crops, buildings, and lives, and neither the weather vampires nor Prytennia's Trifold Goddess have been…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I am SEBI registered equity analyst, bestselling author & public speaker. I have started investing in the Indian stock market at the age of 18 and have a history of identifying several multi-bagger stocks like Chemcrux Enterprises, Lancer Container, Sirca Paints, Caplin Point Lab, Can Fin Homes, Mayur Uniquoters, etc. My portfolio consistently outperformed the index by a significant margin. For more details visit my website.
If you are interested in the history of the Indian stock market, then this book is a must-read for you. Written in an easy-to-understand language, the book will take you on an exciting journey from the early days of the Bombay Stock Exchange, narrating all major episodes and players with learnings that can help you to navigate in the Indian Stock Market.
I'm a clinical psychologist who also writes about and teaches Buddhist philosophy, psychology, and meditation. I've had the great good fortune to be closely mentored by a number of elder Tibetan teachers who were educated in old Tibet. Over the decades, when seeking wisdom and compassion in the midst of life's challenges, I've repeatedly found inspiration, education, solace, and guidance along my own path in the enlightened and enlightening life stories of a number of the great scholar/yogis of the Himalayan Buddhist traditions.
Naropa was an important figure in Indian Tantric Buddhism whose lineages gained great popularity in Tibet. His life story beautifully embodies many archetypal elements of the spiritual journey in a way that has proved compelling, inspiring, and educational for Buddhist practitioners for well over a millenium. He goes from being a great scholar to a seeker who bears many hardships to an enlightened master. If you yourself are someone deeply committed to a spiritual journey, then it's likely that you'll find moments of your own experience reflected back for you in his remarkable story.
In the history of Tibetan Buddhism, the eleventh-century Indian mystic Nâropa occupies an unusual position, for his life and teachings mark both the end of a long tradition and the beginning of a new and rich era in Buddhist thought. Nâropa's biography, translated by the world-renowned Buddhist scholar Herbert V. Guenther from hitherto unknown sources, describes with great psychological insight the spiritual development of this scholar-saint. It is unique in that it also contains a detailed analysis of his teaching that has been authoritative for the whole of Tantric Buddhism.
This modern translation is accompanied by a commentary that relates…
I'm a historian of global capitalism and South Asia, writing about corporations as they are and how they could be. I've looked at India with the eyes of an outsider, drawing on my experiences growing up in 1990s Eastern Europe during a time of political upheaval and shock privatizations as the old communist order crumbled. Having witnessed the rise of a new class of monopolists and oligarchs in its stead, I became interested in the many different ways capitalists exercise power in society over time and around the world, and how we as ordinary citizens relate to them. I'm now interested in thinkers, activists, and entrepreneurs who have tried to experiment with alternatives.
There is no better book for understanding India’s family businesses in a broader social and political context than this sprawling, powerful novel. Preti Taneja retells and reworks Shakespeare’s King Lear as three sisters (and an illegitimate son) fight over the inheritance of a massive company that makes everything from textiles to cars (echoes of the Tatas, Birlas, and Ambanis, but also of the East India Company as the subcontinent’s original corporate sovereign). Taneja touches on all the big issues, including gender, caste, climate, and Kashmir, without ever being preachy. It is a long and sometimes challenging read, but always rewarding. I may be biased given the subject matter, but this is the century’s Great Indian Novel—a worthy successor to the likes of Midnight’s Children, A Suitable Boy, and Sacred Games.
When a billionaire hotelier and political operator attempts to pit his three daughters against one another, a brutal struggle for primacy begins in this modern-day take on Shakespeare’s King Lear. Set in contemporary India, where rich men are gods while farmers starve and water is fast running out, We That Are Young is a story about power, status, and the love of a megalomaniac father. A searing exploration of human fallibility, Preti Taneja’s remarkable novel reveals the fragility of the human heart—and its inevitable breaking point.
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
Ever since I followed a girlfriend on the hippie trail through Asia (see: Around the World In A Bad Mood) at 25, I had my life changed from fledgling novelist to travel writer—when, despite my professed difficulties, major magazines started calling me to see the world on their dime. I also was able to center three more book accounts of my wanderings on major life passions (Latin baseball, Brazilian music and Chinese food), so that I had enriching experiences even when the royalties weren't. I have taught courses on "travel lit" everywhere from Berkeley to Kuala Lumpur and honed a philosophy of travel writing as the ultimate in wide-eyed amateurism.
This is ostensibly a travel book, a journey of discovery for VS Naipaul, a product of the Indian diaspora deeply imbued with Western Anglo values. It's also reportage, essay, and passionate horror-filled screed. It's not a fair or objective portrait of his homeland, but it is brilliantly observed and profoundly argued.
In this book, V.S.Naipaul returns to the country which continues to intrigue and inspire him and about which he wrote "An Area of Darkness" in 1964, a semi-autobiographical account of a year spent in India. Now, twenty-five years later, he goes back to that country, returning to the places he visited years ago and talking to people of all types and at all levels of society. Naipaul started writing in 1954 he has won the John Llewelyn Rhys Memorial Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Hawthornden Prize, the W.H.Smith Award and the Booker Prize, the latter with the novel "In…
