You know I love reading around the world, so for International Women’s Day (March 8), I wanted to spotlight 23 novels on my 2023 TBR with international perspectives. These books are set all over the world, were written by authors of different nationalities, and/or are inspired by the folklore and mythology of various cultures. This list focuses heavily on books publishing in the first half of 2023, as that’s mostly what’s on my radar right now. Even so, it was quite hard to narrow this list down to only 23 titles, so you might get a part two this summer.
Note: I acknowledge “international” is relative depending on where you live. This list is wide-ranging enough that I hope any of my readers will be able to find something to transport you to another place and/or culture. If the author’s identity is not specified below, the author is from the country where the book is set.
A History of Burning by Janika Oza (May 2, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Mostly set in Uganda. Debut novel written by a Toronto-based writer from an Indo-Ugandan family.
From the publisher: “At the turn of the twentieth century, Pirbhai, a teenage boy looking for work, is taken from his village in India to labor on the East African Railway for the British. One day Pirbhai commits an act to ensure his survival that will haunt him forever and reverberate across his family’s future for years to come. A History of Burning is an unforgettable tour de force, an intimate family saga of complicity and resistance, about the stories we share, the ones that remain unspoken, and the eternal search for home.”
Ada’s Room by Sharon Dodua Otoo (March 28, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set in Ghana, England and Germany. Written by a British-born Ghanaian author. Translated from German by Jon Cho-Polizzi.
From the publisher: “A woman in 15th century West Africa named Ada buries her child and confronts a Portuguese enslaver. A woman in Victorian England named Ada Lovelace, a mathematical genius and computer programming pioneer, tries to hide her affair with Charles Dickens from her husband. A woman named Ada, imprisoned in a concentration camp at Mittelbau-Dora in 1945, will survive one more day in enforced prostitution. Connected by an unknown but sentient spirit, and a bracelet of fertility beads that each Ada encounters at a pivotal moment in her life, these women share a name and a purpose.”
Ghost Season by Fatin Abbas (January 10, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set in Sudan.
From the publisher: “A mysterious burnt corpse appears one morning in Saraaya, a remote border town between northern and southern Sudan. For five strangers on an NGO compound, the discovery foreshadows trouble to come. South Sudanese translator William connects the corpse to the sudden disappearance of cook Layla, a northern nomad with whom he’s fallen in love. Meanwhile, Sudanese American filmmaker Dena struggles to connect to her unfamiliar homeland, and white midwestern aid worker Alex finds his plans thwarted by a changing climate and looming civil war. Dancing between the adults is Mustafa, a clever, endearing twelve-year-old, whose schemes to rise out of poverty set off cataclysmic events on the compound.”
Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto (August 29, 2023)
Set in Hawaii. Debut story collection from a Japanese and Kanaka Maoli (native Hawaiian) writer.
From the publisher: “Megan Kamalei Kakimoto’s wrenching and sensational debut story collection follows a cast of mixed native Hawaiian and Japanese women through a contemporary landscape thick with inherited wisdom and the ghosts of colonization. This is a Hawai’i where unruly sexuality and generational memory overflow the postcard image of paradise and the boundaries of the real, where the superstitions born of the islands take on the weight of truth. Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare is both a fierce love letter to Hawaiian identity and mythology, and a searing dispatch from an occupied territory threatening to erupt with violent secrets.”
Call and Response by Gothataone Moeng (February 7, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Debut short story collection set in Botswana.
From the publisher: “Richly drawn stories about the lives of ordinary families in contemporary Botswana as they navigate relationships, tradition and caretaking in a rapidly changing world. The stories collected in Call and Response are strongly anchored in place—in the village of Serowe, where the author is from, and in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana—charting the emotional journeys of women seeking love and opportunity beyond the barriers of custom and circumstance.”
The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai (January 10, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set in a fantasy world inspired by modern Egyptian history. Author is Egyptian American.
From the publisher: “From debut author Hadeer Elsbai comes the first book in an incredibly powerful new duology, set wholly in a new world, but inspired by modern Egyptian history, about two young women—Nehal, a spoiled aristocrat used to getting what she wants and Giorgina, a poor bookshop worker used to having nothing—who find they have far more in common, particularly in their struggle for the rights of women and their ability to fight for it with forbidden elemental magic.”
The Great Reclamation by Rachel Heng (March 28, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set in Singapore.
From the publisher: “Set against a changing Singapore, a sweeping novel about one boy’s unique gifts and the childhood love that will complicate the fate of his community and country. Ah Boon is born into a fishing village amid the heat and beauty of twentieth-century coastal Singapore in the waning years of British rule. He is a gentle boy who is not much interested in fishing, preferring to spend his days playing with the neighbor girl, Siok Mei. But when he discovers he has the unique ability to locate bountiful, movable islands that no one else can find, he feels a new sense of obligation and possibility—something to offer the community and impress the spirited girl he has come to love.”
Exiles by Jane Harper (January 31, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set in Australia. Written by a British-born Australian author.
From the publisher: “Federal Investigator Aaron Falk is on his way to a small town deep in Southern Australian wine country for the christening of an old friend’s baby. But mystery follows him, even on vacation. This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of Kim Gillespie’s disappearance. One year ago, at a busy town festival on a warm spring night, Kim safely tucked her sleeping baby into her stroller, then vanished into the crowd. No one has seen her since. When Kim’s older daughter makes a plea for anyone with information about her missing mom to come forward, Falk and his old buddy Raco can’t leave the case alone.”
Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo (August 1, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set in the United States and Dominican Republic.
From the publisher: “From bestselling, National Book Award-winning author Elizabeth Acevedo comes her first novel for adults, the story of one Dominican-American family told through the voices of its women as they await a gathering that will forever change their lives. Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake—a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she’s led—her sisters are surprised. Has Flor forseen her own death, or someone else’s? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila. But Flor isn’t the only person with secrets.”
Nightbloom by Peace Adzo Medie (June 13, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set in Ghana and the United States.
From the publisher: “Author of Reese’s Book Club Pick His Only Wife, Peace Adzo Medie returns with a moving novel about the unbreakable power of female friendship. After two inseparable young friends in Ghana become estranged, one moving to the U.S., only a crisis can bring them back together and reconnect their bond. When Selasi and Akorfa were young girls in Ghana, they were more than just cousins; they were inseparable. Selasi was exuberant and funny, Akorfa quiet and studious. They would do anything for each other, imploring their parents to let them be together, sharing their secrets and desires and private jokes. Then Selasi begins to change.”
The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts by Soraya Palmer (March 28, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set mostly in the United States, inspired by Jamaican and Trinidadian folktales. Written by an American-born Caribbean author.
From the publisher: “Folktales and spirits animate this lively and unforgettable coming-of-age tale of two Jamaican-Trinidadian sisters in Brooklyn grappling with their mother’s illness, their father’s infidelity, and the truth of their family’s past. Sisters Zora and Sasha Porter are drifting apart. Bearing witness to their father’s violence and their mother’s worsening illness, an unsettled Zora escapes into her journal, dreaming of being a writer, while Sasha discovers sex and chest binding, spending more time with her new girlfriend than at home. But the sisters, like their parents, must come together to answer to something more ancient and powerful than they know—and reckon with a family secret buried in the past.”
The Incredible Events in Women’s Cell Number 3 by Kira Yarmysh (February 7, 2023)
Set in Russia. Translated from Russian by Arch Tait.
From the publisher: “The startling, vivid debut novel by Alexei Navalny’s press secretary, following a woman who is arrested at an anti-corruption rally in Moscow and sentenced to ten days in a special detention center, where she shares a cell with five other women from all walks of life. A brilliant exploration of what it means to be marginalized both as an independent woman in general and in an increasingly intolerant Russia in particular, and a powerful prison story that renews a grand Russian tradition.”
Honeybees and Distant Thunder by Riku Onda (May 2, 2023)
Set in Japan. Translated from Japanese by Philip Gabriel.
From the publisher: “Tender and intense, Honeybees and Distant Thunder is the unflinching story of love, courage and rivalry as three young people come to understand what it means to truly be a friend. In a small coastal town just a stone’s throw from Tokyo, a prestigious piano competition is underway. Over the course of two feverish weeks, three students will experience some of the most joyous—and painful—moments of their lives. Though they don’t know it yet, each will profoundly and unpredictably change the others, for ever.”
Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai (March 14, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set in Vietnam.
From the publisher: “From the internationally bestselling author of The Mountains Sing, a suspenseful and moving saga about family secrets, hidden trauma, and the overriding power of forgiveness, set during the war and in present-day Việt Nam. In 1969, sisters Trang and Quỳnh, desperate to help their parents pay off debts, leave their rural village and become ‘bar girls’ in Sài Gòn, drinking, flirting (and more) with American GIs in return for money. At the same time, Phong—the son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese woman—embarks on a search to find both his parents and a way out of Việt Nam.”
The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro (April 18, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set in the United States, inspired by Mexican legend. Written by a Mexican American author.
From the publisher: “A woman is haunted by the Mexican folk demon La Llorona in this ravishing and provocative literary horror novel about motherhood, family legacy, and self-discovery. Alejandra no longer knows who she is. To her husband, she is a wife, and to her children, a mother. To her own adoptive mother, she is a daughter. But they cannot see who Alejandra has become: a woman struggling with a darkness that threatens to consume her. Nor can they see what Alejandra sees. In times of despair, a ghostly vision appears to her, the apparition of a crying woman in a ragged white gown.”
Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan (January 3, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set in Sri Lanka. Written by an American-born Tamil writer.
From the publisher: “Jaffna, 1981. Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, a vicious civil war tears through her home, and her dream spins off course as she sees her four beloved brothers and their friend K swept up in the mounting violence. Set during the early years of Sri Lanka’s three-decade civil war, Brotherless Night is a heartrending portrait of one woman’s moral journey and a testament to both the enduring impact of war and the bonds of home.”
Evil Flowers by Gunnhild Øyehaug (February 14, 2023)
Set in Norway. Story collection by a poet. Translated from Norwegian by Kari Dickson.
From the publisher: “In Evil Flowers, a precise but madcap collection of short stories, Gunnhild Øyehaug extracts the bizarre from the mundane and reveals the strange, startling brilliance of everyday life. Across twenty-five stories, Øyehaug renovates the form again and again, confirming Lydia Davis’s observation that her every story is ‘a formal surprise, smart and droll.’ Brimming with wit, ingenuity, and irrepressible joy, these stories mark another triumph from a dazzling international writer.”
Lucky Girl by Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu (May 2, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set in Kenya and the United States.
From the publisher: “A privileged young Kenyan woman flees the expectations of her mother for a life in New York that challenges all her beliefs about race, love, and family in this rich and engaging debut. Soila is a lucky girl by anyone’s estimation. Raised by her stern, conservative mother and a chorus of aunts, she has lived a life of privilege in Nairobi. Soila is headstrong and outspoken, and she chafes against her mother’s strict rules. After a harrowing assault by a trusted family friend, she flees to New York for college, vowing never to return home.”
Watch Us Dance by Leila Slimani (June 20, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set in Morocco. Written by a Franco-Moroccan author. Translated from French by Sam Taylor.
From the publisher: “The rebellions within an interracial family play out against the countercultural rebellions of the 1960s in this sexy, stylish, sophisticated new novel by the award-winning, internationally bestselling author of The Perfect Nanny and In the Country of Others. It’s the 1960s, and the air is electric. On the cusp of adulthood, two biracial siblings—their father is Moroccan, their mother French—search for their place in a newly independent Morocco brimming with both possibility and peril.”
The Woman Who Climbed Trees by Smriti Ravindra (February 28, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set in India and Nepal, inspired by Indian and Nepali folklore. Author was born in Nepal and lives in India.
From the publisher: “Exquisitely written, a blend of ghost stories, myths, and song, The Woman Who Climbed Trees is a haunting, deeply felt multi-generational story that illuminates the transitional nature of women’s lives and the feeling of loss they experience, as they give up one home and family to become part of another. When she marries a man from Nepal, Meena must leave behind her family and home in India and forge a new identity in a strange place.”
A Spell of Good Things by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ (February 7, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set in Nigeria.
From the publisher: “Eniola is tall for his age, a boy who looks like a man. Because his father has lost his job, Eniola spends his days running errands for the local tailor, collecting newspapers, begging when he must, dreaming of a big future. Wuraola is a golden girl, the perfect child of a wealthy family. Now an exhausted young doctor in her first year of practice, she is beloved by Kunle, the volatile son of an ascendant politician. When a local politician takes an interest in Eniola and sudden violence shatters a family party, Wuraola’s and Eniola’s lives become intertwined. In her breathtaking second novel, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ shines her light on Nigeria, on the gaping divide between the haves and the have-nots, and the shared humanity that lives in between.”
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez (February 7, 2023)
Audiobook available on Libro.fm
Set mostly in Argentina. Translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell.
From the publisher: “A young father and son set out on a road trip, devastated by the death of the wife and mother they both loved. United in grief, the pair travel to her ancestral home, where they must confront the terrifying legacy she has bequeathed: a family called the Order that commits unspeakable acts in search of immortality. Moving back and forth in time, from London in the swinging 1960s to the brutal years of Argentina’s military dictatorship and its turbulent aftermath, Our Share of Night is a novel like no other: a family story, a ghost story, a story of the occult and the supernatural, a book about the complexities of love and longing with queer subplots and themes.”
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (March 7, 2023)
Set in New Zealand.
From the publisher: “A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice…. A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its drama, Austenian in its wit, and, like both influences, fascinated by what makes us who we are.”
See all these titles in our Bookshop.org list. If you purchase any of the books in this post through our links, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Tristao Travels!
