One of the best things about fiction is its ability to transport readers to different worlds and inside the minds of other people. Great novels and short stories enable readers to understand the lives of people who may or may not be like them.
Since there are many classic novels by writers from different times, cultures, and backgrounds, it can be exciting and overwhelming to decide which classics to read first. That’s why I suggest these three novels written by three authors from different nations as starting points. These novels are brilliant not only for their characters, settings, plots, and writing styles but also for their depictions of issues still relevant to readers today.
The Left Hand Of Darkness By Ursula K. Le Guin
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In her novel The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), American author Ursula K. Le Guin tells the story of Genly Ai, a Terran ambassador who travels to the planet Gethen to convince its leaders to join an interplanetary alliance. Genly finds it hard to relate to the Gethenians because of vast cultural differences, especially surrounding gender: while Terrans have solid gender identities and gender roles, Gethenians are genderfluid and lack prejudices about gender. When he ends up in a dangerous political situation, though, Genly must overcome his initial prejudices in order so he can complete his mission.
Le Guin effectively depicts how Genly’s extended contact with the Gethenian native Estraven allows him to overcome his initial biases against the unfamiliarity of Gethenian culture. She creates a unique world where gender fluidity is the norm and explores how gender fluidity would change that world’s perception of gender roles. She writes incredibly well, moving from Genly’s matter-of-fact narration when he first encounters Gethenian culture to Estraven’s faster-paced, more intense style when Estraven and Genly are escaping imprisonment in another nation on Gethen.
The Left Hand of Darkness makes a great read because of its excellent prose, worldbuilding, and story about people from vastly different cultures learning to understand and respect one another. The book also encourages readers to reexamine expressions of gender identity and the arbitrariness of gender roles.
Paradise Of The Blind By Duong Thu Huong
In her novel Paradise of the Blind (1988), Vietnamese author Dương Thu Hương tells about Hang, a young Vietnamese woman who travels to see her dying uncle in Moscow. While traveling, she recalls how her uncle aggressively enforced Communist land reform policies against wealthy landowners, how her aunt recovered the family’s landholdings, and how her mother tried to keep the peace between the two of them. Appalled by her uncle’s betrayal of his family, her aunt’s bitterness towards him, and her mother’s deference to his needs over her own and Hang’s, Hang decides that she has to free herself from the tensions that have torn her family apart.
Hương exposes the many contradictions of Communist actions in Vietnam and examines how they tore relationships between families and friends apart. She portrays Hang as a complex character who loves her mother and aunt but finds herself unable to support the kinds of extreme self-sacrifice both women make. She also shows how the past has shaped and confined Hang and how Hang pushes back against that confinement so she can forge her own future.
Paradise of the Blind makes a great read because of how it depicts Vietnamese cultural and political history and how it criticizes Communist ideology. Its themes about the constant struggle between self-sacrifice and self-regard will also resonate strongly with readers.
Cry, The Beloved Country By Alan Paton
In his novel Cry, The Beloved Country (1948), South African author Alan Paton tells the story of Reverend Stephen Kumalo, a Zulu man who travels from his village of Ixopo to the city of Johannesburg to find his son Absalom. In Johannesburg, Stephen observes the huge gulf in living standards between White and Black residents; he learns that Absalom was arrested for the murder of a White man, Arthur Jarvis, during a burglary. Learning of his son’s death, Stephen’s neighbor James Jarvis travels to Johannesburg and discovers his son’s commitment to racial justice for Black South Africans. Developing an unusual understanding of each other, Stephen and James decide to help out their village together.
Paton writes compellingly about the plights of Black South Africans in a racially unequal society. He shows how those inequalities affect both Black and White South Africans and how South Africans live with, enable, or fight against the unequal treatment of Black South Africans. Drawing inspiration from the King James Bible, Paton’s prose is poetic, mythic, and memorable, with many striking images and memorable lines about the cultures, history, and then-current state of affairs in South Africa. The novel is well-structured, well-paced, and satisfying to read.
Cry, The Beloved Country is a passionate cry for racial justice, both for Black South Africans and for any disempowered people who are struggling against social, economic, and political injustice anywhere. Despite all the tragic events that happen in the novel, Paton also leaves readers with images of hope, survival, reconciliation, and healing.
Final Thoughts
In these three classic novels, we’ve traveled to a genderfluid society on a faraway planet, a Vietnamese village split apart by Communist land reforms, and an African country divided by racial inequality and violence. The novels’ authors not only told compelling stories of characters striving to survive and understand each other and themselves but also examined social and political issues that affected them in their own times and still affect us today.
Great fiction can transport readers to different places and allow them to see our world or another world through another person’s eyes. Read these great novels, and you’re sure to find something powerful that will stick with you for a long time.
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