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Diversify my shelf
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Seth
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Aug 31, 2017 08:56AM

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Maya Angelou
Octavia E. Butler, a bit leaning to fantasy, but stil good

Thanks, but I'm looking for novels (Angelou wrote autobiographically). Maybe I'll try one of Butler's.

From the book blurb, "Louise Erdrich returns to the territory of her bestselling, Pulitzer Prize finalist The Plague of Doves with The Round House, transporting readers to the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. It is an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family. "

At the risk of opening up a can of worms, what do you mean by non-white? As in the experience of a "white" person in Russia is going to be different to one in Australia, to one in France, to one in America. A lot of us have done a lot of around the world style challenges to broaden our reading, so I'm not asking for an arguments sake, just so we can help with recommendations!
I've only read Franzen of who you mention, and I wasn't a fan. But I think I can get the jist of the genre/style of writing you like. The ones I can think of straight away:
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - now Czech behind the Iron Curtain, so again, depends on the white thing
The Poisonwood Bible - white female author writing about missionaries in the 70s in the Congo.
Doesn't fit exactly what you want but are worth looking at on goodreads to see if they appeal:
The Kite Runner
Who Fears Death - fantasy from a gritty, African mythology bent. Also a female author
Haruki Murakami - you may enjoy his stuff, a bit fantastical, but may work.
The Carpet Wars: From Kabul to Baghdad: A Ten-Year Journey Along Ancient Trade Routes - not a novel, but written by a journalist (white, Aussie, male though), so it doesn't feel like non-fiction. He finds people all along the Carpet Road and tells their story along with the facts. This is one of my all time favourite books, and I recommend it to everyone trying to broaden their reading about the world.

Twilight in Delhi by Ahmed Ali
Sunlight on a Broken Column by Attia Hosain
Ourika by Claire de Duras
The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Cities of Salt by Abdul Rahman Munif
The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings by Jorge Luis Borges
The Captive Mind by Czesław Miłosz
River of Fire: Aag Ka Darya by Qurratulain Hyder
Where the Streets Had a Name by Randa Abdel-Fattah
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Twilight in Delhi (other topics)
Ourika (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
William Sutcliffe (other topics)Ibtisam Barakat (other topics)
Arundhati Roy (other topics)
Claire de Duras (other topics)
Maria Edgeworth (other topics)
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