November is Indigenous Peoples’ Month and in the reading community it’s also “nonfiction November.” This month I’ll be sharing books, both nonfiction and fiction, written by Indigenous authors. I’m hoping to highlight Indigenous voices, both from North America and around the world. Indigenous people exist all over the world, and not just within countries formed through colonialism.

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When I started really learning about Indigenous people, I was mainly exposed to information about the Peoples around North America. I think most of the focus on Indigenous Peoples is around those Nations that had to deal with colonial powers, but Indigenous Peoples exist all over the world.

To be fair colonial powers basically tried to eliminate Indigenous Peoples wherever they went. It was just easier to claim the land and resources as your own if there were no other people to deal with.

Indigenous Peoples around the world

But Indigenous groups exist all over the world and are often in opposition to the current governing powers. Since capitalism, and thus exploiting resources, has become the norm all over the world, the people who historically have a more intimate relationship with the land are more likely to resist destructive developments.

Personally, I find it interesting to look at Indigenous Peoples in areas where the dominant people group is also native to the land, like in Asia, Africa, or parts of Latin America. Often times the Nations are considered “minority groups” or “ethnic groups” and are viewed as separate from the dominant group.

There are still major issues with how these Nations are treated and lines get a bit blurred because in some ways the dominant group is Indigenous to the land too, just not the entire region they cover. For instance, the Han people in China are from an area within China, but the current boundaries of China also cover other Indigenous Peoples’ areas (like Tibet, and many parts of Southern China).

These areas have a very different relationship with the Indigenous Peoples than areas like North America where the main issue is the ongoing legacy of colonialism. This doesn’t mean that colonialism isn’t a large influence in other parts of the world, it often just means that it manifests differently.

So for those that are interested in Indigenous Peoples, I would recommend looking around the world at the diversity of histories, traditions, and issues. There are lessons to be learned all over the world that can help improve the world for everyone.

For this week, I want to share works of fiction from Indigenous authors from all around the world. Fiction is a great way to get immersed in a new perspective and to learn from others.

The Indigenous world view is often distinct from mainstream societal view, and can help expand our understanding of the world.

I believe it’s always important to learn from people with different viewpoints. You never know what might affect you or your life.

Hopefully one of these books will be of interest to you!

Five fiction books from Indigenous authors around the world

Here’s a list of five fiction books from Indigenous authors around the world.

1. The Land of Sad Oranges / أرض البرتقال الحزين – by Ghassan Kanafani / غسان فايز كنفاني (from 1962) Palestine
2. Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko (1977) Laguna Pueblo
3. The Bone People by Keri Hulme (1984) Maori
4. Cities of Salt / مدن الملح by Abdul/Abdel Rahman Munif / عَبْد الرَّحْمٰن بِن إِبْرَاهِيم المُنِيف (from 1984) Jordan/Saudi Arabia
5. Gold Dust / التبر by by Ibrahim al-Koni / ابراهيم الكوني (from 1990) Tuareg and Libya

Keep reading to find out more about each one. I’ve listed them in order of when they were published.

Note, since Arabic is written from the left to the right, it doesn’t always mix well with English type or numbers, so you’ll notice some formatting may be different.

The Land of Sad Oranges / أرض البرتقال الحزين – Palestine (1962)

by Ghassan Kanafani / غسان فايز كنفاني,
Translated from the Arabic

“The Land of the Sad Orange” is one of Kanafani’s early stories. It depicts the impact of deracination on the Palestinians after Israeli forces took over Palestine in 1948. In this story Kanafani mixes artistic reality with history. Though the story tells the suffering of a middle-class family, it is exemplary of the experience of thousands of displaced families, who suffered the humiliation of leaving their country, following the 1948 defeat of the Arab armies and the creation of the state of Israel.

Links:

• You can find out more on:
  • Goodreads
  • Storygraph
  • A profile of the author
  • Lit Hub – A brief remembrance of Ghassan Kanafani.
  • Wikipedia
    • On the author
    • About the book
• You can buy a similar book here on Amazon.

Ceremony – Laguna Pueblo (1977)

by Leslie Marmon Silko

The great Native American Novel of a battered veteran returning home to heal his mind and spirit

More than thirty-five years since its original publication, Ceremony remains one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature, a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing. Tayo, a World War II veteran of mixed ancestry, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. He is deeply scarred by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese and further wounded by the rejection he encounters from his people. Only by immersing himself in the Indian past can he begin to regain the peace that was taken from him. Masterfully written, filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo myth, Ceremony is a work of enduring power. The Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition contains a new preface by the author and an introduction by Larry McMurtry.

Links:

• You can find out more on:
  • Goodreads
  • Storygraph
  • Poetry Foundation
  • Wikipedia
    • On the author
    • About the book
• You can buy the book here on Amazon.

The Bone People – Maori (1984)

by Keri Hulme

In a tower on the New Zealand sea lives Kerewin Holmes: part Maori, part European, asexual and aromantic, an artist estranged from her art, a woman in exile from her family.

One night her solitude is disrupted by a visitor—a speechless, mercurial boy named Simon, who tries to steal from her and then repays her with his most precious possession.

As Kerewin succumbs to Simon’s feral charm, she also falls under the spell of his Maori foster father Joe, who rescued the boy from a shipwreck and now treats him with an unsettling mixture of tenderness and brutality.

Out of this unorthodox trinity Keri Hulme has created what is at once a mystery, a love story, and an ambitious exploration of the zone where indigenous and European New Zealand meet, clash, and sometimes merge.

Links:

• You can find out more on:
  • Goodreads
  • Storygraph
  • Poetry Foundation
  • About the book on The Booker Prizes website
  • Wikipedia
    • On the author
    • About the book
• You can buy the book here on Amazon.

Cities of Salt / مدن الملح – Jordan/Saudi Arabia (1984)

by Abdul/Abdel Rahman Munif / عَبْد الرَّحْمٰن بِن إِبْرَاهِيم المُنِيف,
Translated from the Arabic by Peter Theroux

Set in an unnamed Persian Gulf kingdom in the 1930s, this remarkable novel tells the story of the disruption and diaspora of a poor oasis community following the discovery of oil there. The meeting of the Arabs and the Americans who, in essence, colonize the remote region is a cultural confrontation in which religion, history, superstition, and mutual incomprehension all play a part.

Powerful political fiction that it is, CITIES OF SALT has been banned in several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia. This novel, the first volume in a trilogy, has been translated from the Arabic to the English by Peter Theroux.

Links:

• You can find out more on:
  • Goodreads
  • Storygraph
  • About the Author – Arab World Books
  • Wikipedia
    • On the author
    • About the book
• You can buy the book here on Amazon.

Gold Dust / التبر – Tuareg and Libya (1990)

by Ibrahim al-Koni / ابراهيم الكوني ,
Translated from the Arabic by Elliot Colla

Gold Dust is a classic story of the brotherhood between man and beast, the thread of companionship that is all the difference between life and death in the desert. It is a story of the fight to endure in a world of limitless and waterless wastes, and a parable of the struggle to survive in the most dangerous landscape of all: human society.

Rejected by his tribe and hunted by the kin of the man he killed, Ukhayyad and his thoroughbred camel flee across the desolate Tuareg deserts of the Libyan Sahara. Between bloody wars against the Italians in the north and famine raging in the south, Ukhayyad rides for the remote rock caves of Jebel Hasawna. There, he says farewell to the mount who has been his companion through thirst, disease, lust, and loneliness. Alone in the desert, haunted by the prophetic cave paintings of ancient hunting scenes and the cries of jinn in the night, Ukhayyad awaits the arrival of his pursuers and their insatiable hunger for blood and gold.

Links:

• You can find out more on:
  • Goodreads
  • Storygraph
  • About the author
    • International Prize for Arabic Fiction
    • The Booker Prizes
  • Wikipedia
    • On the author
    • About the book
• You can buy the book here on Amazon.

Final thoughts

I hope you found something of interest in this list of books.

I’m always looking for more suggestions of books to read. I’d love to know which books you love or that you would recommend. Let me know in a comment below!

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of it?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below.