GRADE 10 HISTORY SUMMER READING LIST

Dear Student,

James Baldwin, a luminary of African-American literature and social criticism in the 20th century, once wrote, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” As scholar- students, we read to feel. We read to know. We read to transform. We read to live. And hopefully, some of you live to read.

In anticipation of your Grade 10 history course, you will read ONE book of historical fiction written during or about the transformative 20th century. Historical fiction can, if properly executed, evince some deep truths about the human experience. As you read, consider the context of your characters’ experiences. What social and cultural forces bear down on their lives? How do your characters negotiate their identities to the larger society in which they lived? What historical events propel the narrative and how do these events entangle the characters?

The works listed below are not an exhaustive list of all great 20th-century world literature. A list of that kind would require dozens, perhaps hundreds, of pages. Rather, the titles are but a sample of the rich literary canons of major world regions. Please draw on your interests and select one text that explores a place, theme, or human problem that interests you. Make use of websites like Amazon and Goodreads to explore titles that may interest you, so that you can know something about each text before diving in. Once you begin to read the book, be sure to write comments, questions, and insights in the margins (or on separate documents/pieces of paper) as you grapple with the narrative. And do a little digging into the historical context of the novel to enhance your understanding of the characters’ experiences, struggles, and situations. The 10th grade teachers and your peers will be eager to hear about your discoveries when we meet in September.

Happy Reading!

With kind regards,

Mr. Miller, Ms. Hershkovitz, Dr. Reid, and Mr. Shea Sub-Saharan Africa Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country Wole Soyinka, Ake: The Years of Childhood Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Weep Not, Child Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half a Yellow Sun Nuruddin Farah, Maps Zakes Mda, Heart of Redness Nadifa Mohammed, Black Mamba Boy Ken Bugal, The Abandoned Baobab Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions Es’kia Mphahlele, Down Second Avenue Nadine Gordimer, July’s People

Middle East, North Africa, and Islamic Eurasia Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns Hisham Matar, In the Country of Men Asaad Almohammad, An Ishmael of Syria Ayse Kulin, Last Train to Istanbul Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North S.Y. Agnon, Only Yesterday Meir Shalev, The Blue Mountain Sami Michael, The Trumpet in the Wadi Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building Naguib Mahfouz, Palace Walk Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul Laila Lalami, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits Kateb Yacine, Nedjma Iraj Pezeshkzad, My Uncle Napoleon Elias Khoury, Gate of the Sun

South Asia Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss Jeet Thayil, Narcopolis Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve Khushwant Singh, Train to Pakistan

Southeast Asia Duong Thu Huong, Paradise of the Blind José Rizal, Noli Me Tangere Pramoedya Ananta Toer, This Earth of Mankind (or any of the Buru Quartet) Kukrit Pramoj, Four Reigns Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer Vaddey Ratner, In the Shadow of the Banyan

East Asia, Japan, and Oceania Natsume Soseki, Kokoro Anchee Min, Red Azalea Anchee Min, Becoming Madame Mao Mo Yan, Red Sorghum Yu Hua, Brothers Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun Young-Im Lee, Forgotten Reflections Young-Ha Kim, Black Flower Yasunari Kawabata, Thousand Cranes Ooka Shohei, Fires on the Plain Yiyuan Li, The Vagrants Ma Jian, The Noodle Maker Madeleine Thien, Do Not Say We Have Nothing Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

Europe and former Soviet World Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front Niko Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek Yuri Olesha, Envy Ekaterina Sedia, The Secret History of Moscow Victor Pelevin, Omon Ra Andrey Platonov, The Foundation Pit Czesław Miłosz, Native Realm Gunter Grass, The Tin Drum Bernhard Schlink, The Reader Isaac Bashevis Singer, Shosha Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being Ivo Andric, The Bridge on the Drina I.J. Singer, The Brothers Ashkenazi George Orwell, Burmese Days Isaac Babel, Red Cavalry Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate Mikhail Bulgakov, The White Guard Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain Ismail Kadare, Three Elegies for Kosovo Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

South America, Central America, and the Caribbean Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate Eduardo Galeano, The Book of Embraces Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude Carlos Fuentes, The Death of Artemio Cruz Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of Bones Juan Gabriel Vasquez, The Sound of Falling Things Sylvia Wynter, The Hills of Hebron Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings Jorge Amado, Captains of the Sands Mario Vargas Llosa, Death in the Andes