Coincidentally enough, it was while I was without a job when I came across two very good books from authors who really should have received much more recognition from the American literati. Readers shouldn't have to stumble upon these great authors (like I did) but actively search out their works.
James Welch (1940-2003) was a Native American author who has produced some great works and is associated with the Native American Renaissance movement of the 1960s and 1970s. I read his work "The Death of Jim Loney." The title already reveals how the story ends, but Welch does a magnificent job of capturing and portraying the abject desperation and loss of willingness to live that the central character, a Native American, struggles with throughout the book. The sense of despair and resignation is the central theme throughout the book, and Welch does a magnificent job of sustaining this feeling of despondency right to the very ending. I have not read a more moving or depressing novel, but this is a testament to the author's skill at creating an emotional landscape through the use of language. What a book! I really with more people would read this.
Just last month I stumbled upon "The Thief and the Dogs" by Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006), an Egyptian author won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988 and produced a significant number of books, many of which, unfortunately have not been translated into English. In "The Thief and the Dogs" the main character, Said Mahran, a thief, is released from prison and finds a world that has changed; intimate relationships forever altered and a life that he cannot reconcile. He is bent on revenge and like Welch in "The Death of Jim Loney" Mahfouz is excellent in capturing this sentiment, albeit the author uses stream of consciousness as his chief instrument to do this. This is a good book and more people need to read works produced by authors in the Middle East. You can't go wrong starting with Naguib Mahfouz.
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