The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Recommended by: Megan Coder, Librarian
Call Number: Stacks PS3562.A316 N36 2003

The Namesake tells the story of a young Indian couple, arranged by marriage, who emigrate to Cambridge, Massachusetts in the mid-1970s. Of course this takes some adjustment, especially for the wife Ashima, while her husband Ashoke pursues his engineering degree. They soon start a family and their first born is a son that they name Gogol, after the Russian author Nikolai Gogol. In this coming of age story, the reader gets to know Gogol from childhood to adulthood and his struggle to identify with his Indian and American roots. You will have to read this book to find out why Ashoke holds Nikolai Gogol close to his heart and if Gogol ever learns to accept his namesake.

The Empress of Weehawken by Irene Dische

Recommended by Peter D.G. Brown, Professor of German
Call Number: PS3554.I825 E47 2007

This is a debut novel written from the point of view of Dische's German grandmother, proudly "Aryan" and anti-Semitic, who marries a Jewish doctor and emigrates to New Jersey with him in the 1930s. It's a very funny and poignant semi-fictional account of three generations of this quirky German-American family of truly bizarre intellectuals.

El llano en llamas (The Burning Plain and Other Stories) by Juan Rulfo

Recommended by Wilma Feliciano, Professor of Spanish

Call Number:
In English: PQ7297.R89 L2613 1982

El llano en llamas (The Burning Plain and Other Stories) by Juan Rulfo, debunks the myth that the Mexican Revolution resulted in significant benefits for the lower classes. Rulfo lost his parents and family hacienda to wars in early 20th c Mexico, leaving him as orphaned and anguished as his characters. His work counterposes the promises of the Revolution to the doleful reality of peasant life in Mexico. A master of concise and lyrical expression, Rulfo’s characters define themselves by their painful prose in a style that infuses nature ( moon, wind, murmurs, land) with violence and poetry.