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LITERARY WRITING ON DEVELOPMENT
These are idiosyncratic personal favorites and not a systematic attempt to rate the best literary writing on development overall - Bill Easterly
Novels and Memoirs:
Robert Klitgaard, Tropical Gangsters: One Man's Experience with
Development and Decadence in Deepest Africa, Basic Books, 1990.-- A hilarious and sad memoir of a foreign aid consultant working for two and a half years in Equatorial Guinea. An all-time classic.
Moses Isegawa, Abyssinian Chronicles, Knopf, 2000.-- An autobiographical
novel about coming of age in Idi Amin's Uganda. Wonderfully evocative.
Nega Mezlekia, Notes from the Hyena's Belly, Picador, 2001. -- A memoir
about growing up during the Marxist revolution in Ethiopia in the 70s
and 80s.
Aminatta Forna, The Devil that Danced on the Water: A Daughter's
Quest, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2002. --A poignant memoir about the
author's father, a politician and then a political prisoner in Sierra
Leone.
Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, Simon and Schuster,
1991. -- Three generations of women in China's chaotic 20th century
history. One of the best books I have ever read.
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy, Harpercollins, 1993. -- Not only one of the
best (and longest) novels ever written in any genre, but a great
introduction to Indian culture since independence.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A Hundred Years of Solitude. -- This masterpiece
doesn't need any comment
Mario Vargas Llosa, The Feast of the Goat, FSG, 2000. --A novelist's
insight into the political poison left behind by a dictator in the
Dominican Republic.
David Davidar, The House of Blue Mangoes, Harper Collins, 2002.
--Beautiful local color in southern India.
Alexandra Fuller, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African
Childhood, Random House, 2001. --Growing up white and confused in the
maelstrom of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. Wonderful ironic writing.
Pascal Khoo Thwe, From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey.
Harper Collins 2002. --A member of a persecuted Burmese minority gives a
rare look inside Myanmar.
V.S. Naipaul, A Way in the World. 1997. --Or anything else written by
the Trinidadian Nobel Prize Winner, especially "A House for Mr.
Biswas."
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Journalists also provide some great writing on Africa and developing
countries in general.
Thomas Benjamin, A Rich Land, a Poor People: Politics and Society in Modern Chiapas, University of New Mexico Press; -- A history of Chiapas, Mexico
Daniel Bergner, In the Land of Magic Soldiers: A Tale of White and
Black in West Africa, Farrar Straus Giroux, 2003. --Poignant and
harrowing reporting from Sierra Leone covering the civil war and its
ending by UN and British peacekeepers. Great subplot on missionaries
who spent decades in Sierra Leone.
Alan Berlow, Dead Season: A Story of Murder and Revenge, Knopf Publishing Group, 1998 -- A good portrayal of semi-feudal landlords in the Philippines
Richard Critchfield, Villages, Anchor Books, 1981. --The best
description of rural life in poor countries ever written.
Richard Critchfield, Villagers, Anchor Books, 1994. --The sequel is not
as good as the original, but still far better than most everything
else.
Howard French, A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of
Africa, Knopf, 2004.
--A little heavy on the disasters, but wonderful reportage from the New
York Times journalist with some personal memoirs.
Robert Guest, The Shackled Continent: Power, Corruption, and African
Lives, Smithsonian Books: Washington, 2004.-- A reporter who went
everywhere and saw everything in Africa, from the 21-volume never-
translated-from-the-original-Russian feasibility study for the never-
did-produce-steel-billions-of-dollars-later Ajaokuta Steel Mill in
Nigeria to the apartment buildings of Luanda whose ownership is so
unclear that you can rent from one ministry one month and be evicted
by another ministry the next. Some positive and hopeful notes from the
struggles of everyday Africans to overcome all the obstacles.
Rysard Kapuscinski, The Shadow of the Sun, Knopf, 2001. --A collection
of 40 years of essays on Africa by a gonzo journalist.
Karl Maier, This House has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis, Westview, 2003.
--Great reportage on Nigeria's democratic transition that proved to be
far from a panacea to ethnic and other conflicts.
David Rieff, A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis, 2002,
2003 edition. --An all-time classic about the dangers, contradictions,
and tragedies of humanitarian relief getting tangled up with military
intervention, with harrowing stories from Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo,
Afghanistan and an afterword on Iraq.
John Stackhouse, Out of Poverty and Into Something More Comfortable, Random House Canada, 2000 -- A book about daily life and high-caste landlords in rural
India.
Michaela Wrong, In the footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: living on the brink of disaster in Mobutu's Congo, HarperCollins Publishers, 2001 --A journalistic classic on the epitomatic kleptocrat, with many useful insights that go behind the cartoon stereotypes.
Michela Wrong, "I Didn't Do It For You" How the World Betrayed a Small
African Nation, Harper Collins: New York, 2005. --The sad story of
Eritrea: used, then betrayed by just about everybody, the Italians,
the British, the Americans, the Ethiopians, now by its own leader.
Amazingly compelling, especially the second half.
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