Summer reading recommendations from PRI’s The World
The list includes The Halfway House, by Guillermo Rosales, In the United States of Africa, by Abraham Waberi, The Essential Yusuf Idris: Masterpieces of the Egyptian Short Story, by Yusuf Idris, and our own Courtesans and Opium: Romantic Illusions of the Fool of Yangzhou, by Anonymous and translated by Patrick Hanan.
Here’s what Bill Marx had to say about Courtesans and Opium:
You want a racy, nineteenth-century epic about sex, sin, drugs, and prostitution set in China? Here it is, a bawdy journey by five brothers through the gaudy brothels of Yangzhou. The novel’s alleged purpose was to serve as a cautionary tale. The book’s sensual gusto overwhelms any taint of moralism.