Amin Maalouf, one of the writers who has best known how to explain the reason for so many ethnic conflicts.
2015 has not ended in the best way, especially with regard to the terrorist attacks and conflicts that have ravaged France, Syria, Türkiye, Egypt o Nigeria During the last months. An ideal situation to further explore the origin of these bitter episodes and all that this encompasses with these 4 books to better understand ethnic conflicts.
Killer Identities, by Amin Maalouf
Born in Beirut but settled in France, Amin Maalouf is one of the writers who has best known how to portray ethnic conflicts based on an identity problem that ranges from the suspicion of stagnant Arab countries to the western invasion or the poor adaptation of the immigrants after their arrival in that new country. A light essay, highly recommended in these troubled times.
Submission, by Michel Houellebecq
Published a few days after Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack occurred at the beginning of 2015 (a coincidence that the most calculating people call "too casual"), this novel by the Frenchman Houellebecq takes us back to a year 2022 in which France has succumbed to the triumph of an Arab president and, with him, to the transformation of the Gallic nation into a very different one in which women wear veils in the streets, Jews flee and the Koran is imposed as the pillar of a new society.
Sons of Midnight, by Salman Rushdie
Straddling magical realism and postcolonial Indian literature, Children of Midnight, the first successful novel by Indian writer Salman Rushdie tells the story of Saleem Sinai, born at the same time that India was declared independent of the British Empire. The first link of a nation confused after decades of submission becomes the perfect narrator of the work that would precede Satanic verses, the novel that would lead to Rushdie being hunted by hordes of Iran's leader in the late 80s.
Everything falls apart, by Chinua Achebe
The Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe captured in his most successful novel the reality of his hometown, Ogidi, one of the first in the African country to be influenced by Anglican evangelization during the XNUMXth century. The protagonist of the story, Okonkwo, is the most glorious warrior of the people of Umuofia until the arrival of the white man completely transforms that microcosm of rituals and beliefs that everyone believed unique in the world. Highly recommended.
These 4 books to better understand ethnic conflicts they relate the different identity problems in nations such as India, Nigeria or France itself whose current situation not only leads us to investigate the heart of the conflict but, at the same time, also prompts us to seek the ancient splendor of Paris through literature.
Have you read any of these books? Any proposal to add to the list?