Well, Switzerland marks the 100th country in the world by population (of 234 on the Worldometer list), so i thought it would be a good moment to look back over the last two years of posting about the best known book in each country.

First of all, of course my methodology is a white, Western measure of the extent to which particular authors and works are recognised in the mainly Anglophone world of LibraryThing, Goodreads and StoryGraph. This doesn’t make my analysis valueless, but it does mean that each of my posts should be regarded as a jumping-off point rather than a definitive answer to the question, “What should I read about this country?”

(I was very amused when a work colleague, planning to go on holiday to Tunisia, told me that he had asked an AI agent what books to read about the country and it recommended my Tunisia page and therefore Flaubert’s Salammbô – I hope that the fictional account of Carthage in the third century BC was useful.)

Second, for developing economies there is therefore a bias towards Western writers who have gone in as white saviours – literally in a couple of cases where there is a strong Christian element to the story. For each country I have therefore tried to also note the top-ranked local authors, and in cases where the list is rather male, the top-rated women authors.

Third, I’m genuinely finding this project fun, especially as we get to countries that I know less and less about – though even in the more familiar European territory, I’m finding new work published since I did a similar analysis for European countries only in 2015.

Of the hundred books so far, there are fifty known to be by men, forty-nine known to be by women, and the Epic of Gilgamesh whose author is unknown.

54 are by authors who (in my judgement) are not from the country that they have written about in this case, but 46 are by local writers.

I count one play (Italy); two graphic novels (Iran and Côte d’Ivoire); 19 science fiction or fantasy; 22 non-fiction; and 56 fiction other than plays, graphic novels, or sff.

A few striking individual cases:

Most visible country, not surprisingly given all the biases noted above is the UK, where the eighth-ranked book is better known than the top book in all but two other countries (Italy and the USA).

Countries still awaiting discovery, where the winners are least well known: Togo (The Village of Waiting, by George Packer), by some distance, followed by the UAE (The Dog, by Joseph O’Neill) and Benin (The Viceroy of Ouidah, by Bruce Chatwin).

Tallest poppies, where the winning book is particularly far ahead of the rest: Algeria, where L’Étranger is way better known than any other book set there (including any others by Albert Camus), followed by Kazakhstan (One Day in the Life of Alexander Denisovich, by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn) and Burundi (Small Country by Gael Faye).

Most dominant author: All of the top eight books that I found for Colombia are by Gabriel García Marquez.

Seven out of eight books by women: Jordan, Côte d’Ivoire, Canada, South Korea, Kenya, the United Kingdom, Iran.

Found in many places: Agatha Christie wins both Egypt and Jordan, and also makes the lists for Syria, Morocco and Iraq (twice). Others who win in two countries: Ernest Hemingway (Tanzania and Cuba, with mentions in Spain and Italy), Isabel Allende (Chile and Haiti, with near misses elsewhere), Nnedi Okorafor (Sudan and Niger), Ann Patchett (Brazil and Peru), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan), and Amy Tan (China and Myanmar).

Special award to: Denys Finch-Hatton, because half of the books on the Kenya list are about the protagonists’ love affairs with him (two versions of Out of Africa by Karen Blixen, and a biography and autobiography of Beryl Markham).

Here is the overall table, in alphabetical order by country, also noting the overall ranking of popularity of each books measured by comparative GR/LT/SG popularity.

Afghanistan	The Kite Runner	Khaled Hosseini	4
Algeria	The Stranger	Albert Camus	10
Angola	A General Theory of Oblivion	José Eduardo Agualusa	92
Argentina	Tender Is the Flesh	Agustina Bazterrica	38
Australia	Big Little Lies	Liane Moriarty	20
Austria	The Wall	Marlen Haushofer	63
Azerbaijan	Ali and Nino	“Kurban Said”	87
Bangladesh	Banker to the Poor	Muhammad Yunus	86
Belgium	Villette	Charlotte Brontë	44
Benin	The Viceroy of Ouidah	Bruce Chatwin	99
Bolivia	Women Talking	Miriam Toews	52
Brazil	State of Wonder	Ann Patchett	42
Burkina Faso	American Spy	Lauren Wilkinson	74
Burundi	Small Country	Gaël Faye	78
Cambodia	First They Killed My Father	Loung Ung	61
Cameroon	How Beautiful We Were	Imbolo Mbue	81
Canada	Anne of Green Gables	Lucy Maud Montgomery	15
Chad	The Roots of Heaven	Romain Gary	97
Chile	The House of the Spirits	Isabel Allende	30
China	The Joy Luck Club	Amy Tan	21
Colombia	One Hundred Years of Solitude	Gabriel García Marquez	14
Côte d’Ivoire	Aya	Marguerite Abouet	88
Cuba	The Old Man and the Sea	Ernest Hemingway	13
Czechia	The Metamorphosis	Franz Kafka	11
Dominican Republic	In the Time of the Butterflies	Julia Alvarez	49
DR Congo	The Poisonwood Bible	Barbara Kingsolver	19
Ecuador	Galápagos	Kurt Vonnegut	45
Egypt	Death on the Nile	Agatha Christie	34
Ethiopia	Cutting for Stone	Abraham Verghese	35
France	A Tale of Two Cities	Charles Dickens	17
Germany	The Book Thief	Markus Zusak	5
Ghana	Homegoing	Yaa Gyasi	27
Greece	The Song of Achilles	Madeline Miller	8
Guatemala	Grave Secrets	Kathy Reichs	65
Guinea	The African Child (aka The Dark Child)	Camara Laye	95
Haiti	Island Beneath the Sea	Isabel Allende	69
Honduras	The Lost City of the Monkey God	Douglas Preston	57
Hungary	Embers	Sándor Márai	62
India	The God of Small Things	Arundhati Roy	28
Indonesia	Krakatoa	Simon Winchester	75
Iran	Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood	Marjane Satrapi	37
Iraq	The Epic of Gilgamesh		43
Israel	The Dovekeepers	Alice Hoffman	54
Italy	Romeo and Juliet	William Shakespeare	3
Japan	Memoirs of a Geisha	Arthur Golden	9
Jordan	Appointment with Death	Agatha Christie	51
Kazakhstan	One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich	Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn	26
Kenya	Out of Africa	Isak Dinesen	59
Madagascar	Hot Ice	Nora Roberts	83
Malawi	The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind	William Kamkwamba	85
Malaysia	The Night Tiger	Yangsze Choo	56
Mali	Sahara	Clive Cussler	68
Mexico	Like Water for Chocolate	Laura Esquivel	33
Morocco	The Sheltering Sky	Paul Bowles	71
Mozambique	A Girl Named Disaster	Nancy Farmer	89
Myanmar	Saving Fish from Drowning	Amy Tan	70
Nepal	Into Thin Air	Jon Krakauer	25
Netherlands	The Diary of a Young Girl	Anne Frank	6
Niger	The Shadow Speaker	Nnedi Okorafor	94
Nigeria	Things Fall Apart	Chinua Achebe	24
North Korea	The Orphan Master’s Son	Adam Johnson	50
Pakistan	Three Cups of Tea	Greg Mortenson	36
Papua New Guinea	Euphoria	Lily King	48
Peru	Bel Canto	Ann Patchett	32
Philippines	Ghost Soldiers	Hampton Sides	76
Poland	Night	Elie Wiesel	12
Portugal	Blindness	José Saramago	31
Romania	I Must Betray You	Ruta Sepetys	55
Russia	Crime and Punishment	Fyodor Dostoevsky	16
Rwanda	We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families	Philip Gourevitch	64
Saudi Arabia	The Quran		72
Senegal	So Long a Letter	Mariama Bâ	82
Somalia	Black Hawk Down	Mark Bowden	58
South Africa	Born a Crime	Trevor Noah	23
South Korea	The Vegetarian	Han Kang	40
South Sudan	A Long Walk to Water	Linda Sue Park	46
Spain	The Shadow of the Wind	Carlos Ruiz Zafón	18
Sri Lanka	The Fountains of Paradise	Arthur C. Clarke	73
Sudan	Who Fears Death	Nnedi Okorafor	67
Sweden	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	Stieg Larsson	7
Switzerland	Heidi	Johanna Spyri	41
Syria	As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow	Zoulfa Katouh	53
Taiwan	The Astonishing Color of After	Emily X.R. Pan	66
Tajikistan	Neanderthal	John Darnton	96
Tanzania	Green Hills of Africa	Ernest Hemingway	84
Thailand	The Windup Girl	Paolo Bacigalupi	47
Togo	The Village of WAiting	George Packer	100
Tunisia	Salammbô	Gustave Flaubert	90
Türkiye	The Iliad	Homer	22
Uganda	Kisses from Katie	Katie Davis Majors	77
Ukraine	Everything is Illuminated	Jonathan Safran Foer	39
UAE	The Dog	Joseph O’Neill	98
United Kingdom	Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone	J.K. Rowling	1
United States	The Hunger Games	Suzanne Collins	2
Uzbekistan	Cancer Ward	Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn	79
Venezuela	Dragons in the Waters	Madeleine L’Engle	93
Vietnam	The Things They Carried	Tim O’Brien	29
Yemen	I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced	Nujood Ali	80
Zambia	Mrs. Pollifax on Safari	Dorothy Gilman	91
Zimbabwe	Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight	Alexandra Fuller	60

Only 134 more countries to go! But the pickings will start to get slimmer, I think.

Asia: India | China | Indonesia | Pakistan | Bangladesh (revised) | Russia | Japan | Philippines (revised) | Vietnam | Iran | Türkiye | Thailand | Myanmar | South Korea | Iraq | Afghanistan | Yemen | Uzbekistan | Malaysia | Saudi Arabia | Nepal | North Korea | Syria | Sri Lanka | Taiwan | Kazakhstan | Cambodia | Jordan | UAE | Tajikistan | Israel
Americas: USA | Brazil (revised) | Mexico | Colombia | Argentina | Canada | Peru | Venezuela | Chile | Guatemala | Ecuador | Bolivia | Haiti | Dominican Republic | Honduras | Cuba
Africa: Nigeria | Ethiopia (revised) | Egypt | DR Congo | Tanzania | South Africa | Kenya | Sudan | Uganda | Algeria | Morocco | Angola | Mozambique | Ghana | Madagascar | Côte d’Ivoire | Cameroon | Niger | Mali | Burkina Faso | Malawi | Zambia | Chad | Somalia | Senegal | Zimbabwe | Guinea | Benin | Rwanda | Burundi | Tunisia | South Sudan | Togo
Europe: Russia | Türkiye | Germany | France | UK | Italy | Spain | Poland | Ukraine | Romania | Netherlands | Belgium | Sweden | Czechia | Azerbaijan | Portugal | Greece | Hungary | Austria | Switzerland
Oceania: Australia | Papua New Guinea