See here for methodology. Back when I started this project, I was simply recording the top eight books tagged as being in each country by users of on Goodreads and LibraryThing, and then recording which didn’t really qualify due to not being set in that country.
I have switched now to a system where I disqualify the relevant books before constructing my league table. This is particularly important for Ethiopia, where on my first pass I only found two of the top eight books actually set there – and I was wrong about one of them! So the below table is comprehensively revised from the first round; the only thing that hasn’t changed, in fact, is the book at the top of the list.
Title | Author | Goodreads raters | LibraryThing owners |
Cutting for Stone | Abraham Verghese | 404,368 | 9,853 |
The Shadow King | Maaza Mengiste | 14,188 | 769 |
The Emperor: Downfall of An Autocrat | Ryszard Kapuściński | 8,590 | 1,095 |
The Quest | Nelson DeMille | 10,305 | 713 |
The Sign and the Seal | Graham Hancock | 2,767 | 1,038 |
Beneath the Lion’s Gaze | Maaza Mengiste | 3,429 | 467 |
There Is No Me Without You | Melissa Fay Greene | 3,404 | 426 |
Black Dove White Raven | Elizabeth Wein | 3,095 | 381 |
I’m glad that Ethiopian writer Maaza Mengiste does get two entries on the list. I’m surprised (though perhaps I shouldn’t be) to see Elizabeth Wein, who I had a great dinner with in Glasgow in 2005, in eighth place.
I disqualified no less than twelve books to get to Elizabeth Wein, and there are a couple on the list that I’m still not sure of. As I noted previously, What is the What, by Dave Eggers, is about South Sudan. The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese, is set in India. Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is about Somalia. A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park, is also about South Sudan. Say You’re One of Them, by Uwem Akpan, is a short story collection of which only one story is set in Ethiopia.
The Shadow of the Sun, by Ryszard Kapuściński, which I incorrectly included in my table last time, covers a number of African countries including Ethiopia. Yes, Chef, by Marcus Samuelsson, is mainly set in Sweden. The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, by Dinaw Mengestu, is set in the USA. Sweetness in the Belly, by Camilla Gibb, is set in several countries. All Our Names, again by Dinaw Mengestu, is set partly in the USA and partly in Uganda as well as in Ethiopia. How to Read the Air, yet again by Dinaw Mengestu, is set in the USA. And Refugee Boy, by Benjamin Zephaniah, is set in Eritrea and the UK as well as Ethiopia.
I made a couple of judgement calls. The Sign and the Seal looks like it is total rubbish, but it is nonetheless about the concealment of the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia, so I ruled it in. On the other hand, to my surprise, very few Goodreads or LibraryThing users think that Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop is about Ethiopia, although I always had that impression. So I ruled it out, on the basis of popular perception.
The top book that I have read which is set in Ethiopia is In Ethiopia with a Mule, by Dervla Murphy, which is a bit further down the table.
Going back to my usual order of running through countries in descending rank of population, so Argentina is next, followed by Afghanistan and Yemen.
India | China | USA | Indonesia | Pakistan | Nigeria | Brazil (revisited) | Bangladesh (revisited) | Russia | Mexico | Japan | Philippines (revisited) | Ethiopia (revisited) | Egypt | DR Congo | Vietnam | Iran | Türkiye | Germany | France | Thailand | UK | Tanzania | South Africa | Italy | Myanmar | Kenya | Colombia | South Korea | Sudan | Uganda | Spain | Algeria | Iraq | Argentina | Afghanistan