Conquest of PagesRead around the world
The challenge is simple and endless: read a book by an author from every country on Earth. It is one of the oldest ways readers push past their usual shelf — and one of the most satisfying to watch fill in on a map.
The rules
- 195 countries — the 193 members of the United Nations plus the Holy See (Vatican City) and Palestine, the two UN observer states.
- An author counts for the country they were born in. That is the simplest rule to apply and the one Conquest of Pages uses, because it is where the globe plants a book. (Isabel Allende is Chilean but was born in Peru; for this challenge she counts for Peru.)
- Any genre, any length, any language you can read it in. Translated work is very welcome.
- Finish at least a few pages — in the app, a country is checked off as soon as you log some reading.
Tips for choosing
- Start where your shelf is thin. If you read mostly European fiction, begin with a continent you have never opened.
- Short books count the same. A 150-page novel is a perfectly good way to visit a country.
- Use the list below as a starting point, not a verdict. It names one well-loved author born in each country for about a hundred of them. For the rest, ask a librarian, search “literature of” the country, or look at national prize winners.
- Some countries have few books in English. Small states may take months to find. That is part of it.
Africa · 54 countries
| Country | A place to start |
|---|---|
| Algeria | The Stranger — Albert Camus |
| Angola | A General Theory of Oblivion — José Eduardo Agualusa |
| Cameroon | Behold the Dreamers — Imbolo Mbue |
| Republic of the Congo | Broken Glass — Alain Mabanckou |
| DR Congo | Tram 83 — Fiston Mwanza Mujila |
| Côte d’Ivoire | The Suns of Independence — Ahmadou Kourouma |
| Egypt | Palace Walk — Naguib Mahfouz |
| Ethiopia | The Shadow King — Maaza Mengiste |
| Ghana | Homegoing — Yaa Gyasi |
| Guinea | The Dark Child — Camara Laye |
| Kenya | A Grain of Wheat — Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o |
| Libya | The Bleeding of the Stone — Ibrahim al-Koni |
| Mali | The Fortunes of Wangrin — Amadou Hampâté Bâ |
| Mauritius | Eve out of Her Ruins — Ananda Devi |
| Morocco | The Sand Child — Tahar Ben Jelloun |
| Mozambique | Sleepwalking Land — Mia Couto |
| Nigeria | Things Fall Apart — Chinua Achebe |
| Senegal | So Long a Letter — Mariama Bâ |
| Somalia | Maps — Nuruddin Farah |
| South Africa | Disgrace — J. M. Coetzee |
| Sudan | Season of Migration to the North — Tayeb Salih |
| Tanzania | Paradise — Abdulrazak Gurnah |
| Tunisia | The Pillar of Salt — Albert Memmi |
| Zimbabwe | Nervous Conditions — Tsitsi Dangarembga |
Your pick — any author born in these counts:
- Benin
- Botswana
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Cabo Verde
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Comoros
- Djibouti
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Eswatini
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Guinea-Bissau
- Lesotho
- Liberia
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Mauritania
- Namibia
- Niger
- Rwanda
- São Tomé and Príncipe
- Seychelles
- Sierra Leone
- South Sudan
- Togo
- Uganda
- Zambia
Asia · 48 countries
| Country | A place to start |
|---|---|
| Afghanistan | The Kite Runner — Khaled Hosseini |
| Bangladesh | Lajja — Taslima Nasrin |
| Cambodia | First They Killed My Father — Loung Ung |
| China | The Three-Body Problem — Liu Cixin |
| India | The God of Small Things — Arundhati Roy |
| Indonesia | This Earth of Mankind — Pramoedya Ananta Toer |
| Iran | Persepolis — Marjane Satrapi |
| Iraq | Frankenstein in Baghdad — Ahmed Saadawi |
| Israel | A Tale of Love and Darkness — Amos Oz |
| Japan | Norwegian Wood — Haruki Murakami |
| Lebanon | The Prophet — Khalil Gibran |
| Malaysia | The Garden of Evening Mists — Tan Twan Eng |
| Nepal | Arresting God in Kathmandu — Samrat Upadhyay |
| Pakistan | The Reluctant Fundamentalist — Mohsin Hamid |
| Philippines | Noli Me Tángere — José Rizal |
| Saudi Arabia | The Dove's Necklace — Raja Alem |
| Singapore | Crazy Rich Asians — Kevin Kwan |
| South Korea | The Vegetarian — Han Kang |
| Sri Lanka | The English Patient — Michael Ondaatje |
| Syria | Death Is Hard Work — Khaled Khalifa |
| Türkiye | My Name Is Red — Orhan Pamuk |
| Vietnam | The Sorrow of War — Bảo Ninh |
Your pick — any author born in these counts:
- Armenia
- Azerbaijan
- Bahrain
- Bhutan
- Brunei
- Cyprus
- Georgia
- Jordan
- Kazakhstan
- Kuwait
- Kyrgyzstan
- Laos
- Maldives
- Mongolia
- Myanmar
- North Korea
- Oman
- Palestine
- Qatar
- Tajikistan
- Thailand
- Timor-Leste
- Turkmenistan
- United Arab Emirates
- Uzbekistan
- Yemen
Europe · 44 countries
| Country | A place to start |
|---|---|
| Albania | Chronicle in Stone — Ismail Kadare |
| Austria | Chess Story — Stefan Zweig |
| Belgium | Fear and Trembling — Amélie Nothomb |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | The Lazarus Project — Aleksandar Hemon |
| Bulgaria | Time Shelter — Georgi Gospodinov |
| Croatia | The Museum of Unconditional Surrender — Dubravka Ugrešić |
| Czechia | The Unbearable Lightness of Being — Milan Kundera |
| Denmark | Smilla's Sense of Snow — Peter Høeg |
| Estonia | The Czar's Madman — Jaan Kross |
| Finland | The Summer Book — Tove Jansson |
| France | Les Misérables — Victor Hugo |
| Germany | The Magic Mountain — Thomas Mann |
| Greece | Zorba the Greek — Nikos Kazantzakis |
| Hungary | Fatelessness — Imre Kertész |
| Iceland | Independent People — Halldór Laxness |
| Ireland | Dubliners — James Joyce |
| Italy | The Name of the Rose — Umberto Eco |
| Netherlands | The Discovery of Heaven — Harry Mulisch |
| Norway | Hunger — Knut Hamsun |
| Poland | Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead — Olga Tokarczuk |
| Portugal | Blindness — José Saramago |
| Romania | Solenoid — Mircea Cărtărescu |
| Russia | Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoevsky |
| Serbia | A Tomb for Boris Davidovich — Danilo Kiš |
| Spain | The Shadow of the Wind — Carlos Ruiz Zafón |
| Sweden | Pippi Longstocking — Astrid Lindgren |
| Switzerland | The Pledge — Friedrich Dürrenmatt |
| Ukraine | Dead Souls — Nikolai Gogol |
| United Kingdom | Pride and Prejudice — Jane Austen |
Your pick — any author born in these counts:
- Andorra
- Belarus
- Vatican City
- Latvia
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Malta
- Moldova
- Monaco
- Montenegro
- North Macedonia
- San Marino
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
North America · 23 countries
| Country | A place to start |
|---|---|
| Antigua and Barbuda | Annie John — Jamaica Kincaid |
| Canada | The Handmaid's Tale — Margaret Atwood |
| Cuba | Before Night Falls — Reinaldo Arenas |
| Dominica | Wide Sargasso Sea — Jean Rhys |
| Dominican Republic | The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao — Junot Díaz |
| Guatemala | The President — Miguel Ángel Asturias |
| Haiti | Breath, Eyes, Memory — Edwidge Danticat |
| Jamaica | A Brief History of Seven Killings — Marlon James |
| Mexico | Pedro Páramo — Juan Rulfo |
| Nicaragua | The Inhabited Woman — Gioconda Belli |
| Saint Lucia | Omeros — Derek Walcott |
| Trinidad and Tobago | A House for Mr Biswas — V. S. Naipaul |
| United States | Beloved — Toni Morrison |
Your pick — any author born in these counts:
- Bahamas
- Barbados
- Belize
- Costa Rica
- El Salvador
- Grenada
- Honduras
- Panama
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
South America · 12 countries
| Country | A place to start |
|---|---|
| Argentina | Ficciones — Jorge Luis Borges |
| Brazil | The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas — Machado de Assis |
| Chile | The Savage Detectives — Roberto Bolaño |
| Colombia | One Hundred Years of Solitude — Gabriel García Márquez |
| Ecuador | Huasipungo — Jorge Icaza |
| Paraguay | I the Supreme — Augusto Roa Bastos |
| Peru | The Feast of the Goat — Mario Vargas Llosa |
| Uruguay | Open Veins of Latin America — Eduardo Galeano |
| Venezuela | Doña Bárbara — Rómulo Gallegos |
Your pick — any author born in these counts:
- Bolivia
- Guyana
- Suriname
Oceania · 14 countries
| Country | A place to start |
|---|---|
| Australia | Cloudstreet — Tim Winton |
| New Zealand | The Garden Party and Other Stories — Katherine Mansfield |
| Samoa | Sons for the Return Home — Albert Wendt |
Your pick — any author born in these counts:
- Fiji
- Kiribati
- Marshall Islands
- Micronesia
- Nauru
- Palau
- Papua New Guinea
- Solomon Islands
- Tonga
- Tuvalu
- Vanuatu
Tracking it in Conquest of Pages
The Stats panel has a Read Around the World card: a ring showing how many of the 195 you have read, progress for each continent, and three suggestions a day — each one tap away from your library. Every new country is announced when you add it, the Political map colours the countries you have visited, and there are achievements at 25, 50 and 100 countries.