Another book I read when we were in the Philippines was Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye's book 438 Days. This is their account of their imprisonment in an Ethiopian prison, after they entered the Ogaden to do a report on Lundin Oil.
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We did a lot of reading during our holiday in the Philippines, and one of the books I read was The East End Midwife. Jennifer Worth worked in the 1950s as a midwife and nurse in the poorest parts of London, and this is her memoir.
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North Korea is a country that many consider to be one big prison in itself. Inside the country are closely guarded prison camps that hold hundreds of thousands of prisoners. And inside these prison camps are underground prisons...
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Dream Heart, by Cecilia Samartin, is a moving and beautiful story from Cuba. It follows two cousins, Nora and Alicia, who grow up together in Cuba in the 1950s. They live a sheltered and privileged existence, with the black maid Beba and the Catholic nuns at school. When Castro comes to power, their lives are turned upside down.
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Silvia Avallone's debut novel depicts a very different Italy from the one we see on our holidays. There are no vines or beaches with colourful umbrellas in the background. Instead, the world pulses around the steelworks, where the intense heat is slamming, and where someone occasionally loses a hand.
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I have just read Barbara Demick's fascinating book about North Korea. Demick is a journalist and has been to North Korea herself, but the book is not based on her own visit.
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My Life as a Traitor, by Zarah Ghahramani, is about the then 20-year-old Zarah's time in an Iranian prison. Terrible, it may seem, and it is. But the most interesting thing is to read about the journey there: growing up in a middle-class Iranian family, university studies and teenage life with ordinary girl talk about boys and love and clothes, with the only difference being that the mullahs' religious rules are everywhere like a shadow.
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Helena Thorfinn's debut novel 'Innan floden tar oss' takes us to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Here we follow two completely different stories, which in the end become intertwined.
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Jillian is a lost American 18-year-old studying theatre and supporting herself by working as a stripper. Her rootlessness and constant search for thrills leads her to take up a spectacular offer to join Prince Jefri's harem in the salty state of Brunei as a luxury prostitute.
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Markus Lutteman's 'El Choco' is not a literary experience. But it is a fascinating journey into a world that is best experienced from a distance. After a failed drug smuggling operation, Jonas Andersson ends up in the notorious San Pedro prison in Bolivia. There are no locks on the cells and no guards. The violent and armed prisoners rule the roost.
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