A Karachi Teen is on a Mission to Read a Book from Every Country in the World. Her Cool List Can Help You Do it Too

By Sharanya Gopinathan

Aisha Esbhani is a 13-year-old on a mission, and what a mission indeed! About a year ago, Eshbani, a Karachi-based barely-teenager, realised that most of the books in her bookshelf were written by European and American authors, and she noticed a lack of writers from African and Asian countries. It got her thinking, and she ended up setting herself a unique challenge: to read a book or story from every country in the world.

She started a Facebook page (@reading197countries) asking for help from people all over the world in discovering books, stories and authors from different countries, and the top post on her page is a pretty amazing resource for everybody: it’s a list of all the countries paired with the books and stories she’s reading from them. She also often posts her own reviews of the books she’s reading, and you suddenly remember again how young she is when you see a post from April 22nd apologising for the lack of reviews recently because she’s been busy studying for her exams.

People from all over the world, including readers, writers and the President of Nigeria, have been helping her with recommendations, all listed in the fascinating post below.

It also reminds us of this college student named Kaya Thomas, a computer science student at Dartmouth College who created an app that helps you find books authored by people of colour.