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Wow!! Thank you!! I've read The God of Small things but none of the others. So you've provided a treasure chest. Many thanks!

hi Mary, try the bookseller of Kabul. the author lives with an Afghan family to observe their daily life and explores the life of the man who took upon himself the duty of saving the country's books, history and art

Thank you. Adding The Bookseller of Kabul.

Hi Mary, most welcome.

I re-read your question and realised that some of my recommendations don't fit. Tamim Ansary's book is not a fictionalised account and Hanan Al-Shaykhs book is an indication of a flat translation taking away from a book. The others are different ways of portraying society, culture and politics that are familiar to the auhor - the first three books, for example are about Afghanistan under the Taliban, but show different treatments of the same subject, the next two are about Pakistan under similar pressures of religious fundamentalism. I've added a few books about Indian experiences randing from the North [Kiran Desai] to the West [Thrity Umrigar] to the South [Arundhati Roy]. The last two books are from the Arab world Hanan's book is a translation which tries to depict the Middle East from 4 female viewpoints - and is not successful in all of them - and Susan Abulhawa's book a viewpoint from the Palestinian experience.

If the theme is not restricted to the personal experiences of the author, you may also want to try "The Bookseller of Kabul" by Åsne Seierstad for Afghanistan, "Shantaram" by Gregory David Roberts for Indian or "The Lemon Tree" by Sandy Tolan, for the outsider's perspective of the Palestinian experience.

If you need more suggestions do let me know.

You may also want to add Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Thanks for all of these excellent suggestions! We may discuss whether the author should do a straight memoir rather than a novel at this point, so I think all these books will be relevant one way or another (not that I imagine I'll have time to read them all, but several are intriguing me!) He's from South America rather than the middle east or India/Pakistan/Afghanistan, so the cultural contexts will be quite different.

hopefully i will check some of them out. they sounds interesting.

Kiran Desai's Inheritance of Loss is amazing! I would add "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry and The God of Small things by Arundhati Roy. I would also add In The Country of Men by the great Libyan author Hisham Matar.

I forgot to Mention Randa Jarrar's "A Map of Home"