Top ten books on the migrant experience

Elise Valmorbida is the author of the critically acclaimed books Matilde Waltzing, The Book of Happy Endings and The TV President. Her latest novel is The Winding Stick (Two Ravens Press).

For the Guardian, she named a top ten list of books on the migrant experience.

One book on her list:

Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

More doom in The Lucky Country! Here is Oscar, a sunburnt Englishman, a quivering man of God driven to desperation and crime, terrified of water and addicted to laudanum, attempting to sail his glass church up a river in remotest Australia. What starker image can there be of the misplaced migrant? The church becomes a fractured furnace where large and frightening insects are imprisoned. Its precious panes craze and crack. You know what must happen next.

Read about another book on Valmorbida's list.

Related: see Lynn Freed's list of "favorite books evoking the immigrant life."

--Marshal Zeringue