Fictional anthropologists (not fiction BY anthropologists)
Explore a curated list of fictional anthropologists in literature—books where anthropologists are central characters, not fiction written by anthropologists. Discover captivating stories blending science and imagination.
Book
Mating
by Norman Rush
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • Is love between equals possible? This modern classic is a delightful intellectual love story that explores the deepest canyons of romantic love even as it asks large questions about society, geopolitics, and the mystery of what men and women really want. “Luminous . . . Few books evoke the state of love at its apogee.” —The New York Times Book Review “The best rendering of erotic politics . . . since D.H. Lawrence. . . . The voice of Rush’s narrator is immediate, instructive and endearing.”—The New York Review of Books One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years The narrator of this splendidly expansive novel of high intellect and grand passion is an American anthropologist at loose ends in the South African republic of Botswana. She has a noble and exacting mind, a compelling waist, and a busted thesis project. She also has a yen for Nelson Denoon, a charismatic intellectual who is rumored to have founded a secretive and unorthodox utopian society in a remote corner of the Kalahari—one in which he is virtually the only man. What ensues is an exhilarating quest and an exuberant comedy of manners: “A dryly comic love story about grown-up people who take the life of the mind seriously.” —Newsweek
Book
Far Afield
by Susanna Kaysen
A compulsively readable novel of enormous charm swimming in the cuisine and culture of the Faroe Islands from the author of Girl, Interrupted. Jonathan Brand, a graduate student in anthropology, has decided to do his fieldwork in the remote Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic. But, despite his Harvard training, he can barely understand, let alone "study," the culture he encounters. From his struggles with the local cuisine to his affair with the Danish woman the locals want him to marry, Jonathan is both repelled by and drawn into the Faroese way of life. Wry and insightful, Far Afield reveals Susanna Kaysen's gifts of imagination, satire, and compassion.
Book
A Touch of Betrayal
by Catherine Palmer
$lt;B>2001 Christy Award winner!$lt;/B>$lt;br>The Treasures of the Heart series are fast-paced contemporary romance adventure novels. The stories follow three grown siblings who grow in their understanding of God and overcome obstacles to find lasting love and romance. (Books #1 and #2 were formerly titled The Treasure of Timbuktu and The Treasure of Zanzibar)
Book
Go and Come Back
by Joan Abelove
When the two old white ladies come to live in the Peruvian jungle village of Poincushmana, everyone makes a fuss--everyone but Alicia, who is baffled by the reaction of her tribe, the Isabo. But as the days pass, she too is drawn in--because the ladies (who are really in their twenties, and anthropologists) are stingy, stupid, and fun to watch. They don't understand the Isabo. Someone needs to set them straight. And that someone, surprisingly, is Alicia.
Book
Tropic of Night
by Michael Gruber
Not since The Secret History has a novel so flawlessly married the ferocious intensity of an unforgettable thriller with the depth, daring, and nuance of our most celebrated literary fiction. Tropic of Night is a virtuoso performance -- an unforgettably accomplished novel, a masterpiece of electricity and ambition. Jane Doe was a promising anthropologist, an expert on shamanism. Now she's nothing, a shadow: after faking her own suicide, she's living under an assumed identity in Miami with a little girl to protect. Everyone thinks she's dead. Or so she hopes. Then the killings start, a series of ritualistic murders that terrifies all of Miami. The investigator is Jimmy Paz, a Cuban-American police detective. There are witnesses, but they can recall almost nothing of the events, as though their memories have been erased -- as if a spell has been cast on each of them. Equally bizarre is the string of clues Paz uncovers: a divination charm, exotic drugs found in the bodies of the victims, a century-old report telling of a secret place in the heart of Africa. These clues point Paz inexorably toward the fugitive, Jane Doe, and force Jane to realize that the darkness she has fled is seeking her out, hunting her down. By the time her path intersects with Jimmy Paz's, the two will be thrust into a cataclysmic battle between good and an evil unimaginable to the Western mind.
