Mating

By Norman Rush

Categories: Literature & Fiction

Published in 1991, Norman Rush's first novel is narrated by an unnamed American graduate student in anthropology whose research in Botswana has stalled. She becomes fascinated by Nelson Denoon, a charismatic intellectual who has founded Tsau, an experimental village for women in the Kalahari. Determined to win him, she crosses the desert alone to reach it, and the novel follows their relationship and the workings of the utopian community, told in her digressive, often comic voice.

Recommended by 1 person

• Fareed Zakaria: “Many years ago, someone I was dating gave me a copy of Norman Rush’s clever, funny novel “Mating,” and we bonded over it, reading passages out loud to each other.”