One of my favorite reading genres is foreign fiction. The author may or may not be foreign, but if the story has ethnic elements there are often non-English words. One of my pet peeves is for the author to omit an explanation, definition, or glossary for the mysterious groups of letters that mean nothing to me. Granted, some foreign phrases are well known in English. Is there anyone who doesn't know that "au revoir" means goodbye, or that "bambino" means a male baby or child? Probably not.I'm currently reading a great book by Shauna Singh Baldwin (she wrote one of my favorite books "What The Body Remembers") called "The Tiger Claw" which takes place in Europe during WWII. She includes many French words, phrases, and even sentences. Some meaning can be gleaned from context or their similarity to English such as "Tres bizzare!" or "Merci, mon oncle". But if you don't speak French how would you know what "Venez faire de jolies grèves avec nous!" means?
Ms. Baldwin should keep writing her wonderful books and I will keep reading them, but she needs to do what Gautam Malkani did for his readers of "Londonstani" and provide a glossary.
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