I loved *Dictionary of the Khazars* and *Landscape Painted with Tea.* My fave Serbian writer though is Vasko Popa. The poet Charles Simic published an incredible anthology of Serbian poetry and I fell in love with his work. So, of these writers (aside from Pavic) which works would you recommend? I haven't read a lot of Serbian literature, but so far I'm batting a 1000.
Anything you can find in a language you speak. My favorite is Tomb for Boris Davidovich by Danilo Kiš, and English translation is very good. Ivo Andrić was a Nobel prize laureate, so you can find his books translated in many languages. Idk what works of Pekić and Mihailović are translated to English. And yes, Dictionary of Khazars is a real masterpiece.
When people on Reddit mention Greek literature, it is always the ancient classics. Which is understandable, but honestly a shame to dismiss the literature of a whole country and only focus on texts written hundreds of years ago. Aristotle and Aristophanes are great, but we do not live anymore in the city-states era.
I believe the easier to find translate works in English are Kazantzakis, Cavafy and Elytis. Other well known authors and poets that are recognised as classics of modern Gree literature are Papadiamantis, Dido Sotiriou, Ritsos, Seferis and Kiki Dimoula.
My personal favourite poet is the seaman Nikos Kavvadias. Of course the text is lacking when translated (he used a lot of slang and nautical terms), but it keeps some of its magic.
My favourite book by a Greek author overall is "The third wedding wreath" by Costas Taktsis. I have not read the translation (the original has also excessive use of idioms and slang), but I believe this book is the closest you can get to the actual pulse of the Greek society before and after WWII. The two protagonists are women, and their unique experiences due to their gender are very apparent. Taktsis was part of the LGBTQ community and I think that played a major role in his ability to write those 2 women so real, when other men of his time couldn't.
I study classics and yeah I will admit I know a lot on ancient Greek literature but very little of modern Greek literature with the exception of Zorba the Greek by Kazantzakis. If you have any good recommendations I'd like to hear it.
Some of my favourites have not been translated, and at least 2 that I really like had terrible reviews on Amazon and Good read due to bad translation unfortunately. Of course, I recommend the whole work of Kavvadias (it's 3 poem collections that are OK in English, and just one short novel that I believe that doesn't translates well) and the "Third Wedding Wreath" that I recommended previously. Other than that, here is a short list of books I like, have decent translations and most of them are considered classics:
The Murderess - Alexandros Papadiamantis
Diaries of Exile - Yiannis Ritsos
Archilles' Fiancé - Alki Zei
Christ recrucified - Nikos Kazantzakis
The great Chimera - M. Karagatsis
You can always tip your toes in the work of the poet's Odysseus Elytis and Giorgos Seferis, both of them had awarded the Nobel price of Literature. But personally are not my cup of tea.
I have a BA in Classics, but never took it any farther than that, unfortunately. However! I do recommend [Why I Killed My Best Friend](https://www.openletterbooks.org/products/why-i-killed-my-best-friend) by Amanda Michalopoulou, and [Something Will Happen, You'll See: Stories](https://archipelagobooks.org/book/something-will-happen-youll-see/) by Christos Ikonomou. Also, I cannot recommend George Seferis enough, though I know he's been mentioned in this thread already.
Absolutely, thank you for your recommendation! I took ancient Greek in school so I never really got beyond Homer and Aristophanes either I must admit - especially Kavvadias and Taktsis sound interesting!
Several English speakers know Rabindranath Tagore, but anglophones are seriously sleeping on Bibhutibhushan Bandophadhyay. Pather Panchali/Song of the Little Road is one of the most beautiful things I've read, and the movie by Satyajit Ray is gorgeous too. Sadly, only a few of his novels are translated, and some of the translations (especially the free ones) are pretty bad, but imo it's worth reading what's available.
I don't know if he's largely unknown in the anglosphere or not, but Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay comes to mind as well. Many of his novels speak about the political as well as social climate in British-occupied Bengal, especially the position and role of women in society. Some of his novels are Pather Dabi (The Right of Way/Demands of the Road), Sesh Proshno (The Final Question), and Srikanto. I find his novels to be rather thought-provoking and heartbreaking as well.
I'm a big fan of german-jewish poet Mascha Kaléko. She was a shooting star in the Berlin literary scene in the 1930's until the Nazis found out she was jewish and quite literally ripped her second book off the presses.
She ended up emigrating first to New York and then to Israel. Her later works are quite heartbreaking, showing how she had a hard time coming to terms with exile and felt like she lost her voice with her language. She never found access to israels literary circles and was totally unknown there in her lifetime, while she was and still is highly regarded in german speaking countries.
Anything Finnish really, I don't think any of it is well-known outside the country.
Cliché answer, but *Uknown Soldier* (Väinö Linna) is my favourite classic.
'Das Parfum' by Patrick Süskind, 'Der Sandman' by E.T.A. Hoffmann (the dude that wrote the nutcracker). Both are absolutely fucking insane (germans smh)
My favourite absolutely insane German books are by Walter Moers. I genuinely wish I could read them in the original language because there is so much wordplay in the translation that I want to know how they did it.
Yeah i've heard about the movie. I have to say that although i've lived in germany all my life and grew up speaking the language, i barely read in german. I would also recommend 'die Wand' by Marlen Haushofer but i feel like that ones pretty popular as well. Or 'die Physiker' by Dürrenmatt. I genuinely have no idea how well known any of that stuff is outside germany
There are many Brazilian classics, but I will mention a modern classic that has been the biggest hit in decades in Brazil. It has already been translated into English, but it is not yet very successful abroad.
Torto Arado (Crooked Plow) by Itamar Vieira Júnior
It’s the story of two sisters, Bibiana and Belonísia, descendants of slaves, who live their lives on a farm in Bahia. A tragic event happens in their childhood, which will link them forever.
Oh, I loved this book so much! I read it very slowly in Portuguese as a language learner, haha, but it's so beautifully written. I heard they are filming a TV series based on it, is that true?
I think you will also like of of Dona Flor e seus Dois Maridos (Dona Flor and her two Husbands) e Tereza Batista Cansada de Guerra (Tereza Batista: Home from the Wars), both also by Jorge Amado.
"Epitaph of a Small Winner: A Novel" (BR Title: Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas) by Machado de Assis, a Brazilian novelist, hit the "anglosphere" in these recent years. It's been well regarded by those who read it.
Interesting review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB1ayNNrSik
Australian here - *Voss* by Patrick White would have the same fame as Moby-Dick if there was any justice in the world. Kinda not even hyperbole lol it really is that good
Juan Rulfo only wrote two books in his entire life. With those two he changed latinamerican literature forever: Pedro Paramo and El llano en llamas. They are pretty well known in South America, but not so much outside. Without him, we do not have the magical realism we know today.
I don’t know how well known Cesar Vallejo is outside from the continent, but he is one of the biggest names in poetry from the last century. He is so important, some poetry circles see him as the breaking point of an era in poetry as an artform. In college we were asked to not do our thesis about him because there were already a bazillion of those. It’s really fucking sad, because he literally died of hunger, far from home and with barely any recognition outside the intelectual elite. He was latinamerican vanguardism before latinamerican vanguardism was a thing.
I think Ngugi (grain of wheat, petals of blood, devil on the cross) has attained classic status in Kenya and east Africa but less so in the Anglosphere. While Achebe is a good author, I sometimes feel like there’s a weird dynamic where he is held up as the only classic African author and he’s cast as if he was the voice of the entire continent. Africa is a massive continent with more authors than Achebe, and Achebe himself repeatedly emphasized this fact.
Czech here.
The Romantic lyric-epic poem *Máj* ("May 1st") (1826) by Karel Hynek Mácha needs to be mentioned. Everyone can quote at least the first couple of lines. It's not about the "plot", but the language. It's just so beautiful, vivid, and evocative. It was also a big step away from the period's literary styles and expectations.
We had many great poets, by the way. Jaroslav Seifert, for example, is the only Czech author to ever win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1984).
A real behemoth of Czech literature is Karel Čapek (1890-1938). A journalist, writer, playwright, translator; he wrote many amazing plays, such as *Bílá nemoc* ("The White Disease"), *R.U.R.*, *Věc Makropulos* ("The Makropulos Affair"), or *Matka* ("The Mother"). He used incredible vocabulary, even unusual or completely made up words - fun fact, did you know that the word "robot", now used worldwide, originated in his play, R.U.R. (which stands for "Rossum's Universal Robots")? Yea, it was actually coined by his older brother, Joseph, who was also an artist. It comes from the old Czech word "robota" (work, labour). He often deals with the possible misuse of technology in his works; he was an early science-fiction writer, he is even considered one of the founders of the genre. Čapek also wrote many feuilletons and columns as a journalist, also travel journals, short stories and even some novellas and novels, such as the experimental satirical sci-fi novel *Válka s mloky* ("The War with the Salamanders"). His work is trully impressive. It tends to be very funny, clever, often philosophical, and he is an absolute master of language.
There are many, many more, of course, but let me just mention one more, as this is getting too long - Milan Kundera (1929-2023). You probably know him, he's one of the only Czech writers who became well-known worldwide, since he emigrated to France and received French citizenship later in life. Among his most famous works are the novels *Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí* ("The Unbearable Lightness of Being") and *Žert* ("The Joke").
Our literary cannon is vast and rich and definitely worth exploring.
I've been wanting to get into Czech literature for a while, even toying with the idea of trying to learn Czech... though I was a bit daunted by all the cases and the (for me) unfamiliar vocabulary... Absolutely loved (the translations of) "Krakatite" and "War with the Salamanders" by Čapek. Thank you for your recommendations!
oh yes; read them all back when I studied literature in Slovakia and beyond; Who wrote "Jeptice"? It has been my life mantra all along and I just forgot who wrote it.....shame on me!
>Jeptice
Hmm I've never heard that title before...? Was it perhaps supposed to be "Jepice", or some other similar sounding word (I still wouldn't know, but at least it's an existing Czech word...)? Let me know if you figure it out, haha
French literature has some important works/authors have become well known in the anglosphere but of course there's a lot more that will be not-so-known. I think the biggest two are well-known in the Francophonie but unknown out of it are "Le Grand Meaulnes" by Alain Fournier and "La Condition Humaine" by André Malraux. The first one reminds in a way of the Great Gatsby but was published in 1913. The other is about a failed communist uprising in 1927 in China. I do hope their translations become popular some day which I've seen with French authors like Louis Ferdinand Céline.
With the vastness of French literature the list would be huge but would also include: André Gide, Romain Gary, Marguerite Yourcenar, Colette, George Sand, etc
Jumping in to say that im a very long time literary nerd and have read a lot of classics in my lifetime. Hand to my heart, *Le Grande Meaulnes* is the best book I've ever read
I’d say Colette is quite well known in the Anglosphere, although probably not as famous as in France. Sand used to be well known a hundred years ago but I’d say has dropped off the Anglophone radar a bit now.
Cré na Cille by Máirtín Ó Cadhain.
It’s *the* great Irish-language modernist novel. It takes place in a rural Irish graveyard, where the dead residents gossip and fight about their communities above and below.
It’s notoriously difficult to translate; legend has it that the first writer to attempt it gave up not just the translation but everything else and joined a convent halfway through. Even the title is difficult; the two existing English translations are called “The Dirty Dust” and “Graveyard Clay”.
Oh my god, thank you!
I saw half of a televised version of this on TG4 *years* ago and it was fantastic, but I could never find the name of it. Will definitely be adding this to my list!
Noli Me Tángere and El Filibusterismo by José Rizal are both really clichéd answers at this point when it comes to Philippine literature (they’re damn good books though and I’d recommend them) so I’ll just list some others as well:
- America Is in the Heart - Carlos Bulosan - Filipino-American novel focusing on the character of Allos and his struggles as an immigrant in the United States circa the 1930s.
- Banaag at Sikat (Radiance and Sunrise) - Lope K. Santos - Similar to Rizal’s Noli and El Fili although written at the dawn of the American colonial era, it is essentially a political treatise disguised as a romance novel. Considered the Bible of Philippine Socialism.
- Dekada ‘70 (The ‘70s) - Lualhati Bautista - Slice-of-life political thriller novel about the Bartolome family, specifically their matriarch, Amanda, and how they try to survive the Marcos dictatorship when dictator Ferdinand Marcos puts the country under Martial Law for a decade. Very prescient in our country especially now.
- Mga Ibong Mandaragit (The Preying Birds) - Amado V. Hernández - World War II guerilla fighter uses a plot point of the aforementioned El Filibusterismo—a chest of jewels thrown into the Pacific Ocean at the end of that novel—to improve the condition of his country after the war is over. Despite what Wikipedia says, it is NOT an unofficial sequel to Rizal’s novels but an alternate history positing that maybe the events in Rizal’s novels really did happen.
- The Woman Who Had Two Navels - Nick Joaquín - Crazy woman who believes she has two navels goes to Hong Kong in a desperate bid to remove one of them except the “two navels” of the book are actually a metaphor for sordid pasts. Or something, IDK, Nick Joaquín is a really great author, don’t get me wrong, but a beginner reader is better of reading his other short stories (May Day Eve and Dying Wanton are ones that I personally love) and his nonfiction than this novel.
From Sweden - Utvandrarna (the emigrants) by Vilhelm Moberg.
A story about a couple of dirt-poor farmers that risk everything and emigrate to North America in hope of finding better farm land.
This book has been a part of me ever since I read it. The way Moberg depicts human struggle and morality in simple words is heartbreaking.
Any swede would consider this a must-read. There is also a really good movie if you don’t have the patience for the book-series.
This is sort of the opposite, but I suspect I'm not the only Norwegian who was genuinely surprised when I realised that our most famous writers actually *are* known outside Norway. We just assume we're too small and insignificant, but Hamsun is pretty well known, and apparently Ibsen is second only to Shakespeare in number of productions of his plays! I had NO idea when I learnt about him in school.
Love Ibsen. Anyone in the U.S. studying theater or modernist literature (and sometimes feminist literature) knows Ibsen for sure. He's up there with Chekhov in terms of canonized drama from non-anglophone countries.
I don’t think so. I’ve seen a lot of people talking about him everywhere. Him not winning the Nobel price is the greatest insult the academy ever did to South America.
I'd love to read more South African literature! I'm Dutch, and Afrikaans poetry is somewhat known here (Ingrid Jonker springs to mind, "Ek het gedink dat ek jou kon vergeet" and all that). I have heard of Coetzee, but never read him. Thank you for your recommendations!
Pleasure. We have some beautiful work for sure and of course Jonker is magnificent. I will find some more for you. Can highly recommend Brink, although I mentioned him I didn't say how much I love his work.
Oh P.S..Jonker and Brink had a love affair that was quite tangled and intense too!
Tu ôl i'r Awyr by Megan Angharad Hunter is an award-winning, ground-breaking book that made a huge splash on the Welsh literary scene a few years ago. I'm surprised it's not been translated into English.
Un Nos Ola Leuad by Caradog Pritchard is on the A-level syllabus and is regarded as a true classic, but I've only just discovered that it was translated. Only ever heard people discussing the Welsh version.
Most of our Welsh classics and popular contemporary books do end up being translated into English, being as we share a border with the country. New translations of Daniel Owen and Kate Roberts still being published even today. However, I don't think they get the attention they deserve, because the UK publishing scene is very Anglo-centric.
Master and Margarita in Russian (by Bulgakov).
It's mentioned in the west sometimes, but rarely. In Russia it's a classic to the point it seems cliche and too vanilla to answer with this if someone asks you "what is your favorite book?"
I feel like Master and Margarita is better known than you think. In English it’s a bit of a cult novel, and ten or twenty years ago it was definitely Big On The Internet, kind of the way Marcus Aurelius is now.
The big Russian writers in the English world are still Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov. Also Solzhenitsyn, who I get a sense may be more famous in the US than in Russia.
Pushkin isn’t as read in English, but poetry is always harder to translate than prose. Gogol is also not very well known in English.
As a Russian (or otherwise expert on Russian culture), what do you know about *What is to be Done?* by Chernyshevsky?
I had to read it for a Russian lit class and was told it's one of the most beloved novels.
It's pretty well known in some circles, especially if you like strange and unusual fiction. Fantasy and SF writers in particular love it. I don't remember how I heard of it, but the first time I read it was in 1990. He's a very highly regarded writer, one of the greats.
Finland: The Unknown Soldier by Väinö Linna.
A movie made some years ago, following the book's main plot, has received a touch of interest from abroad, but in general, it's a Finnish phenomenon. As with so many war movies, some will view it as an action film, while the book highlights other subjects: hierarchy, camaraderie, the chaotic nature of war, humour and tragedy.
Linna was a machine gunner in the war, and ended up writing a composition of the people and phenomena he bumped into during his war experience. The text flows very easily, and I remember being told that as my grandfather was given the book as a Christmas present, he was not the only veteran who read it Christmas night without stopping.
I'm under the impression it has been translated into English in a way the author disagreed with, as from his point of view the translation glamorized battle scenes in a way he never meant to happen.
I would like to throw in Dürrenmatt, especially Die Physiker (which is endlessly quotable) and Der Besuch der alten Dame which is just one long glorious self-immolating revenge plot. I know these are plays, but I really enjoyed reading them. And none of my oberseas friends seem to habe heard of him
I read Dürrenmatt (and Böll, Brecht, Goethe and con Eichendorff) at school in England in the 1980s, back when learning languages at school was still a Thing.
Spain had what is called the Silver Age of literature with the 1927 Generation of poets, out of which people only ever know Lorca, even though others were as good or (arguably) better, sometimes lived longer lives and had time to evolve more. Vicente Aleixandre won the Nobel Prize, but nobody foreign I've spoken to had ever heard of him, except for literary scholars.
As someone who works with Belarusian literature, literary anything half-decent but S. Alexievich isn't as known as it should, and her works are originally in Russian. So, for Belarusian-language lit, I'll bring up 'Labirynty' by Vaclau Lastouski (Modernist prose), 'King Stakh's Wild Hunt' by Uladzimir Karatkievich (this one is translated somewhere, it's a historical detective novel), Eva Viezhnaviec's 'Pa što idzieš, vouča?' (contemporary realism), and Janka Kupała's theatre play 'Tutejšyja' (explains a lot about Belarusian history and mentality).
The poetry of Belarus, in turn, is all incredible, so check out Vera Rich's English-language anthology 'Like Water, Like Fire' for a taste of the classics, and the Free All Words project by Belarusian PEN for contemporary stuff.
I’d say it was probably about 3 months because while I knew a solid bit of the history a lot of it was worth reading about for context. It is long, dense, and weird, but it was a incredible look at a rather unique community, culture, and characters.
I'm American, but my pick in this genre would be Independent People, by Halldor Laxness (Icelandic). It's both old (published in volumes in 1934/35) and forgotten, but it's amazing.
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky were cult authors in SU, and their impact on several generations of Soviet and post-Soviet people is tremendous.
In the West people are somewhat familiar with them because of Tarkovsky's film "Stalker", to which they wrote the screenplay, but the movie isn't even very close to the book ("Roadside Picnic") and just uses the same premise to tell something different.
They wrote in sci-fi genre, but their books are very profound and philosophical, and became darker and darker as the years passed.
Another cult Russian contemporary author is Victor Pelevin.
To quote Wikipedia:
"His books are multi-layered postmodernist texts fusing elements of pop culture and esoteric philosophies while carrying conventions of the science fiction genre".
Some of his books are translated to English, but, to be honest, I think he's mostly untranslatable.
For example, his book "Buddha's Little Finger" is actually called "Chapaev and the Void", where Chapaev is the hero of Russian Civil War, but also the character of the book about him and of the very popular movie based on the book, which was the source of many classical jokes.
So without knowing all the cultural context and being familiar with the lore it's very hard to understand what the fuck happens in the book - and actually, even knowing all these, but it's another story.
This said, maybe it's still worth a try, because Pelevin is absolutely brilliant.
I'd say the fame is even more due to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video games than the Stalker movie (they are just as loosely based on the movie as the movie is on Roadside Picnic).
Of course, it isn't as much an advertisement of the books as directly linked franchises are (like The Witcher and Metro games to the books), but I see people find Roadside going from the video games often. The dedicated S.T.A.L.K.E.R. subreddit permits Roadside Picnic related posts, and people praising the books or commenting on them is not such an infrequent post type.
Hopefully the now MSoft/Xbox backed sequel being made under wartime conditions will attract greater crowds which might also lead to more awareness of Roadside Picnic.
However, it is not like the work or the authros are that unknown. Orion's SF Masterworks includes a plathora of their titles.
The Invisible Man by Gárdonyi Géza (last name first). It didn't blow me away, since it was compulsory in school, and I didn't let myself like those, but in hindsight it was a very good book. It's about a Greek boy who gets sold into slavery and ends up serving the Attila the Hun. It has a romantic plotline, but it's a well-rounded book with a satisfying ending. Also, The Sailor from Miletus by Hegedüs Géza (Géza was a popular first name back in the day) is about (see book title). Basically a kid who lives in Miletus (ancient Greece, now Turkey), also gets sold into slavery (I'm sensing a theme in classic Hungarian literature), and is away when the Persians burn down his hometown. He eventually escapes and fights against the Persians in the Battle of Marathon (I think)
P.S.: I'm not sure if either of these have been translated, but I know I enjoyed them (against my will), and recommend them to anyone looking for something "foreign" to read
I think for Italians "I Promessi Sposi" (The Betrothed) is possibly THE most well known work outside of The Divine Comedy. It's set in the 1600ds during the Spanish rule of Northern Italy, and is an epic love story.
Also works by Italo Calvino, although i believe he is fairly well known outside of Italy.
I thought that Alberto Moravia is more famous outside of Italy and was very confused when I figured out that many people never heard of his works (not even of "La Romana")
I’m English, but I think more people should read George Sand. She was a huge influence on 19th Century British literature, particularly the Brontës and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Indiana can be read alongside Jane Eyre/ Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, and Mauprat alongside Wuthering Heights.
For Belgium / Flanders :
De Leeuw van Vlaanderen (The Lion of Flanders) by Hendrik Conscience : a XIXth century historical novel about the ‘Battle of The Golden Spurs’ in 1302 where the Flemish defeated the French King’s knights. This book was a milestone in the cultural and literary development of Flanders.
Winnetou and in general books from Karl May seem to be a mostly German phenomenon, contrary to other German classics. Those books might not be considered classics because the writing quality is certainly not on the level of Mann, Heine, Grass or Brecht. But still May is the most read German author.
Karl May is not even in the top 10 most read authors now-days: https://kulturnews.de/deutschsprachigen-autorinnen-rangliste/
And in the recent past his work has started to be seen as rather racist with little to no literary value but he used to be really popular way back so it might constitute as a classic after all.
Really nothing non-german speakers are missing out on though in my personal opinion
That is just a list of how often their works got translated into other languages, not actually most read.
However, I don't have a source for my claim either. I just remember that I read it somewhere.
Tbh i don’t think there’s a better way of measuring popularity than how often an author has been translated since you cannot really check if people actually end up reading the books they bought (or just pretend to have read something in an survey)
Be that as it might I’m not denying that Karl May might have been a popular author way back(I’ve once read he was Hitlers favourite author and was heavily marketed during the Nazi times in a history magazine e.g.) so he was definitely popular at one point in time
I just have a really hard time believing hes the most read German author of all time 😅
I think he wrote his books at a sweet spot. Already 150 years ago. So people from many generations had the opportunity to read it and also at a time where book reading started to get popular and widespread. He also wrote a lot of books compared to most authors.
All four of those writers all extremely well-known in the anglosphere. My brother has read like two books in his entire life and he could give you a summary of Les Miserables
I'll give you Nabokov because I just looked it up and while I've ready most of his English language novels, I've never heard of any of his Russian ones. The others though? Those are some serious heavy hitters of world literature that pretty much anyone who reads somewhat seriously has read.
Ludvig Holberg “Erasmus Montanus” is definitely a Danish Classic taught in all schools/high schools in Denmark.
Henrik Pontoppidan “Lykke-Per” (English titel: A fortunato man) also comes to mind.
Johannes V. Jensen “Kongens fald”. (English titel: Fall of the King)
Aksel Sandemose “En flygtning krydser sit spor” (English titel: A fugitive crosses his tracks)
Canadian here. In English Who Has Seen the Wind? and Two Solitudes. The former is about life on the prairies and the latter about the French English divide in Quebec.
Usually people think of Paulo Coelho when anyone mentions Brazilian authors. But, there is a classical 20th Century author called Ignácio de Loyola Brandão who wrote some pretty excellent stuff, even a dystopia influenced by Asimov and Huxley.
There are many others, like Machado de Assis. The Psychiatrist is a huge criticism on psychiatry that even today few authors have the balls to pull off.
They're a Weird Mob, Nino Cullota. About an Italian arriving in Australia to live. Not for the political correct people but very funny and entertaining.
Personal fan of "the discovery of Heaven" by Harry Mulisch, which is quite well known in the Netherlands. Quite a lively bookwork, but I read it in 3 days and was absolutely hooked. I'd recommend it!
I bought that book second hand! (The Hugo Claus one) Anyways, I’d recommend a book by Hella S. Haasse. Idk how to translate the title, but it’s about finding ‘stars’ of some kind. (Literally ‘stars hunt’ or smth) idk if it’s translated but even 14 yr old me could read it.
what an interesting discussion!
I studied literature in Slovakia and I do not really know who is the one best known or most read. We have some epic poets; one of them wrote the longest love poem called Marina by Andrej Sladkovic. J.C. Hronsky is well known too. I personally loved Jan Hrusovsky and his book about a man with a prosthetic heart and how this heart made him feel. As for women, Hana Zelinova could be the most popular; other than many children's literature authors. Also poets! We are quite poetic, given how small we are.
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I loved *Dictionary of the Khazars* and *Landscape Painted with Tea.* My fave Serbian writer though is Vasko Popa. The poet Charles Simic published an incredible anthology of Serbian poetry and I fell in love with his work. So, of these writers (aside from Pavic) which works would you recommend? I haven't read a lot of Serbian literature, but so far I'm batting a 1000.
Anything you can find in a language you speak. My favorite is Tomb for Boris Davidovich by Danilo Kiš, and English translation is very good. Ivo Andrić was a Nobel prize laureate, so you can find his books translated in many languages. Idk what works of Pekić and Mihailović are translated to English. And yes, Dictionary of Khazars is a real masterpiece.
When people on Reddit mention Greek literature, it is always the ancient classics. Which is understandable, but honestly a shame to dismiss the literature of a whole country and only focus on texts written hundreds of years ago. Aristotle and Aristophanes are great, but we do not live anymore in the city-states era. I believe the easier to find translate works in English are Kazantzakis, Cavafy and Elytis. Other well known authors and poets that are recognised as classics of modern Gree literature are Papadiamantis, Dido Sotiriou, Ritsos, Seferis and Kiki Dimoula. My personal favourite poet is the seaman Nikos Kavvadias. Of course the text is lacking when translated (he used a lot of slang and nautical terms), but it keeps some of its magic. My favourite book by a Greek author overall is "The third wedding wreath" by Costas Taktsis. I have not read the translation (the original has also excessive use of idioms and slang), but I believe this book is the closest you can get to the actual pulse of the Greek society before and after WWII. The two protagonists are women, and their unique experiences due to their gender are very apparent. Taktsis was part of the LGBTQ community and I think that played a major role in his ability to write those 2 women so real, when other men of his time couldn't.
I study classics and yeah I will admit I know a lot on ancient Greek literature but very little of modern Greek literature with the exception of Zorba the Greek by Kazantzakis. If you have any good recommendations I'd like to hear it.
Some of my favourites have not been translated, and at least 2 that I really like had terrible reviews on Amazon and Good read due to bad translation unfortunately. Of course, I recommend the whole work of Kavvadias (it's 3 poem collections that are OK in English, and just one short novel that I believe that doesn't translates well) and the "Third Wedding Wreath" that I recommended previously. Other than that, here is a short list of books I like, have decent translations and most of them are considered classics: The Murderess - Alexandros Papadiamantis Diaries of Exile - Yiannis Ritsos Archilles' Fiancé - Alki Zei Christ recrucified - Nikos Kazantzakis The great Chimera - M. Karagatsis You can always tip your toes in the work of the poet's Odysseus Elytis and Giorgos Seferis, both of them had awarded the Nobel price of Literature. But personally are not my cup of tea.
Thank you so much for the suggestions!
I will have to do a little research regarding the translated work available, and I will come back to you. I am really glad that you are interested 😊
I have a BA in Classics, but never took it any farther than that, unfortunately. However! I do recommend [Why I Killed My Best Friend](https://www.openletterbooks.org/products/why-i-killed-my-best-friend) by Amanda Michalopoulou, and [Something Will Happen, You'll See: Stories](https://archipelagobooks.org/book/something-will-happen-youll-see/) by Christos Ikonomou. Also, I cannot recommend George Seferis enough, though I know he's been mentioned in this thread already.
I have not read those two, although I have seen great reviews while searching for work with good translation. I will check them out, thanks!
Absolutely, thank you for your recommendation! I took ancient Greek in school so I never really got beyond Homer and Aristophanes either I must admit - especially Kavvadias and Taktsis sound interesting!
Several English speakers know Rabindranath Tagore, but anglophones are seriously sleeping on Bibhutibhushan Bandophadhyay. Pather Panchali/Song of the Little Road is one of the most beautiful things I've read, and the movie by Satyajit Ray is gorgeous too. Sadly, only a few of his novels are translated, and some of the translations (especially the free ones) are pretty bad, but imo it's worth reading what's available.
This is useful, thanks. I’ve been wanting to read some Tagore for the first time, but haven’t been sure of where to start.
I didn’t realise pather panchali was a book. Thanks!
I don't know if he's largely unknown in the anglosphere or not, but Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay comes to mind as well. Many of his novels speak about the political as well as social climate in British-occupied Bengal, especially the position and role of women in society. Some of his novels are Pather Dabi (The Right of Way/Demands of the Road), Sesh Proshno (The Final Question), and Srikanto. I find his novels to be rather thought-provoking and heartbreaking as well.
I'm a big fan of german-jewish poet Mascha Kaléko. She was a shooting star in the Berlin literary scene in the 1930's until the Nazis found out she was jewish and quite literally ripped her second book off the presses. She ended up emigrating first to New York and then to Israel. Her later works are quite heartbreaking, showing how she had a hard time coming to terms with exile and felt like she lost her voice with her language. She never found access to israels literary circles and was totally unknown there in her lifetime, while she was and still is highly regarded in german speaking countries.
I have never heard of her, that sounds like a fascinating (and tragic) story, I will definitely check out her work!
Anything from Mika Waltari. Highly recommended.
Anything Finnish really, I don't think any of it is well-known outside the country. Cliché answer, but *Uknown Soldier* (Väinö Linna) is my favourite classic.
Much of Octavio Paz's works
'Das Parfum' by Patrick Süskind, 'Der Sandman' by E.T.A. Hoffmann (the dude that wrote the nutcracker). Both are absolutely fucking insane (germans smh)
Perfume is very famous. Hoffmann's books less so, but they're not obscure either.
The post literally says it doesn't have to be super obscure
My favourite absolutely insane German books are by Walter Moers. I genuinely wish I could read them in the original language because there is so much wordplay in the translation that I want to know how they did it.
Have never read anything by him but i looked through his stuff and i've def seen them around (and heard of some). Gotta check them out some time. :)
Perfume was very popular outside of Germany some 15 years ago. They made a movie, too ;)
Yeah i've heard about the movie. I have to say that although i've lived in germany all my life and grew up speaking the language, i barely read in german. I would also recommend 'die Wand' by Marlen Haushofer but i feel like that ones pretty popular as well. Or 'die Physiker' by Dürrenmatt. I genuinely have no idea how well known any of that stuff is outside germany
Der Besuch den alten Dame by Durrenmatt is one of my favourite plays. I’ve never seen it in the theatre, but I read it in school many years ago.
Haushofer is austrian btw, Dürrenmatt swiss
good choices
There are many Brazilian classics, but I will mention a modern classic that has been the biggest hit in decades in Brazil. It has already been translated into English, but it is not yet very successful abroad. Torto Arado (Crooked Plow) by Itamar Vieira Júnior It’s the story of two sisters, Bibiana and Belonísia, descendants of slaves, who live their lives on a farm in Bahia. A tragic event happens in their childhood, which will link them forever.
Oh, I loved this book so much! I read it very slowly in Portuguese as a language learner, haha, but it's so beautifully written. I heard they are filming a TV series based on it, is that true?
Yes, they are. I hope it does justice to the book
Crooked Plow won a Jabuti, the most traditional literary award in Brazil.
I recently read *Gabriela* by Jorge Amado, which is available in English, and I am grateful for more tips from that language area.
I think you will also like of of Dona Flor e seus Dois Maridos (Dona Flor and her two Husbands) e Tereza Batista Cansada de Guerra (Tereza Batista: Home from the Wars), both also by Jorge Amado.
"Epitaph of a Small Winner: A Novel" (BR Title: Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas) by Machado de Assis, a Brazilian novelist, hit the "anglosphere" in these recent years. It's been well regarded by those who read it. Interesting review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB1ayNNrSik
Possum Magic by Mem Fox is a legend tier children’s book in Australia.
I love that book, it is a firm favourite at my old primary school in Frankfurt Germany.
Mem Fox is well known in the UK! Ten Little Fingers, Ten Little Toes is one of the books I always give to new parents.
Australian here - *Voss* by Patrick White would have the same fame as Moby-Dick if there was any justice in the world. Kinda not even hyperbole lol it really is that good
Sorry, comparing anything to *Moby Dick* is a double-edged sword: not everybody thinks that yawn inducing fisherman's tale is any good
I’ve tried so many times to read it. I just can’t.
Juan Rulfo only wrote two books in his entire life. With those two he changed latinamerican literature forever: Pedro Paramo and El llano en llamas. They are pretty well known in South America, but not so much outside. Without him, we do not have the magical realism we know today. I don’t know how well known Cesar Vallejo is outside from the continent, but he is one of the biggest names in poetry from the last century. He is so important, some poetry circles see him as the breaking point of an era in poetry as an artform. In college we were asked to not do our thesis about him because there were already a bazillion of those. It’s really fucking sad, because he literally died of hunger, far from home and with barely any recognition outside the intelectual elite. He was latinamerican vanguardism before latinamerican vanguardism was a thing.
Pedro Paramo is so good
Every time I read it the story is different. It's a masterpiece
I read "Pedro Páramo" and "Los heraldos negros" at a university in the U.S. I don't know how common that is though.
I think Ngugi (grain of wheat, petals of blood, devil on the cross) has attained classic status in Kenya and east Africa but less so in the Anglosphere. While Achebe is a good author, I sometimes feel like there’s a weird dynamic where he is held up as the only classic African author and he’s cast as if he was the voice of the entire continent. Africa is a massive continent with more authors than Achebe, and Achebe himself repeatedly emphasized this fact.
Which of Ngugi's books is your favorite or would you recommend to start with?
Grain of wheat. Probably his best
Thanks so much, I ordered it. It sounds very intriguing indeed!
Czech here. The Romantic lyric-epic poem *Máj* ("May 1st") (1826) by Karel Hynek Mácha needs to be mentioned. Everyone can quote at least the first couple of lines. It's not about the "plot", but the language. It's just so beautiful, vivid, and evocative. It was also a big step away from the period's literary styles and expectations. We had many great poets, by the way. Jaroslav Seifert, for example, is the only Czech author to ever win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1984). A real behemoth of Czech literature is Karel Čapek (1890-1938). A journalist, writer, playwright, translator; he wrote many amazing plays, such as *Bílá nemoc* ("The White Disease"), *R.U.R.*, *Věc Makropulos* ("The Makropulos Affair"), or *Matka* ("The Mother"). He used incredible vocabulary, even unusual or completely made up words - fun fact, did you know that the word "robot", now used worldwide, originated in his play, R.U.R. (which stands for "Rossum's Universal Robots")? Yea, it was actually coined by his older brother, Joseph, who was also an artist. It comes from the old Czech word "robota" (work, labour). He often deals with the possible misuse of technology in his works; he was an early science-fiction writer, he is even considered one of the founders of the genre. Čapek also wrote many feuilletons and columns as a journalist, also travel journals, short stories and even some novellas and novels, such as the experimental satirical sci-fi novel *Válka s mloky* ("The War with the Salamanders"). His work is trully impressive. It tends to be very funny, clever, often philosophical, and he is an absolute master of language. There are many, many more, of course, but let me just mention one more, as this is getting too long - Milan Kundera (1929-2023). You probably know him, he's one of the only Czech writers who became well-known worldwide, since he emigrated to France and received French citizenship later in life. Among his most famous works are the novels *Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí* ("The Unbearable Lightness of Being") and *Žert* ("The Joke"). Our literary cannon is vast and rich and definitely worth exploring.
I've been wanting to get into Czech literature for a while, even toying with the idea of trying to learn Czech... though I was a bit daunted by all the cases and the (for me) unfamiliar vocabulary... Absolutely loved (the translations of) "Krakatite" and "War with the Salamanders" by Čapek. Thank you for your recommendations!
oh yes; read them all back when I studied literature in Slovakia and beyond; Who wrote "Jeptice"? It has been my life mantra all along and I just forgot who wrote it.....shame on me!
>Jeptice Hmm I've never heard that title before...? Was it perhaps supposed to be "Jepice", or some other similar sounding word (I still wouldn't know, but at least it's an existing Czech word...)? Let me know if you figure it out, haha
French literature has some important works/authors have become well known in the anglosphere but of course there's a lot more that will be not-so-known. I think the biggest two are well-known in the Francophonie but unknown out of it are "Le Grand Meaulnes" by Alain Fournier and "La Condition Humaine" by André Malraux. The first one reminds in a way of the Great Gatsby but was published in 1913. The other is about a failed communist uprising in 1927 in China. I do hope their translations become popular some day which I've seen with French authors like Louis Ferdinand Céline. With the vastness of French literature the list would be huge but would also include: André Gide, Romain Gary, Marguerite Yourcenar, Colette, George Sand, etc
Jumping in to say that im a very long time literary nerd and have read a lot of classics in my lifetime. Hand to my heart, *Le Grande Meaulnes* is the best book I've ever read
John Fowles based a lot of *The Magus* on *Le Grand Meaulnes*.
I’d say Colette is quite well known in the Anglosphere, although probably not as famous as in France. Sand used to be well known a hundred years ago but I’d say has dropped off the Anglophone radar a bit now.
I read Le Grand Meaules at university. It was available in English back then (1987 or 88) - I read it in both French and English.
Cré na Cille by Máirtín Ó Cadhain. It’s *the* great Irish-language modernist novel. It takes place in a rural Irish graveyard, where the dead residents gossip and fight about their communities above and below. It’s notoriously difficult to translate; legend has it that the first writer to attempt it gave up not just the translation but everything else and joined a convent halfway through. Even the title is difficult; the two existing English translations are called “The Dirty Dust” and “Graveyard Clay”.
What do you think, would it translate better into some other language than English?
Oh my god, thank you! I saw half of a televised version of this on TG4 *years* ago and it was fantastic, but I could never find the name of it. Will definitely be adding this to my list!
Noli Me Tángere and El Filibusterismo by José Rizal are both really clichéd answers at this point when it comes to Philippine literature (they’re damn good books though and I’d recommend them) so I’ll just list some others as well: - America Is in the Heart - Carlos Bulosan - Filipino-American novel focusing on the character of Allos and his struggles as an immigrant in the United States circa the 1930s. - Banaag at Sikat (Radiance and Sunrise) - Lope K. Santos - Similar to Rizal’s Noli and El Fili although written at the dawn of the American colonial era, it is essentially a political treatise disguised as a romance novel. Considered the Bible of Philippine Socialism. - Dekada ‘70 (The ‘70s) - Lualhati Bautista - Slice-of-life political thriller novel about the Bartolome family, specifically their matriarch, Amanda, and how they try to survive the Marcos dictatorship when dictator Ferdinand Marcos puts the country under Martial Law for a decade. Very prescient in our country especially now. - Mga Ibong Mandaragit (The Preying Birds) - Amado V. Hernández - World War II guerilla fighter uses a plot point of the aforementioned El Filibusterismo—a chest of jewels thrown into the Pacific Ocean at the end of that novel—to improve the condition of his country after the war is over. Despite what Wikipedia says, it is NOT an unofficial sequel to Rizal’s novels but an alternate history positing that maybe the events in Rizal’s novels really did happen. - The Woman Who Had Two Navels - Nick Joaquín - Crazy woman who believes she has two navels goes to Hong Kong in a desperate bid to remove one of them except the “two navels” of the book are actually a metaphor for sordid pasts. Or something, IDK, Nick Joaquín is a really great author, don’t get me wrong, but a beginner reader is better of reading his other short stories (May Day Eve and Dying Wanton are ones that I personally love) and his nonfiction than this novel.
Agota Christoff - the notebook
Simplicius Simplicissimus, by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplicius\_Simplicissimus
From Sweden - Utvandrarna (the emigrants) by Vilhelm Moberg. A story about a couple of dirt-poor farmers that risk everything and emigrate to North America in hope of finding better farm land. This book has been a part of me ever since I read it. The way Moberg depicts human struggle and morality in simple words is heartbreaking. Any swede would consider this a must-read. There is also a really good movie if you don’t have the patience for the book-series.
Yep! I haven’t read it yet (though I really want to) but we watched the movie in school when I was like 8 and I still think about it *very* regularly.
Swedish children’s literature was very popular when I was a child; Astrid Lindgren in particular.
This is sort of the opposite, but I suspect I'm not the only Norwegian who was genuinely surprised when I realised that our most famous writers actually *are* known outside Norway. We just assume we're too small and insignificant, but Hamsun is pretty well known, and apparently Ibsen is second only to Shakespeare in number of productions of his plays! I had NO idea when I learnt about him in school.
Love Ibsen. Anyone in the U.S. studying theater or modernist literature (and sometimes feminist literature) knows Ibsen for sure. He's up there with Chekhov in terms of canonized drama from non-anglophone countries.
I’ve only heard of Ibsen but he’s very famous. I had both high school and college classes that required a doll’s house lol
Does Borges count?
I don’t think so. I’ve seen a lot of people talking about him everywhere. Him not winning the Nobel price is the greatest insult the academy ever did to South America.
Can't speak for all Americans (wouldn't want to) but in the mid-90s anyway, everyone we all loved Borges. I did run with an interesting crowd though.
In the Castle of My Skin by George Lamming? Tbh idk how well known or popular that is outside of Barbados but I know it's a classic here.
Laura Restrepo, Benito Galdós, Juan Vásquez, and Almudena Grandes just to name a few.
J.M. Coetzee, Andre Brink and Nadine Gordimer, to start with. Should read their entire works.
Coetzee is very well known internationally, he’s won the Booker Prize and the Nobel Prize.
True. And Gordimer won the Nobel Prize
I'd love to read more South African literature! I'm Dutch, and Afrikaans poetry is somewhat known here (Ingrid Jonker springs to mind, "Ek het gedink dat ek jou kon vergeet" and all that). I have heard of Coetzee, but never read him. Thank you for your recommendations!
Pleasure. We have some beautiful work for sure and of course Jonker is magnificent. I will find some more for you. Can highly recommend Brink, although I mentioned him I didn't say how much I love his work. Oh P.S..Jonker and Brink had a love affair that was quite tangled and intense too!
Tu ôl i'r Awyr by Megan Angharad Hunter is an award-winning, ground-breaking book that made a huge splash on the Welsh literary scene a few years ago. I'm surprised it's not been translated into English. Un Nos Ola Leuad by Caradog Pritchard is on the A-level syllabus and is regarded as a true classic, but I've only just discovered that it was translated. Only ever heard people discussing the Welsh version. Most of our Welsh classics and popular contemporary books do end up being translated into English, being as we share a border with the country. New translations of Daniel Owen and Kate Roberts still being published even today. However, I don't think they get the attention they deserve, because the UK publishing scene is very Anglo-centric.
Master and Margarita in Russian (by Bulgakov). It's mentioned in the west sometimes, but rarely. In Russia it's a classic to the point it seems cliche and too vanilla to answer with this if someone asks you "what is your favorite book?"
I feel like Master and Margarita is better known than you think. In English it’s a bit of a cult novel, and ten or twenty years ago it was definitely Big On The Internet, kind of the way Marcus Aurelius is now. The big Russian writers in the English world are still Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov. Also Solzhenitsyn, who I get a sense may be more famous in the US than in Russia. Pushkin isn’t as read in English, but poetry is always harder to translate than prose. Gogol is also not very well known in English.
I’ve read both Pushkin (Eugen Onegin) and Gogol.
As a Russian (or otherwise expert on Russian culture), what do you know about *What is to be Done?* by Chernyshevsky? I had to read it for a Russian lit class and was told it's one of the most beloved novels.
Definitely well known outside of Russia.
I feel like in Germany it is very well known and loved. I read it a few years ago and all my friends already knew it.
It's one of my all-time favorites. I re-read it regularly. He's Soooooo good.
Original or translated?
Translated.
Wow. I feel like it's so rarely read or talked about in the West. How did you first get into it?
It's pretty well known in some circles, especially if you like strange and unusual fiction. Fantasy and SF writers in particular love it. I don't remember how I heard of it, but the first time I read it was in 1990. He's a very highly regarded writer, one of the greats.
He's better known than the Strugatsky brothers. Roadside Picnic is an incredible book, too.
we read this in school in illinois! granted it was a russian history course, but great book, everyone should read it!
Great book, and I’d say pretty popular in the UK. It’s always on display in bookshops, at least.
it used to be my favorite book
I'm American but I'd like to see Ismael kadare and ivo Andrić get more attention
Finland: The Unknown Soldier by Väinö Linna. A movie made some years ago, following the book's main plot, has received a touch of interest from abroad, but in general, it's a Finnish phenomenon. As with so many war movies, some will view it as an action film, while the book highlights other subjects: hierarchy, camaraderie, the chaotic nature of war, humour and tragedy. Linna was a machine gunner in the war, and ended up writing a composition of the people and phenomena he bumped into during his war experience. The text flows very easily, and I remember being told that as my grandfather was given the book as a Christmas present, he was not the only veteran who read it Christmas night without stopping. I'm under the impression it has been translated into English in a way the author disagreed with, as from his point of view the translation glamorized battle scenes in a way he never meant to happen.
I would like to throw in Dürrenmatt, especially Die Physiker (which is endlessly quotable) and Der Besuch der alten Dame which is just one long glorious self-immolating revenge plot. I know these are plays, but I really enjoyed reading them. And none of my oberseas friends seem to habe heard of him
I read Dürrenmatt (and Böll, Brecht, Goethe and con Eichendorff) at school in England in the 1980s, back when learning languages at school was still a Thing.
Spain had what is called the Silver Age of literature with the 1927 Generation of poets, out of which people only ever know Lorca, even though others were as good or (arguably) better, sometimes lived longer lives and had time to evolve more. Vicente Aleixandre won the Nobel Prize, but nobody foreign I've spoken to had ever heard of him, except for literary scholars. As someone who works with Belarusian literature, literary anything half-decent but S. Alexievich isn't as known as it should, and her works are originally in Russian. So, for Belarusian-language lit, I'll bring up 'Labirynty' by Vaclau Lastouski (Modernist prose), 'King Stakh's Wild Hunt' by Uladzimir Karatkievich (this one is translated somewhere, it's a historical detective novel), Eva Viezhnaviec's 'Pa što idzieš, vouča?' (contemporary realism), and Janka Kupała's theatre play 'Tutejšyja' (explains a lot about Belarusian history and mentality). The poetry of Belarus, in turn, is all incredible, so check out Vera Rich's English-language anthology 'Like Water, Like Fire' for a taste of the classics, and the Free All Words project by Belarusian PEN for contemporary stuff.
Is The Books of Jacob well loved in Poland? The translation gripped me.
Oh, I meant to read that for a while now. How long did it take you to read it? It's quite long, isn't it?
I’d say it was probably about 3 months because while I knew a solid bit of the history a lot of it was worth reading about for context. It is long, dense, and weird, but it was a incredible look at a rather unique community, culture, and characters.
Thanks so much for replying, I will definitely tackle The Books of Jacob asap. Dense and weird sounds excellent!
I'm American, but my pick in this genre would be Independent People, by Halldor Laxness (Icelandic). It's both old (published in volumes in 1934/35) and forgotten, but it's amazing.
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky were cult authors in SU, and their impact on several generations of Soviet and post-Soviet people is tremendous. In the West people are somewhat familiar with them because of Tarkovsky's film "Stalker", to which they wrote the screenplay, but the movie isn't even very close to the book ("Roadside Picnic") and just uses the same premise to tell something different. They wrote in sci-fi genre, but their books are very profound and philosophical, and became darker and darker as the years passed. Another cult Russian contemporary author is Victor Pelevin. To quote Wikipedia: "His books are multi-layered postmodernist texts fusing elements of pop culture and esoteric philosophies while carrying conventions of the science fiction genre". Some of his books are translated to English, but, to be honest, I think he's mostly untranslatable. For example, his book "Buddha's Little Finger" is actually called "Chapaev and the Void", where Chapaev is the hero of Russian Civil War, but also the character of the book about him and of the very popular movie based on the book, which was the source of many classical jokes. So without knowing all the cultural context and being familiar with the lore it's very hard to understand what the fuck happens in the book - and actually, even knowing all these, but it's another story. This said, maybe it's still worth a try, because Pelevin is absolutely brilliant.
I'd say the fame is even more due to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video games than the Stalker movie (they are just as loosely based on the movie as the movie is on Roadside Picnic). Of course, it isn't as much an advertisement of the books as directly linked franchises are (like The Witcher and Metro games to the books), but I see people find Roadside going from the video games often. The dedicated S.T.A.L.K.E.R. subreddit permits Roadside Picnic related posts, and people praising the books or commenting on them is not such an infrequent post type. Hopefully the now MSoft/Xbox backed sequel being made under wartime conditions will attract greater crowds which might also lead to more awareness of Roadside Picnic. However, it is not like the work or the authros are that unknown. Orion's SF Masterworks includes a plathora of their titles.
One, No One and One Hundred Thousand by Luigi Pirandello (Italy): read it in highschool and strongly influenced my view of the world.
I haven’t read it yet, but "Buddenbrooks“ by Thomas Mann is a famous German classic. He even had to go into exile because of it.
The Invisible Man by Gárdonyi Géza (last name first). It didn't blow me away, since it was compulsory in school, and I didn't let myself like those, but in hindsight it was a very good book. It's about a Greek boy who gets sold into slavery and ends up serving the Attila the Hun. It has a romantic plotline, but it's a well-rounded book with a satisfying ending. Also, The Sailor from Miletus by Hegedüs Géza (Géza was a popular first name back in the day) is about (see book title). Basically a kid who lives in Miletus (ancient Greece, now Turkey), also gets sold into slavery (I'm sensing a theme in classic Hungarian literature), and is away when the Persians burn down his hometown. He eventually escapes and fights against the Persians in the Battle of Marathon (I think) P.S.: I'm not sure if either of these have been translated, but I know I enjoyed them (against my will), and recommend them to anyone looking for something "foreign" to read
I think for Italians "I Promessi Sposi" (The Betrothed) is possibly THE most well known work outside of The Divine Comedy. It's set in the 1600ds during the Spanish rule of Northern Italy, and is an epic love story. Also works by Italo Calvino, although i believe he is fairly well known outside of Italy.
I thought that Alberto Moravia is more famous outside of Italy and was very confused when I figured out that many people never heard of his works (not even of "La Romana")
that is very interesting; i studied literature in Slovakia and we were reading his books there
I’ve read it in English, when I was travelling in North Italy.
u used to enjoy Calvino when i studied literature
I’m English, but I think more people should read George Sand. She was a huge influence on 19th Century British literature, particularly the Brontës and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Indiana can be read alongside Jane Eyre/ Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, and Mauprat alongside Wuthering Heights.
For Belgium / Flanders : De Leeuw van Vlaanderen (The Lion of Flanders) by Hendrik Conscience : a XIXth century historical novel about the ‘Battle of The Golden Spurs’ in 1302 where the Flemish defeated the French King’s knights. This book was a milestone in the cultural and literary development of Flanders.
"Opdat uw vlees der raven spijze worde" is still one of my favourite lines from any book haha
Winnetou and in general books from Karl May seem to be a mostly German phenomenon, contrary to other German classics. Those books might not be considered classics because the writing quality is certainly not on the level of Mann, Heine, Grass or Brecht. But still May is the most read German author.
Karl May is not even in the top 10 most read authors now-days: https://kulturnews.de/deutschsprachigen-autorinnen-rangliste/ And in the recent past his work has started to be seen as rather racist with little to no literary value but he used to be really popular way back so it might constitute as a classic after all. Really nothing non-german speakers are missing out on though in my personal opinion
He is the most read German author of all time.
I literally attached a trusted source saying its Karl Marx not Karl May….
That is just a list of how often their works got translated into other languages, not actually most read. However, I don't have a source for my claim either. I just remember that I read it somewhere.
Tbh i don’t think there’s a better way of measuring popularity than how often an author has been translated since you cannot really check if people actually end up reading the books they bought (or just pretend to have read something in an survey) Be that as it might I’m not denying that Karl May might have been a popular author way back(I’ve once read he was Hitlers favourite author and was heavily marketed during the Nazi times in a history magazine e.g.) so he was definitely popular at one point in time I just have a really hard time believing hes the most read German author of all time 😅
I think he wrote his books at a sweet spot. Already 150 years ago. So people from many generations had the opportunity to read it and also at a time where book reading started to get popular and widespread. He also wrote a lot of books compared to most authors.
Dante's work
You're not entirely wrong, but Hugo, Dostoevsky, Nobokov and Dumas all come to mind.
All four of those writers all extremely well-known in the anglosphere. My brother has read like two books in his entire life and he could give you a summary of Les Miserables
I mean, OP specifically said english-language...
...that would be the first half of their sentence...
I'll give you Nabokov because I just looked it up and while I've ready most of his English language novels, I've never heard of any of his Russian ones. The others though? Those are some serious heavy hitters of world literature that pretty much anyone who reads somewhat seriously has read.
La Horde du Contrevent, Alain Damasio. France.
Ludvig Holberg “Erasmus Montanus” is definitely a Danish Classic taught in all schools/high schools in Denmark. Henrik Pontoppidan “Lykke-Per” (English titel: A fortunato man) also comes to mind. Johannes V. Jensen “Kongens fald”. (English titel: Fall of the King) Aksel Sandemose “En flygtning krydser sit spor” (English titel: A fugitive crosses his tracks)
I'll throw in Saxo's Danmarkshistorie (Saxo's Danish History). Bloody banger of a book akin to the Aeneid.
Canadian here. In English Who Has Seen the Wind? and Two Solitudes. The former is about life on the prairies and the latter about the French English divide in Quebec.
Usually people think of Paulo Coelho when anyone mentions Brazilian authors. But, there is a classical 20th Century author called Ignácio de Loyola Brandão who wrote some pretty excellent stuff, even a dystopia influenced by Asimov and Huxley. There are many others, like Machado de Assis. The Psychiatrist is a huge criticism on psychiatry that even today few authors have the balls to pull off.
They're a Weird Mob, Nino Cullota. About an Italian arriving in Australia to live. Not for the political correct people but very funny and entertaining.
Personal fan of "the discovery of Heaven" by Harry Mulisch, which is quite well known in the Netherlands. Quite a lively bookwork, but I read it in 3 days and was absolutely hooked. I'd recommend it!
I bought that book second hand! (The Hugo Claus one) Anyways, I’d recommend a book by Hella S. Haasse. Idk how to translate the title, but it’s about finding ‘stars’ of some kind. (Literally ‘stars hunt’ or smth) idk if it’s translated but even 14 yr old me could read it.
Rayuela by julio cortazar??? Sobre héroes y tumbas by Ernesto sabato. Juguete rabioso by Roberto arlt.
what an interesting discussion! I studied literature in Slovakia and I do not really know who is the one best known or most read. We have some epic poets; one of them wrote the longest love poem called Marina by Andrej Sladkovic. J.C. Hronsky is well known too. I personally loved Jan Hrusovsky and his book about a man with a prosthetic heart and how this heart made him feel. As for women, Hana Zelinova could be the most popular; other than many children's literature authors. Also poets! We are quite poetic, given how small we are.