The Best novels of the 20th century

The Best Novels of the 20th Century

(Only one novel per writer, in chronological order)
(This page is updated more frequently and generally more reliable.)

Thomas Mann (Germany): "Buddenbrooks" (1901)

Henry James (USA): "The Golden Bowl" (1904)

Joseph Conrad (Britain): "Nostromo" (1904)

Luigi Pirandello (Italy): "The Late Mattia Pascal" (1904)

Edward-Morgan Forster (Britain): "Howards End" (1910)

Boris Bugayev "Andrey Bely" (Russia): "Petersburg" (1912)

Franz Kafka (Austria): "The Trial" (1915)

James Joyce (Ireland): "Ulysses" (1922)

Marcel Proust (France): "In Search of Lost Time" (1922)

Italo Svevo (Italy): "Zeno's Conscience" (1923)

Andre' Gide (France): "The Counterfeiters" (1925)

Francis-Scott Fitzgerald (USA): "The Great Gatsby" (1925)

Arthur Schnitzler: "Traumnovelle/ Dream Story" (1925)

Virginia Woolf (Britain): "To the Lighthouse" (1927)

Julien Green (France): "Adrienne Mesurat" (1927)

Mihail Sadoveanu (Romania): "Ancuta's Inn" (1928)

Stanislaw Witkiewicz (Poland): "Insatiability" (1930)

Vladislav Vancura (Czech): "Marketa Lazarova" (1931)

Louis-Ferdinand Celine (France): "Journey to the End of the Night" (1932)

William Faulkner (USA): "Light in August" (1932)

Joseph Roth (Austria): "Radetskymarsch" (1932) ++

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (Spain): "San Manuel Bueno Martir" (1933)

Robert Musil (Austria): "The Man Without Qualities" (1933)

Karel Capek (Czech): "An Ordinary Life" (1934)

Elias Canetti (Germany): "Auto Da Fe" (1935)

Flann O'Brien (Ireland): "At Swim-two-birds" (1939)

Mikhail Bulgakov (Russia): "The Master and Margarita" (1940)

Albert Camus (France): "The Stranger" (1942)

Hermann Broch (Austria): "The Death of Virgil" (1945)

Julien Gracq (France): "A Dark Stranger" (1945)

Malcolm Lowry (Britain): "Under the Volcano" (1947)

Junichiro Tanizaki (Japan): "Makioka Sisters" (1948)

Cesare Pavese (Italy): "The Moon and the Bonfires" (1950)

Alejo Carpentier (Cuba): "The Lost Steps" (1953)

Rafael Sanchez-Ferlosio (Spain): "The River El Jarama" (1955)

William Gaddis (USA): "The Recognitions" (1955)

Elsa Morante (Italy): "Arthur's Island" (1957)

Patrick White (Australia): "Voss" (1957)

Wilson Harris (Guyana): "Palace of the Peacock" (1960)

Ernesto Sabato (Argentina): "Of Heroes and Tombs" (1961)

Hugo Claus (Belgium): "Amazement" (1962)

Carlos Fuentes (Mexico): "The Death of Artemio Cruz" (1962)

Doris Lessing (Zimbabwe, 1919): "The Golden Notebook" (1962)

Beppe Fenoglio (Italy): "A Private Question" (1963)

CarloEmilio Gadda (Italy): "Acquainted with Grief" (1963)

Ismail Kadare (Albania): "The General of the Dead Army" (1963)

Janet Frame (New Zealand): "Scented Gardens For The Blind" (1963)

Julio Cortazar (Argentina): "Hopscotch" (1963)

Saul Bellow (USA): "Herzog" (1964)

John Barth (USA): "Giles Goat Boy" (1966)

Jose Lezama-Lima (Cuba): "Paradise" (1966)

Miguel Delibes (Spain): "Five Hours with Mario" (1966)

Gabriel Garcia-Marquez (Colombia): "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (1967)

Milan Kundera (Czech): "The Joke" (1967)

Vladimir Nabokov (Russia): "Ada" (1969)

Mario Vargas-Llosa (Peru): "Conversacion en la Catedral" (1969)

Michel Tournier (France): "The Ogre" (1970)

Jose Donoso (Chile, 1925): "El Obsceno Pajaro de la Noche/ Obscene Bird of Night" (1970)

Danilo Kis (Serbia): "Hourglass" (1972)

Thomas Pynchon (USA): "Gravity's Rainbow" (1973)

Andreas Embirikos (Greece): "The Great Eastern" (1975)

Imre Kertesz (Hungary): "Fateless" (1975)

Juan Goytisolo (Spain): "Juan the Landless" (1975)

Thomas Bernhard (1931): "Korrektur/ Correction" (1975)

Sasha Sokolov (Canada): "School For Fools" (1976)

Bohumil Hrabal (Czech): "Prilis Hlucna Samota/ Too Loud a Solitude (1976)

Barbara Pym (Britain): "Quartet in Autumn" (1977)

Josef Skvorecky (Czech): "The Engineer of Human Souls" (1977)

Georges Perec (France): "La Vie Mode d'Emploi/ A User's Manual" (1978)

Cormac McCarthy (USA): "Suttree" (1979)

Italo Calvino (Italy): "If On a Winter's Night a Traveler" (1979)

Nadine Gordimer (South Africa): "Burger's Daughter" (1979)

Salman Rushdie (India): "Midnight's Children" (1980)

Elfriede Jelinek (Germany): "Die Ausgesperrten/ Wonderful Times" (1980)

German Espinosa (Colombia): "The Weaver of Crowns" (1982)

Uwe Johnson (Germany): "Jahrestage/ Anniversaries" (1983)

Jose Saramago (Portugal): "The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis" (1984)

Mahmud Dowlatabadi (Iran): "Kelidar" (1984)

Haruki Murakami (Japan): "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" (1985)

Laszlo Krasznahorkai (1954): "Satantango" (1985)

Peer Hultberg (Denmark): "Requiem" (1985)

Peter Carey (Australia, 1943): "Illywhacker" (1986)

Peter Nadas (1942): "Emlekiratok Konyve/ Book of Memoirs" (1986)

Joseph McElroy (USA): "Women and Men" (1987)

Milorad Pavic (Serbia): "Dictionary of the Khazars" (1988)

Xingjian Gao (China): "Soul Mountain" (1989)

Antonia Byatt (Britain): "Possession" (1990)

Agustina Bessa-Luis (Portugal): "Abraham's Valley" (1991)

(From this point on, it is very tentative)

Su Tong (China, 1963): "Wives and Concubines" (1990)
Abraham Yehoshua (Hebrew, 1936): "Mar Manni/ Mr Mani" (1990)
Dacia Maraini (1936): "La Lunga Vita Di Marianna Ucria" (1990)
Imre Kertesz (1929): "Kaddis a Meg Nem Szuletetett Gyermekert/ Kaddish for a Child not Born" (1990)
Jane Smiley (USA, 1950): "A Thousand Acres" (1991)
George Cusnarencu (Romania, 1951): "Dodecaedru" (1991)
Michael Ondaatje (Canada, 1943): "The English Patient" (1992)
Daniela Hodrova (Czech, 1946): "Theta/ Masks" (1992)
Andrzej Zaniewski (Poland, 1940): "Szczur/ Rat" (1993)
Vikram Seth (India, 1952): "A Suitable Boy" (1993)
Yoko Tawada (Japan, 1960): "Inu Muko Iri/ The Bridegroom Was a Dog" (1993)
Cesar Aira (Argentina): "Como me Hice Monja/ How I Became a Nun" (1993)
Amin Maalouf (France, 1949): "Le Rocher de Tanios" (1993)
Peer Hultberg (Denmark, 1935): "Byen Og Verden/ The City and the World" (1993)
Antonio Tabucchi (Italy, 1943): "Sostiene Pereira" (1994)
Vasily Aksjonov or Aksenov (Russia, 1932): "Moskovskaja Saga/ Generations of Winter" (1994)
Liudmila Petrushevskaia (Russia, 1938): "The Time: Night" (1994)
Jachym Topol (Czech, 1962): "Sestra/ Sister" (1994)
Herta Mueller (Germany, 1953): "Herztier/ Hearteater/ The Land of Green Plums" (1994)
Almudena Grandes (Spain, 1960): "Malena es un Nombre de Tango" (1994)
Winfried Georg Sebald (Germany, 1944): "Die Ringe des Saturn" (1995)
Andrei Makine (France, 1957): "Le Testament Francais" (1995)
Jon Fosse (Norway, 1959): "Melancholia I" (1995)
Kazuo Ishiguro (Britain, 1954): "The Unconsoled" (1995)
Assia Djebar (France, 1936): "Vaste Est la Prison" (1995)
Jon Fosse (Norway, 1959): "Melancholia I" (1995)
Alessandro Baricco (Italy, 1958): "Seta " (1996)
David Foster Wallace (USA, 1962): "Infinite Jest" (1996)
Olga Tokarczuk (Poland, 1962): "Prawiek i Inne Czasy/ Primeval and Other Times" (1996)
Mircea Nedelciu (Romania, 1950): "Tratament Fabulatoriu/ "Confambulatory Treatment" (1996)
Don DeLillo (USA, 1936): "Underworld" (1997)
Pal Zavada (Hungary, 1954): "Jadviga Parnaja/ Jadviga's Pillow" (1997)
Elfriede Jelinek (Germany, 1946): "Die Kinder der Toten" (1997)
Ian McEwan (Britain, 1948): "Amsterdam" (1998)
Ingo Schulze (Germany, 1962): "Simple Storys" (1998)
Xiaobin Xu (China, 1953): "Feathered Serpent" (1998)
Lidia Jorge (Portugal, 1946): "O Vale da Paixao" (1998)
Per-Olov Enquist (Sweden, 1934): "Livlakarens Besok/ The Royal Physician's Visit" (1999)
Antonio Skarmenta (Chile, 1940): "La Boda del Poeta" (1999)
Rhea Galanaki (Greece, 1947): "Eleni io Kanenas/ Eleni or Nobody" (1999)

Continues: The best novels of the 21st century