recommendations for worldwide literature

As the title says, talk about literature you like from around the world. You can mention anything, novels, poetry, short stories, plays, biographies, the entire works by a certain writer, etc. Just a couple things:

• No more than 1 English or US-born writer per every five from anywhere else, to avoid this list becoming "Shakespeare, Hemingway, Tolkien, Orwell, JK Rowling, GRR Martin, and maybe Homer or Borges" I'd like to hear recommendations from around the world, not the same books every "top-ten books" list written in English mentions. An exception to this is if the book was originally written in a language different to English.
• Try to say what you like about the book or writer.
• I'm not just asking for the greatest (or most commonly agreed to be greatest) writers from any country, if you feel like recommending a book written by a friend that you truly believe to be awesome, go ahead.

To start-off, here's one recommendation.

• "Los Electrocutados": An extremely bizarre book written by Argentinian writer J. P. Zooey, to quote myself from the "most bizarre books you've ever read" thread: "It's about a professor who is trying to discover the phrase the solar system is saying. It has stuff like proving how cats are creatures colonized by aliens [...]", it parodies popular science and sci-fi books, and it has a couple of stories-within-a-story. As far as I know, it's not even available in english. Quite entertaining if you like bizarre stuff.

edited 6th Sep '15 6:58:43 AM by IFwanderer

I remember when I was a writer at essaywritersonline.org I came across an assignment on Ukrainian literature, in particular Kaidash's Family by Ivan Nechuy-Levetsky. I didn't even know who he was so I ha to google it, and getting the book was hard, but worth it. It the most hilarious book I've ever read. It's easy to read. And it is about two sons trying to divide their father assets and I especially love the ending. If you happen to come across this book, read it.

edited 7th Sep '15 11:55:06 PM by JohanH

Cool, I'll keep it in mind.

Jo Nesbø's Harry Hole books have to be way up there. All of them were published in a language other than English, Norwegian to be exact, and they've got pretty good rep as crime thrillers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Nesb%C3%B8 - for the writer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Hole - for the character of the books.

I'll try to write a list of ten authors from different countries:

• Stanislaw Lem (Poland): His most well-known work is Solaris. One of my favourite science fiction authors for his ability to describe the alien and tendency to explore philosophy.
• Georges Perec (France): A member of the experimental Oulipo movement. His books are highly structured and exceedingly odd. Recommended work: Life, a User's Manual.
• Italo Calvino (Italy): Another Oulipo member. Calvino is one of my two favourite authors: endlessly inventive, with a gift for reimagining the everyday and past works in whimsical ways. He also writes fantastic meta-fiction. Recommended work: If on a winter's night a traveller.
• Julio Cortazar (Argentina): The author of my favourite novel, Hopscotch. The novel follows the existential journey of "writer" Horacio Oliveira and his interactions with his muse, La Maga.
• Kazuo Ishiguro (Japan): Ishiguro is a master of writing what I call "beautiful sorrow". His works are always very subtle, with a sense of wistfulness for the characters. His work features an odd blend of English and Japanese influences. Recommended work: The Remains of the Day.
• Salman Rushdie (India): I confess I didn't like Midnight's Children very much, but The Ground Beneath Her Feet is probably the best magical realism I've ever read.
• Louis Cha (Hong Kong): His Wuxia novels are the best. My favourite is The Duke of Deer Mountain for its unconventional protagonist and humour. Sadly difficult to find English translations.
• Vladimir Nabokov (Russia): Nabokov is unusual in having written successfully in both English and Russian. His prose is incomparable in its beauty. Recommendation: Lolita.
• J.M. Coetzee (South Africa): Disgrace is widely known. I started, but haven't finished, reading Foe, which is quite different to Disgrace's starkness.
• Henning Mankell (Sweden): Rounding out the list with depressing Scandinavian crime fiction. I discovered Mankell's Wallander series through the BBC adaptation.

Interesting. I was already thinking about checking out Nabokov and Calvino, and I have Hopscotch, which I'm going to read as soon as I'm finished with the stuff I have to do for college. The Oulipo movement seems interesting so I'll be putting Perec on my list.

I've loved Calvino's Italian Folktales since I was a teeny tiny girl-child and while that's exactly what it is—200 fairly short folktales in a single volume—I'd like to rec that. Good for light reading, and some stories that are familiar and yet not quite the same all at once....and some that are just plain bizarre. Good mix of silly, happy endings, dark, whatever you want really.

Great.