Dear members,
We have had quite a few lists of top books on LitNet, some from the canon, others based on members personal tastes, etc. I am, however, wondering if we can have an inclusive list of books of World Literature, classics or contemporary, old or new, either in translation or written directly in English?
In other words I'm looking for representative works from (non-West European/American) linguistic and cultural traditions available in English.
I have no claim to a comprehensive knowledge as to which authors or books should be included in such a list. I have some names/titles, which I am going to type out below, in no particular order, and I ask members to make their suggestions.
Please exclude Russian works as they are already well known to English audience. Also exclude scriptures, ie, Quran, Mahabharta, Ramayana, Analects, etc.
Thanks in advance.
Kalidasa - Shakuntala (Sanstrkit)
Jalaluddin Rumi - The Mathnavi (Persian)
Omar Khayyam -Rubaiyat (Persian)
Rabindranath Tagore - Geetanjali (Bengali)
Murasaki Shikibu - The Tale of Genji (Japanese)
Muhammad Hussain Jah - Hoshruba: The Land and the Tilism (Urdu)
Wu Cheng'en - Journey to the West (Chinese)
Naguib Mahfouz - Cairo Trilogy, other books (Arabic)
Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart (English, Nigeria)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude, others (Spanish, Colombia)
Tayeb Salih - Season of Migration to the North (Arabic, Sudan)
Mohsin Hamid - The Reluctant Fundamentalist (English, Pakistan)
Yasunari Kawabata - The Sound of the Mountain, Snow Country (Japanese)
Jorge Luis Borges - The Aleph (Spanish, Argentina)
Mo Yan - Red Shorghum (Chinese)
Khalil Gibran - The Prophet, The Broken Wings (English, Arabic)
Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy (English, India)
Khushwant Singh - Delhi (English, India)
Richard Burton (translator) - A Thousand and One Nights (Arabic)
Lu Xun - Diary of a Madman and Other Stories (Chinese)
Orhan Pamuk - My Name is Red, The Black book (Turkish)
Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being, other books (Czech)
Saadat Hasan Manto - Collected Stories (Urdu)
Pablo Neruda - Collected poetry (Spanish, Chile)
Abul Ala Al-Ma'arri - The Diwan (Arabic)
Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist (Portuguese, Brazil)
Faiz Ahmed Faiz - Collected poetry (Urdu)
Ismail Kadare - Palace of Dreams (Albanian)
Witold Gombrowicz - Pornographia (Polish)
You may find the list biased in favour of the Middle East and South Asia. It's just me. I focus more on those literatures than others.