Reading the World

This is not the most perfectly organized list. For many authors (e.g., Kafka or Hesse), I didn’t know which nation to ascribe them to. I also felt that ancient classics, like The Epic of Gilgamesh or The Odyssey, don’t conform to the bounds of this challenge.

Afghanistan

A Thousand Splendid Suns — Khaled Hosseini

Australia

The Book Thief — Markus Zusak

Austria

Letters to a Young Poet — Rainer Maria Rilke

Brazil

The Alchemist — Paulo Coelho

Canada

The Handmaid’s Tale — Margaret Atwood

Colombia

A Hundred Years of Solitude — Gabriel García Márquez

Dominican Republic

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao — Junot Díaz

Finland


My Cat Yugoslavia — Pajtim Statovci

France

Monsieur Ibrahim and The Flowers of the Qur’an — Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt

Germany

Transit — Anne Seghers

India

Midnight’s Children — Salman Rushdie

Iran

Persepolis — Marjane Satrapi

Ireland

Small Things like These — Clare Keegan

Italy

The Prince — Niccolo Machiavelli

Lebanon

The Prophet — Kahlil Gibran

Nigeria

Things Fall Apart — Chinua Achebe

Norway

A Doll’s House — Henrik Ibsen

Pakistan

Basti — Intizar Hussain

Russia

Anna Karenina — Leo Tolstoy

South Africa

The Long Walk to Freedom — Nelson Mandela

Sweden

Dag Hammarskjöld – Markings of His Life — Henrik Berggren

United Kingdom

Chronicles of Narnia — C.S. Lewis

United States of America

Go Tell it on the Mountain — James Baldwin