Germany
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Tin Drum by Günter Grass
Acclaimed as the greatest German novel written since the end of World War II, The Tin Drum is the autobiography of thirty-year-old Oskar Matzerath who has lived through the long Nazi nightmare and who, as the novel begins, is being held in a mental institution. Willfully stunting his growth at three feet for many years, wielding his tin drum and piercing scream as anarchistic weapons, he provides a profound yet hilarious perspective on both German history and the human condition in the modern world.
Great Britain
England
Arthur & George by Julian Barnes
As boys, George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, living in shabby genteel Edinburgh, find themselves in a vast and complex world at the heart of the British Empire. Years later—one struggling with his identity in a world hostile to his ancestry, the other creating the world’s most famous detective while in love with a woman who is not his wife–their fates become inextricably connected.
The Voices by Susan Elderkin
As a child, Billy Saint finds guidance from the landscape of the Australian bush that surrounds him, unaware that his ever-increasing involvement with the untamed land is drawing him into something terrifying and powerful beyond his control.
Ireland
The Commitments by Roddy Doyle
A group of working-class Irish youths with a passion for the music of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding form a rock 'n' roll band and attempt to bring soul to Dublin.
Scotland
Any Human Heart by William Boyd
The journals of Logan Mountstuart chronicle his eighty-five years of life, from his boyhood in Uruguay to his education at Oxford, his wartime exploits, his career as an art dealer, and his retirement in France.
Wales
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Saga set in medieval Britain telling of the lives of a group of men and women whose destinies are fatefully linked with the building of a cathedral.
Greece
Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
Zorba, an irrepressible, earthy hedonist, sweeps his young disciple along as he wines, dines, and loves his way through a life dedicated to fulfilling his copious appetites.
India
Fasting, Feasting by Anita Desai
As Uma, the unmarriageable adult daughter of an Indian lawyer, copes with her parents' demands and traditional Indian family life, her younger brother, Arun, must face a vastly different life living with an American family in a Massachusetts suburb.
Italy
The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
Cosimo, a young Italian nobleman of the eighteenth century, rebels against parental authority by climbing into the trees and remaining there for the rest of his life. He adapts efficiently to an arboreal existence - hunts, sows crops, plays games with earth-bound friends, fights forest fires, solves engineering problems, and even manages to have love affairs. From his perch in the trees, Cosimo sees the age of Voltaire pass by and a new century dawn.
If On a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
This postmodernist narrative, in the form of a frame story, is about the reader trying to read a book called If On a Winter's Night a Traveler.
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Marco Polo and Kublai Khan meet to talk of fabulous imagined cities.
Me and You by Niccolò Ammaniti
Lorenzo Cuni is a 14-year-old loner. His wealthy parents think he is away on a school skiing trip, but in fact he has stowed away in a forgotten cellar. For a week he plans to live in perfect isolation, keeping the adult world at bay. Then a visit from his estranged half-sister, Olivia, changes everything.
Japan
Masks by Fumiko Enchi
A stunning and subtle novel about seduction and infidelity in latter-day Japan and about the destructive force of feminine jealousy and resentment, Mieko Togano, a handsome and cultivated woman in her 50s, manipulates - for her own bizarre purposes - the relationship between her widowed daughter-in-law, Yasuko, and the two men in love with her.
Silence by Shusaku Endo
A Portugese priest arrives from Rome to rebuild the shattered Christian community in feudal Japan and to find out why another priest was tortured.
The Twilight Years by Sawako Ariyoshi
Akiko is a working wife and mother of a teenage son. When her mother-in-law suddenly dies of a stroke, Akiko becomes the sole caregiver for her selfish father-in-law Shegezo. A novel that raises important issues about the quality of life at the end of life, caregiving for the old, and the dilemma of women who have both career and family obligations.
Mexico
The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes
Artemio Cruz, a corrupt soldier, politician, journalist, tycoon, and lover, lies on his deathbed, recalling the shaping events of his life, from the Mexican Revolution through the development of the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
Nigeria
Yoruba Girl Dancing by Simi Bedford
When Remi is torn from her snug, loving family in Nigeria and sent to a stodgy boarding school in England, she slowly learns to use her cultural difference to her advantage.
I Saw the Sky Catch Fire by T. Obinkaram Echewa
As young Ajuzia prepares to leave for America, his grandmother, Nne-nne, recreates the history of their country, Nigeria, through a series of powerful tales, tales he will fully understand only when he returns.
Peru
Deep Rivers by José María Arguedas
Russia
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Self-denial and the spirit are at war with passion and violence in this family tragedy.
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Chichikov, an enigmatic stranger and schemer, buys deceased serfs' names from their landlords' poll tax lists hoping to mortgage them for profit and to reinvent himself as a gentleman.
Spain
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
The misadventures of poor elderly knight make for timeless social satire.
South Africa
Age of Iron by J. M. Coetzee
South African professor Mrs. Curren has always been opposed to apartheid's brutality though she has lived isolated from its horrors, but as she nears death from cancer, she confronts a generation of blood and revenge.
Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
In South Africa, a shamed professor faces difficult changes on his daughter's farm.
Tsotsi by Athol Fugard
Tsotsi adopts a name meaning "Thug" as he leads a small gang in murdering fellow countrymen in retribution for black ghetto life.
Vietnam
Paradise of the Blind by Duong Thu Huong
Hang grows up in Vietnam in the shadow of the love of her mother and her aunt, and when lack of money stops her education, she becomes an export worker in the Soviet Union where she manages to retain her heritage.
