20th century in literature (Modern Period 1920

1970)

Literature of the 20th century refers to world literature produced during the 20th
century. The range of years is, for the purpose of this article, literature written from
(roughly) 1900 through the 1990s.

In terms of the Euro-American tradition, the main periods are captured in the bipartite
division, Modernist literature and Postmodern literature, flowering from roughly 1900
to 1940 and 1960 to 1990[1] respectively, divided, as a rule of thumb, by World War
II. The somewhat malleable term of contemporary literature is usually applied with
a post-1960 cutoff point.

Although these terms (modern, contemporary and postmodern) are most applicable to
Western literary history, the rise of globalization has allowed European literary ideas
to spread into non-Western cultures fairly rapidly, so that Asian and African
literatures can be included into these divisions with only minor qualifications. And in
some ways, such as in Postcolonial literature, writers from non-Western cultures were
on the forefront of literary development.

Technological advances during the 20th century allowed cheaper production of books,
resulting in a significant rise in production of popular literature and trivial literature,
comparable to the development in music. The division of "popular literature" and
"high literature" in the 20th century is by no means absolute, and various genres such
as detectives or science fiction fluctuate between the two. Largely ignored by
mainstream literary criticism for the most of the century, these genres developed their
own establishments and critical awards; these include the Nebula Award (since 1965),
the British Fantasy Award (since 1971) or the Mythopoeic Awards (since 1971).

Towards the end of the 20th century, electronic literature developed as a genre due to
the development of hypertext and later the world wide web.

The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded annually throughout the century (with the
exception of 1914, 1918, 1935 and 19401943), the first laureate (1901) being Sully
Prudhomme. The New York Times Best Seller list has been published since 1942.

The best-selling works of the 20th century are estimated to be Quotations from
Chairman Mao (1966, 900 million copies), Harry Potter and the Philosopher's
Stone (1997, 120 million copies), And Then There Were None (1939, 115 million
copies) and The Lord of the Rings (1954/55, 100 million copies). The Lord of the
Rings was also voted "book of the century" in various surveys.[2][3][4][5] Perry
 Rhodan (1961 to present) boasts as being the best-selling book series, with an
estimated total of 1 billion copies sold.
Contents

[hide]

1 1901-1918

2 Interwar period

3 World War II

4 Postwar period

5 Cold War period 1960-1989

6 1990s

7 References

8 See also
1901-1918[edit]
Main articles: 1900s literature and 1910s literature

The Fin de sicle movement of the Belle poque persisted into the 20th century, but
was brutally cut short with the outbreak of World War I (an effect depicted e.g.
in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, published 1924). The Dada movement of
1916-1920 was at least in part a protest against
the bourgeois nationalist and colonialist interests which many Dadaists believed were
the root cause of the war; the movement heralded the Surrealism movement of the
1920s.

1900

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (Poland, England)

Genre fiction

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (USA)

1901

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann (Germany)

The Inheritors by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford (England)
Kim by Rudyard Kipling (India, England)

Genre fiction

The Purple Cloud by M. P. Shiel (Montserrat, England)

The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells (England)
1902

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The Immoralist by Andr Gide (France)
The Wings of the Dove by Henry James (USA, England)
The Grand Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett (England)

Genre fiction

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (Scotland)

Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

Plays

Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw (Ireland)

1903

Romance by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford

The Ambassadors by Henry James
The Pit by Frank Norris (USA)
In Wonderland by Knut Hamsun (Norway)

Genre fiction

The Call of the Wild by Jack London (USA)

The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers (England, Ireland)

1904

The Golden Bowl by Henry James

Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton (England)

Genre fiction

The Food of the Gods by H. G. Wells

The Sea Wolf by Jack London
Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson (Argentina, England)

Plays

John Bull's Other Island by George Bernard Shaw

1905
 Hadrian VII by Frederick Rolfe aka Baron Corvo (England, Italy)
Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster (England)
Kipps by H. G. Wells
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (USA)
The Club of Queer Trades by G. K. Chesterton

1906

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (USA)

The Confusions of Young Trless by Robert Musil (Austria)

Genre fiction

Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by J. M. Barrie (Scotland)
Time and the Gods by Lord Dunsany (Ireland, England)
White Fang by Jack London

Plays

The Aran Islands by John Millington Synge (Ireland)

1907

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster

Genre fiction

The Listener and Other Stories by Algernon Blackwood (England) - contains The Willows,
one of the first 'cosmic horror' stories
The Hill of Dreams by Arthur Machen (England)

Plays

Playboy of the Western World by John Millington Synge

Poetry

Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc (France, England)

1908

The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton

A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
 The Iron Heel by Jack London
Hell by Henri Barbusse (France, Russia)
The Magician by Somerset Maugham (England, France) - based on the author's meeting
with Aleister Crowley

Genre fiction

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (England)

Poetry

Personae by Ezra Pound (USA, England, Italy) - one of the first examples of 'modernist'
poetry

1909

Martin Eden by Jack London

Tono-Bungay by H. G. Wells
Three Lives by Gertrude Stein (USA, France)

Poetry

Exultations by Ezra Pound

Poems by William Carlos Williams (USA)

Plays

The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck (Belgium)

1910

Howard's End by E. M. Forster

The Card by Arnold Bennett
The History of Mr. Polly by H. G. Wells

1911

Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm (England)

In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield (England) - short stories
Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad
The White Peacock by D. H. Lawrence (England)
Jennie Gerhardt by Theodore Dreiser (USA)

Genre fiction
 Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie (Scotland)

1912

Petersburg by Andrei Bely (Russia)

The Trespasser by D. H. Lawrence
Death In Venice by Thomas Mann (Germany)

Genre fiction

Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey (USA)

The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs (USA)

Plays

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

1913

Swann's Way by Marcel Proust (France)

Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier (France)
Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
Chance by Joseph Conrad

Genre fiction

A Prisoner in Fairyland by Algernon Blackwood - adapted into a play, it later became

the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Starlight Express
The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu by 'Sax Rohmer' (England)

Poetry

Alcools by Guillaume Apollinaire (Poland, France) - dada poems

Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore

1914

Dubliners by James Joyce (Ireland, France, Italy) - short stories

The Prussian Officer by D. H. Lawrence - short stories
The Vatican Cellars by Andr Gide
Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein
The Golem by Gustav Meyrink (Czechoslovakia)
Maurice by E. M. Forster - unpublished
 Sinister Street by Compton MacKenzie (Scotland, Greece)
The Flying Inn by G. K. Chesterton

Poetry

North of Boston by Robert Frost (USA)

1915

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham
Victory by Joseph Conrad
Pointed Roofs by Dorothy Richardson
The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf (England)
Vainglory by Ronald Firbank (England)
Rashmon by Rynosuke Akutagawa

Genre fiction

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (Scotland, Canada)

1916

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Women In Love by D. H. Lawrence - initially banned, published in 1920

Genre fiction

Greenmantle by John Buchan

Poetry

Salt-Water Poems and Ballads by John Masefield (England)

Mountain Interval by Robert Frost

1917

Under Fire by Henri Barbusse (France, Russia)

Walpurgis Night by Gustav Meyrink
Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun
The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad
Caprice by Ronald Firbank
Poetry

Dulce et Decorum Est and Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen (England) -
published posthumously
Prufrock and Other Observations by T. S. Eliot (USA, England)

1918

Tarr by Wyndham Lewis (Canada, England)

Man of Straw by Heinrich Mann (Germany)

Poetry

Calligrammes by Guillaume Apollinaire - dada poetry

Non-fiction

Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey (England)

Interwar period[edit]
Main articles: 1920s literature and 1930s literature

Further information: Surrealism, Roaring Twenties, Modernist literature, and Harlem

Renaissance

The 1920s were a period of literary creativity, and works of several notable authors
appeared during the period. D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover was a
scandal at the time because of its explicit descriptions of sex. James Joyce's
novel, Ulysses, published in 1922 in Paris, was one of the most important
achievements of literary modernism.

1919

Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust

Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson (USA) - the first 'lost generation' novel
Valmouth by Ronald Firbank
Bazaar-e-Husn by Premchand (publ. in Hindi as Seva-sadan)

Genre fiction

Dope by Sax Rohmer - inspired by the true story of Limehouse dope-dealer Brilliant
Chang
Dope Darling by Leda Burke (David Garnett) (England)
1920

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (Czechoslovakia)

Limbo by Aldous Huxley (England) - short stories
The Lost Girl by D. H. Lawrence
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (USA)
The London Venture by Michael Arlen (Armenia, England)
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jnger (Germany)
Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay (Scotland)
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (USA)
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (USA)

Plays

Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello (Italy)

Beyond the Horizon and Anna Christie by Eugene O'Neill - Pulitzer prize winner

1921

The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust

Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley
England, My England and Other Stories by D. H. Lawrence - short stories
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (England) - pentology, first volume published in
1906
My Life and Loves by Frank Harris (England, USA) - four volumes of quasi-factual sex
gossip, the fifth completed by Alex Trocchi

Plays

Back to Methuselah by George Bernard Shaw

R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel apek - from which the term 'robot' was
coined

1922

Ulysses by James Joyce

Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
Sodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust
Croatian God Mars by Miroslav Krlea
The Enormous Room by E. E. Cummings (USA)
Futility by William Gerhardie (Russia, England)
 The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Mortal Coils by Aldous Huxley - short stories
Aaron's Rod by D. H. Lawrence
The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield - short stories
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (Germany, Switzerland)
Peter Whiffle by Carl Van Vechten (USA)
Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
Lady into Fox by David Garnett

Poetry

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot

1923

Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo (Italy)

The Good Soldier vejk by Jaroslav Haek (Czechoslovakia)
The Captive by Marcel Proust
Kangaroo by D. H. Lawrence
Antic Hay by Aldous Huxley
Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos (USA)
The Great American Novel by William Carlos Williams
The Devil in the Flesh by Raymond Radiguet (France)
Aelita by Alexey Tolstoy (Russia)

Plays

The Shadow of a Gunman by Sean O'Casey (Ireland)

Poetry

New Hampshire by Robert Frost

1924

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (Germany)

In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway (USA) - short stories
Passage to India by E. M. Forster
Little Mexican by Aldous Huxley - short stories
The Fox and The Captain's Doll by D. H. Lawrence - short stories

Genre fiction
 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (England)

Plays

Juno and the Paycock by Sean O'Casey

The Vortex by Nol Coward (England)

1925

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The Trial by Franz Kafka (Czechoslovakia) - posthumous, first English translation in 1930
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - often described as the epitome of the "Jazz
Age" in American literature
The Green Hat by Michael Arlen - perhaps the epitome of the jazz age in British
literature
Paris Peasant by Louis Aragon (France)
Albertine disparue by Marcel Proust
Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
In the American Grain by William Carlos Williams
The Desert of Love by Franois Mauriac (France)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos (USA)
Those Barren Leaves by Aldous Huxley
St Mawr by D. H. Lawrence - short stories
The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein
Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov (Russia)

Genre fiction

Beau Geste by P. C. Wren (England)

Poetry

The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot

Non-fiction

The Old Straight Track by Alfred Watkins (England) - introducing ley lines

1926

The Castle by Franz Kafka - posthumous, first English translation in 1932

The Counterfeiters by Andr Gide
The Sun Also Rises aka Fiesta by Ernest Hemingway
 Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars (France)
Nigger Heaven by Carl Van Vechten
Two or Three Graces by Aldous Huxley - short stories
The Plumed Serpent by D. H. Lawrence

Genre fiction

Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne (England)

Poetry

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle by 'Hugh MacDiarmid' (Scotland)

Plays

The Plough and the Stars by Sean O'Casey

Non-fiction

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence (England, Arabia)

1927

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Time Regained by Marcel Proust
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
Men Without Women by Ernest Hemingway - short stories
Vestal Fire by Compton MacKenzie
Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann (England)
Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis
The Rocking Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence - short stories

Plays

The Silver Tassie by Sean O'Casey

1928

Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Dblin (Germany)

Nadja by Andr Breton (France)
Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille (France)
Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford - war tetralogy, first volume in 1926
Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley
Lady Chatterly's Lover by D. H. Lawrence - banned until 1963
 Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh (England)
Amerika by Franz Kafka - posthumous, first English translation in 1938

Plays

Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill (USA) - Pulitzer prize winner

Messrs. Glembay by Miroslav Krlea

Non-fiction

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (Germany) - recounts the
horrors of World War I and also the deep detachment from German civilian life felt by
many men returning from the front

1929

Les Enfants Terribles by Jean Cocteau (France)

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (USA)
Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe
Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington (England)
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (USA)
Mario and the Magician by Thomas Mann (Germany)
The Escaped Cock by D. H. Lawrence (England)
The Defence by Vladimir Nabokov (Russia, France)
Wolf Solent by John Cowper Powys (England)
The Good Companions by J. B. Priestley (England)

Non-fiction

Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (England)

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (England)

Genre fiction

Red Harvest by Dashiel Hammett (USA) - the first hard-boiled American detective novel

1930

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

The Apes of God by Wyndham Lewis
Brief Candles by Aldous Huxley - short stories
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
 Angel Pavement by J. B. Priestley
The Virgin and the Gypsy and Love Among the Haystacks by D. H. Lawrence - short
stories

Genre fiction

Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon (England)

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiel Hammett (USA)

Poetry

Whoroscope by Samuel Beckett (Ireland, France)

Plays

Private Lives by Nol Coward

Non-fiction

Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon (England) - 2 volumes, 1st in 1929

1931

The Waves by Virginia Woolf

Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupry (France)

Genre fiction

The Glass Key by Dashiel Hammett

Plays

Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O'Neill

Cavalcade by Nol Coward

Non-fiction

Axel's Castle by Edmund Wilson (USA)

Music at Night by Aldous Huxley

1932

The Return of Philip Latinowicz by Miroslav Krlea

Journey to the End of Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine (France)
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (England)
The Memorial by Christopher Isherwood (England)
 Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov (Russia, France)
Light In August by William Faulkner
A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys
Stamboul Train by Graham Greene (England)
Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh
Radetzky March by Joseph Roth (Austria)
Jew Boy by Simon Blumenfeld (England)

Poetry

The Orators by W. H. Auden (England)

1933

Man's Fate by Andr Malraux (France)

Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood (England)
Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West (USA)
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

Genre fiction

Lost Horizon by James Hilton (England)

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers (England)

Non-fiction

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell (England)

Texts and Pretexts by Aldous Huxley
In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichir Tanizaki

1934

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (USA) - a groundbreaking obscenity case before the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1961 allowed its publication there
Call It Sleep by Henry Roth (Austria, USA)
Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Threepenny Novel by Bertoldt Brecht (Germany)
Despair by Vladimir Nabokov
It's a Battlefield by Graham Greene
A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
20,000 Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton (England)
Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys (Dominica, France, England)
 Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara (USA)
A Scots Quair by Lewis Grassic Gibbon (Scotland) - trilogy, first volume published in 1932

Genre fiction

The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain (USA)

Novel with Cocaine aka Cocain Romance by M. Ageyev (Russia)

Poetry

18 Poems by Dylan Thomas (Wales)

Non-fiction

Burmese Days by George Orwell

Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway

1935

Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood

Eyeless in Gaza by Aldous Huxley
Auto da Fe by Elias Canetti (Bulgaria, Germany)
A Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell
England Made Me by Graham Greene
A House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen (Ireland)
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck (USA)
Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell (USA) - trilogy, first volume published in 1932

Genre fiction

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (USA)

Poetry

Collected Poems by Cecil Day-Lewis (Northern Ireland)

Plays

Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets (USA)

1936

Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Black Spring by Henry Miller
U.S.A. by John Dos Passos
 Mephisto by Klaus Mann (Germany, USA)
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
Confessions of a Murderer by Joseph Roth
Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov
The Wessex Novels by John Cowper Powys (England) - tetrology, 1st vol published in
1927
Godaan by Premchand

Poetry

Ballads of Petrica Kerempuh by Miroslav Krlea

Genre fiction

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier (England)

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (USA)
A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene

1937

To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway

The Years by Virginia Woolf
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Lions and Shadows by Christopher Isherwood
The Black Book by Lawrence Durrell (UK, Egypt)
Revenge for Love by Wyndham Lewis
White Mule by William Carlos Williams
Wide Boys Never Work by Robert Westerby (England, USA)

Genre fiction

Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon

Night and the City by Gerald Kersh (England, USA)
The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor by Cameron McCabe (Ernest Borneman) (Germany,
England)
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien (England)

Non-fiction

The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell

How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn (Wales)
1938

Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre (France)

Murphy by Samuel Beckett
Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller
Man's Hope by Andr Malraux
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov

Genre fiction

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Non-fiction

Journey to a War by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
Enemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly (England)

1939

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
The Banquet in Blitva by Miroslav Krlea
At Swim-Two-Birds by Flan O'Brien (Ireland)
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
After Many a Summer by Aldous Huxley
Coming Up for Air by George Orwell
On the Marble Cliffs by Ernst Jnger
Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys
The Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West
Legend of the Holy Drinker by Joseph Roth
Lotte in Weimar by Thomas Mann
The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene
Mister Johnson by Joyce Cary (Ireland)
Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupry
Pal Joey by John O'Hara
Genre fiction

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (USA)

Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household (England)
The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Poetry

Autumn Journal by Louis MacNeice (N Ireland)

The Map of Love by Dylan Thomas

Plays

This Happy Breed by Nol Coward

World War II[edit]
Further information: 1940s literature

1940

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler (Hungary, England)

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - published in English 1966
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Native Son by Richard Wright (USA, France)
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (USA)
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan Thomas
Owen Glendower by John Cowper Powys
You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe
The Quiet Don by Mikhail Sholokhov (Russia) - two volumes, first published in 1934

Genre fiction

Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler (England)

Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

Plays

The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill

Non-fiction

To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson

1941

Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton

Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers
The Third Policeman by Flan O'Brien

Genre fiction

Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain

Non-fiction

Grey Eminence by Aldous Huxley

1942

The Stranger by Albert Camus (Algeria, France)

Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet (France)
Flight to Arras by Antoine de Saint-Exupry

Plays

The Flies by Jean-Paul Sartre

1943

Arrival and Departure by Arthur Koestler

The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene
The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil (Austria) - trilogy, first volume published
1930

Genre fiction

Double Indemnity by James M. Cain

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupry (France)

Poetry

Selected Poems by Keith Douglas (England)

Non-fiction

Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

1944
 The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary
Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina) - short stories
The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham
Time Must Have a Stop by Aldous Huxley

Plays

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (USA)

1945

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Watt by Samuel Beckett - published in 1953
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson (England) - trilogy, first volume in 1939

Genre fiction

If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes (USA, France)

The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis (N Ireland) - first volume published in 1938

1946

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (South Africa)

The Miracle of the Rose by Jean Genet
Froth on the Daydream by Boris Vian (France)
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers

Poetry

Deaths and Entrances by Dylan Thomas

Plays

The Winslow Boy by Terence Rattigan (England)

Non-fiction

Alamein to Zem Zem by Keith Douglas

Memoirs of Hecate County by Edmund Wilson

1947

The Plague by Albert Camus

 Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry (England, Canada)
Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov
The Victim by Saul Bellow (Canada, USA)
The Conformist by Alberto Moravia (Italy)
The Middle of the Journey by Lionel Trilling (USA)
Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton
Of Love and Hunger by Julian MacLaren-Ross (England)
Funeral Rites by Jean Genet
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

Plays

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Non-fiction

Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (Netherlands)

1948

The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer (USA)

Confessions of a Mask by 'Yukio Mishima' (Japan)
The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal (USA)
Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley
Querelle of Brest by Jean Genet

Genre fiction

No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase (England)

Plays

The Browning Version by Terence Rattigan

Non-fiction

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (France early feminist study

1949

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

Roads to Freedom by Jean-Paul Sartre - trilogy, first volume published 1945
The Thief's Journal by Jean Genet
 The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren (USA)
The Train Was on Time by Heinrich Bll (Germany)
The Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges
The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier (Mexico)
The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen

Genre fiction

The Trouble with Harry by Jack Trevor Story (England)

The Mating Season by PG Wodehouse

Plays

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (USA)

Postwar period[edit]
Main article: 1950s literature

The intermediate postwar period separating "Modernism" from "Postmodernism"

(1950s literature) is the floruit of the beat generation and the classical science fiction
of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Robert A. Heinlein. This period also saw the
publication of Samuel Beckett's trilogy of novels, Molloy, Malone Dies, and The
Unnameable, which enacted the dissolution of the self-identical human subject and
inspired later novelists such as Thomas Bernhard, John Banville, and David Markson.

1950

Scenes from Provincial Life by William Cooper (England) - the first of the British 1950s
'kitchen sink' novels

Genre fiction

A Town Called Alice by Nevil Shute (England, Australia)

Strangers On a Train by Patricia Highsmith (USA)

Non-fiction

The Authoritarian Personality by Theodor Adorno (Germany, USA)

1951

Molloy by Samuel Beckett (Ireland, France)

Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett (Ireland, France)
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (USA)
 Porius by John Cowper Powys (England)
The Grass Harp by Truman Capote (USA)
Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar (France)
The Opposing Shore by Julien Gracq (France)

Non-fiction

The Rebel by Albert Camus (France)

1952

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (USA)

Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor (USA)
Go by John Clellon Holmes (USA) - the first Beat novel
The Natural by Bernard Malamud (USA)
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Genre fiction

The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham (England)

The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson (USA)

Plays

The Chairs by Eugne Ionesco (Romania, France)

1953

The Unnameable by Samuel Beckett (Ireland, France)

Junkie and Queer by William S. Burroughs (USA)
Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin (USA, France)
The Outsider by Richard Wright
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
Hurry on Down by John Wain (England) - the first 'angry young man' novel

Genre fiction

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (England, Jamaica) - first James Bond novel
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke (England, Sri Lanka)
Foundation by Isaac Asimov (USA) - trilogy, first volume published in 1951
 Prelude to a Certain Midnight by Gerald Kersh

Plays

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

1954

Lord of the Flies by William Golding (England)

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (England) - the most famous 'angry young man' novel
Under the Net by Iris Murdoch (England)
Bonjour Tristesse by Franoise Sagan (France)

Genre fiction

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (USA)

Story of O by Pauline Rage (France)

Plays

Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas

The Quare Fellow by Brendan Behan (Ireland)

Non-fiction

The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley

1955

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

One by David Karp (USA)
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
The Bread of Those Early Years by Heinrich Bll
The Tree of Man by Patrick White (Australia)
The Inheritors by William Golding
The Voyeur by Alain Robbe-Grillet (France)
The Genius and the Goddess by Aldous Huxley
The Deer Park by Norman Mailer
The Recognitions by William Gaddis (USA)
Memed, My Hawk by Yaar Kemal (Turkey)

Genre fiction

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, first volume in 1954

 The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Plays

Cat On a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams

Bus Stop by William Inge (USA)

Poetry

The Less Deceived by Philip Larkin (England)

1956

The Fall by Albert Camus

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
The Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvon (Trinidad, England)
A Walk on the Wild Side by Nelson Algren

Genre fiction

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (N Ireland) - seven volumes, first in 1950

Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith (England)

Plays

Look Back In Anger by John Osborne (England) - the first 'angry young man' play

Poetry

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg (USA)

Non-fiction

Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley

1957

On the Road by Jack Kerouac (Canada, USA)

Young Adam by Alexander Trocchi (Scotland)
Room at the Top by John Braine (England)
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (Russia)
Voss by Patrick White
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
Second Thoughts by Michel Butor (France)
 Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt)
Gimpel the Fool by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Poland, USA) - short stories, originally
published in Yiddish years earlier
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (USA)

Genre fiction

On the Beach by Nevil Shute

Plays

The Room and The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter (England)

Endgame by Samuel Beckett
The Entertainer by John Osborne
Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams
The Visit by Friedrich Drrenmatt (Switzerland)

1958

If This Is a Man by Primo Levi (Italy)

Breakfast At Tiffany's by Truman Capote
The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe (England)
A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney (England)
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
The Bell by Iris Murdoch
Fowlers End by Gerald Kersh
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
Candy by Terry Southern (USA)

Genre fiction

Exodus by Leon Uris (USA)

Zimiamvian Trilogy by E. R. Eddison (England) - first volume in 1935
Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans (England) and Ronald Searle (England, France) -
tetrology, first book in 1954

Plays

Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett

Suddenly, Last Summer by Tennessee Williams
Non-fiction

The Theatre and Its Double by Antonin Artaud (France)

Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan

1959

The Tin Drum by Gnter Grass (Germany)

Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
The Last of the Just by Andr Schwarz-Bart (France)
Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth (USA)
Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau (France)
In the Labyrinth by Alain Robbe-Grillet
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe
Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse (England)
The Long Day Wanes by Anthony Burgess (England) - trilogy, first volume published in
1956
The Magic Christian by Terry Southern

Genre fiction

The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake (England) - first volume in 1946

The Getaway by Jim Thompson

Plays

The Dumb Waiter and The Caretaker by Harold Pinter

Rhinocros by Eugne Ionesco
Cold War period 1960-1989[edit]
Main articles: 1960s literature, 1970s literature, 1980s literature, and Postmodern literature

Further information: Feminist literature

1960

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (USA)

The London Trilogy by Colin MacInnes (England) - first volume, Absolute Beginners,
published in 1957
Cain's Book by Alexander Trocchi (UK, France, USA)
This Sporting Life by David Storey (UK)
A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene
 Hiroshima Mon Amour by Marguerite Duras (France)
The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark (Scotland)
The Rosy Crucifixion by Henry Miller (USA) - trilogy, first volume published 1949
The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth (USA),

Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction

The Morning of the Magicians by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier (France) - the 1960s
obsession with the occult starts here. Published in English 1963
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. (USA)

1961

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller (USA)

A House for Mr Biswas by V. S. Naipaul (Trinidad, England)
Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch
Sword of Honour by Evelyn Waugh - trilogy, first volume published in 1952
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (USA)
Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place by Malcolm Lowry - posthumous

Genre fiction

Solaris by Stanisaw Lem (Poland)

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (USA)
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (USA)

1962

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Russia)

A Clockwork Orange and The Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess (England)
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Island by Aldous Huxley
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (Zimbabwe, England)
The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes (Mexico)
The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell - first volume published 1957
Big Sur by Jack Kerouac - the last of the Lost Generation at the end of the Beat
Generation

Genre fiction
 The IPCRESS File by Len Deighton (England) - first of the Harry Palmer novels

Non-fiction

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (USA) - the first major popular study on the deterioration
of the environment

1963

V. by Thomas Pynchon (USA)

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (USA, England)
The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey (USA)
The Collector by John Fowles (England)
The Lowlife by Alexander Baron (England)
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (USA)

Genre fiction

Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle (France)

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carr (England)
The Grifters by Jim Thompson

Non-fiction

The Truce by Primo Levi)

1964

Herzog by Saul Bellow

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby (USA)
The Spire by William Golding (England)
Nothing Like the Sun by Anthony Burgess

Genre fiction

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl (UK)

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick (USA)
Little Big Man by Thomas Berger (USA)

Non-fiction

Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan (Canada)

1965

The Magus by John Fowles

The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)
Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino (Italy)
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski (Poland, USA)
Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush by Hunter Davies (England) - the kitchen sink
novel mutates into the swinging 1960s novel

Plays

Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss (Germany, Sweden)

Poetry

Briggflatts by Basil Bunting

Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction

The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby by Tom Wolfe (USA)

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley (USA)

1966

A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)

Alfie by Bill Naughton (England)
The Comedians by Graham Greene
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Tremor of Intent by Anthony Burgess

Genre fiction

Pavane by Keith Roberts (England)

The Anti-Death League by Kingsley Amis

Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs by Hunter S.
Thompson (USA)

Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me by Richard Faria (USA)

1967
 One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garca Mrquez (Colombia)
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
The Vendor of Sweets by R. K. Narayan (India)
Poor Cow by Nell Dunn (England)
A Grain of Wheat by Ngg wa Thiong'o
Non-fiction

The First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
1968

Cocksure by Mordecai Richler (Canada)

Couples by John Updike (USA)
The Public Image by Muriel Spark
Lunar Caustic by Malcolm Lowry - posthumous
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction

Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
The Armies of the Night and Miami and the Siege of Chicago by Norman Mailer
Bomb Culture by Jeff Nuttall (England)
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (USA)
The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda (USA)
1969

Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
A Void by Georges Perec (France)
Passacaille by Robert Pinget (France)
Dark as the Grave wherein my Friend is Laid by Malcolm Lowry - posthumous
Genre fiction

Barefoot in the Head by Brian Aldiss

The Final Programme by Michael Moorcock (England, USA)
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (USA)
The Godfather by Mario Puzo (Italy)
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction

Papillon by Henri Charrire (France)

The View Over Atlantis by John Michell (England)
1970

Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion

Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow
October Ferry to Gabriola by Malcolm Lowry - posthumous
Genre fiction

The Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake (USA)

Deliverance by James Dickey (USA)
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction

The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (Australia, England)

Groupie by Jenny Fabian (England)
Playpower by Richard Neville (Australia, England)
Revolt into Style by George Melly (England)
Soledad Brother by George Jackson (USA) - prison letters
Soul On Ice by Eldridge Cleaver (USA)
1971

In a Free State by V. S. Naipaul (Trinidad, England)

M/F by Anthony Burgess
Our Gang by Philip Roth
The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart (USA)
Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins (USA)
Being There by Jerzy Kosinski
Genre fiction

The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth (England)

Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction

The Happy Hooker by Xaviera Hollander (Indonesia, Netherlands)

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
1972
 The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman by Angela Carter (England)
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
G by John Berger (England, France)
The Good for Nothing by Oguz Atay (Turkey)
Genre fiction

The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins (USA)

Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach (USA)
The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth
Poetry

Crossing the Water and Winter Trees by Sylvia Plath

1973

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

Crash by J. G. Ballard (England)
Season of Anomy by Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)
Life Is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera (Czechoslovakia, France)
Sweet Dreams by Michael Frayn (England)
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (USA)
The Great American Novel by Philip Roth
Genre fiction

Frankenstein Unbound by Brian Aldiss

1974

The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer (South Africa)

The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle (USA)
The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Bll
Napoleon Symphony by Anthony Burgess
Myra Breckinridge and Myron by Gore Vidal - first of pair published in 1968
Genre fiction

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carr

Fletch by Gregory McDonald (USA)
Genre fiction
 Jaws by Peter Benchley (USA)
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction

All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (USA)
1975

Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow

The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies - first volume published 1970
Dead Babies by Martin Amis (England)
The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garca Mrquez
The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (England)
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi - short stories
Genre fiction

Watership Down by Richard Adams (England)

The Choirboys by Joseph Wambaugh (USA)
Shgun by James Clavell (England, USA)
Salem's Lot by Stephen King (USA)
1976

Ragtime by EL Doctorow (USA)

Genre fiction

Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice (USA)

Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction

Roots by Alex Haley

Drama

Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka

1977

The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef kvoreck (Czechoslovakia)

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (USA)
1978

Success by Martin Amis

 The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
Lanark by Alasdair Gray (Scotland)
Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
Jake's Thing by Kingsley Amis
The World According to Garp by John Irving (USA)
1985 by Anthony Burgess
Horatio Stubbs by Brian Aldiss - trilogy, first volume published in 1970
Genre fiction

Rumpole of the Bailey by John Mortimer (England)

1979

A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul

The Unlimited Dream Company by J. G. Ballard
Sophie's Choice by William Styron (USA)
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction

The White Album by Joan Didion

The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe (USA)
1980

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Pascali's Island by Barry Unsworth (England)
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
1981

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (India, UK)

The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan (England)
The White Hotel by DM Thomas (England)
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garca Mrquez
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver (USA) -
short stories
Genre fiction

The Red Dragon by Thomas Harris (USA)

Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith (England, Russia)
1982

Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally (Australia)

An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd (Ghana, Scotland)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker (USA)
A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
Genre fiction

Prizzi's Honor by Richard Condon

1983

Waterland by Graham Swift (England)

Shame by Salman Rushdie
Genre fiction

The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett (England) - first book of

the Discworld series
1984

Money by Martin Amis

Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney (USA)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (England)
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
Enderby by Anthony Burgess - tetrology, first volume published in 1963
The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
Non-fiction

Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard

1985

White Noise by Don DeLillo (USA)

Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis (USA)
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson (England)
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler (USA)
Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd (England)
Illywhacker by Peter Carey (Australia)
 The Kingdom of the Wicked by Anthony Burgess
Genre fiction

L.A. Noir by James Ellroy (USA) - trilogy, first volume published 1984
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - (USA)
1986

Slaves of New York by Tama Janowitz (USA)

The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (Japan, UK)
Non-fiction

Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature by Ngg

wa Thiong'o
1987

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe
Genre fiction

Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow (USA)

1988

Mother London by Michael Moorcock

Libra by Don DeLillo
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (Australia)
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garca Mrquez
Genre fiction

Sprawl by William Gibson (Canada, USA) - trilogy, first volume published 1984
1989

London Fields by Martin Amis

Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
 To the Ends of the Earth by William Golding - trilogy, first volume published
1980
The Book of Evidence by John Banville (Ireland)
The Trick of It by Michael Frayn
The stories on the tendon narrator by Abdelghani Mustafa Abdelghani (Egypt)
1990s[edit]
Main article: 1990s literature

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Boris Akunin
slam poetry
1990

New York Trilogy by Paul Auster (USA) - first volume published 1985
The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk (Turkey)
Restoration by Rose Tremain (England)
Possession by A. S. Byatt (England)
The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi (England)
Dirty Weekend by Helen Zahavi (England)
Genre fiction

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley (USA)

1996

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (USA)

1997

Underworld by Don DeLillo (USA)

Genre fiction

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling (England) - first in

series