Works of Prose/Epic Poetry not written in English (in alphabetical order)
Aesop, The Complete Fables
Alain-Fournier, Le Grand Meaulnes
Allende, Isabel, The House of the Spirits
Anderson, Hans Christian, Fairy Tales
De Assis, Machado Joaquim Maria, Dom Casmurro
Saint Augustine, The Confessions
de Balzac, Honore, La Cousine Bette
de Beauvoir, Simone, The Second Sex
The Bible
Borges, Jorge-Luis, Labyrinths
Bulgakov, Mikhail, The Master and Margarita
Calvino, Italo, If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller
Camus, Albert, The Outsider
Camus, Albert, The Plague
Celine, Louis-Ferdinand, Journey to the End of the Night
De Cervantes, Miguel, Don Quixote
Chekhov, Anton, The Lady with the Dog and other stories
Christensen, Lars Saabye, The Half-Brother
Cocteau, Jean, Les Enfants Terribles
Coehlo, Paulo, The Alchemist
Dante, The Inferno
Dostoyevski, Fyodor, Crime and Punishment
Dostoyevski, Fyodor, The Idiot
Dumas, Alexandre, The Count of Monte Cristo
Dumas, Alexandre, The Three Musketeers
Duras, Marguerite, The Lover
Eça de Queirós, José Maria, The Maias
Eco, Umberto, The Name of the Rose
Enquist, Per Olov, The Visit of the Royal Physician
Flaubert, Gustave, Bouvard and Pecuchet
Flaubert, Gustave, Madame Bovary
Freud, Sigmund, The Interpretation of Dreams
Frank, Anne, Diary of a Young Girl
Fuentes, Carlos, The Years with Laura Diaz
Gaarder, Jostein, Sophie’s World
Garcίa Márquez, Gabriel, Love in the Time of Cholera
Garcίa Márquez, Gabriel, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Grass, Günter, The Tin Drum
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, Faust
Gogol, Nikolai, Dead Souls
Goytisolo, Juan, Count Julian
Grimm, Jacob and Grimm, Wilhelm, Fairy Tales
Grossman, Vasily, Life and Fate
Hamsun, Knut, The Growth of the Soul
Hamsun, Knut, Hunger
Harrer, Heinrich, Seven Years in Tibet
Heyerdahl, Thor, The Kon Tiki Expedition
Høeg, Peter, Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow
Homer, The Iliad
Homer, The Odyssey
Hugo, Victor, Les Misérables
Kadare, Ismael, The Three-Arched Bridge
Kafka, Franz, The Trial
Kazantzakis, Nikos, Zorba the Great
Kemal, Yasar, Mehmed My Hawk
Kertesz, Imre, Fateless
Khayyam, Omar, The Rubaiyat
Kis, Danilo, A Tomb for Boris Davidovich
Klemperer, Victor, I Shall Bear Witness
The Koran
Kosztolányi, Dezsö, Anna Edes
Kundera, Milan, Identity
Kundera, Milan, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
de Laclos, Pierre Choderlos, Dangerous Liaisons
di Lampedusa, Giuseppe Tomasi, The Leopard
Lao Tzu, Book of the Way (Tao Te Ching)
Laxness, Halldor, Independent People
Leopardi, Giacomo, The Canti
de Lorris, Guillame and de Meun, Jean, Le Roman de la Rose
Lu Xu, The Story of Ah Q
The Mahabarata
Mann, Thomas, Buddenbrooks
Mann, Thomas, Death in Venice
Mann, Thomas, Magic Mountain
Mao Tsetung, Little Red Book
Marai, Sandor, Embers
Marukami, Haruki, Norwegian Wood
Marukami, Haruki, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle
Marx, Karl, The Communist Manifesto
Mishima, Yukio, Forbidden Colours
Musil, Robert, Young Torless
Nabokov, Vladimir, The Gift
Nietzsche, Friedrich, Twilight of the Idols
Öe, Kenzaburo, Somersault
Pamuk, Orhan, The Black Book
Pamuk, Orhan, My Name is Red
Pascal, Blais, Pensées
Pasternak, Boris, Doctor Zhivago
Perec, George, Life A User’s Guide
Platonov, Andrey, Happy Moscow
Platonov, Andrey, Soul
Platonov, Andrey, The Return
Pleijel, Agneta, The Dog Star
Proust, Marcel, In Search of Lost Time
Queneau, Raymond, Zazie in the Metro
Robbe-Grillet, Alain, Jealousy
Roth, Joseph, The Radetsky March
Sagan, Françoise, Bonjour Tristesse
de Saint-Exupéry, Antoine, The Little Prince
Saramago, Jose, The Stone Raft
Sartre, Jean-Paul, Words
Schopenhauer, Arthur, Essays and Aphorisms
Sebald, W.G., Austerlitz
Sebald, W.G., Emigrants
Sebald, W.G., The Rings of Saturn
Schlink, Bernard, The Reader
Schoeman, Karel, Another Country
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Stendhal, Henri, The Charterhouse of Parma
Stendhal, Henri, Scarlet and Black
Süskind, Patrick, Perfume
Szerb, Antal, Journey by Moonlight
Tanizaki, Junichiro, The Makioka Sisters
Tolstoy, Leo, Anna Karenina
Tolstoy, Leo, War and Peace
Torrente Ballester, Gonzalo, The Saga Fuga de J B
Turgenev, Ivan, First Love
Xingjian, Gao, Soul Mountain
Vargos Llosa, Mario, The War at the End of the World
Virgil, The Aeneid
Wilhelm, Richard and Baynes, Cary F., trans. (original author unknown), Book of Changes (The I Ching)
This list has been compiled by the staff of English PEN, with suggestions from members. Do contact us if you would like to see your suggestions included here.
Fred Armentrout is the President of Hong-Kong (English-Speaking) PEN. He has sent us some suggestions to add to The Bigger Read list; click on his name to read the list.
We are also compiling a Top 50 list of translations (i.e. titles will be included based on the quality of the actual translation). Again, your thoughts on this would be most welcome. Watch this space for more details…
Originally posted with the url: www.englishpen.org/writersintranslation/thebiggerread/thebiggerreadlist/