The Greatest Books Since 1980 Written by French Authors
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1 . The Lover by Marguerite Duras
An international best-seller with more than one million copies in print and a winner of France's Prix Goncourt, The Lover has been acclaimed by critics all over the world since its first publicatio...
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2 . Platform by Michel Houellebecq
Michel is a civil-servant at the Ministry of Culture. When his father is murdered, Michel takes a leave of absence to go on a package tour to Thailand. Infuriated by the shallow hypocrisy and medio...
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3 . Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, two boys are sent to the country for reeducation, where their lives take an unexpected turn when they meet the beautiful daughter of a local tailor and stumb...
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4 . The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq
An international literary phenomenon, The Elementary Particles is a frighteningly original novel–part Marguerite Duras and part Bret Easton Ellis-that leaps headlong into the malaise of contemporar...
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5 . One Hundred and One Poems by Paul Verlaine by Paul Verlaine
French poet Paul Verlaine, a major representative of the Symbolist Movement during the latter half of the nineteenth century, was one of the most gifted and prolific poets of his time. Norman Shapi...
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6 . The First Man by Albert Camus
Camus tells the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own. Camus summons up the sights, sounds and textures of a childhood circumscribed by poverty and a father's death yet...
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7 . The First Garden by Anne Hébert
Flora Fontages is a famous Parisian actress who has been in exile from her native Canada for twenty years. When word comes that her long-estranged daughter, Maud, has disappeared in Quebec City, sh...
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8 . Whatever by Michel Houellebecq
Just thirty, with a well-paid job, no love life and a terrible attitude, the anti-hero of this grim, funny novel smokes four packs of cigarettes a day and writes weird animal stories in his spare t...
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9 . The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
The Elegance of the Hedgehog (French: L'Élégance du hérisson) is a novel by the French novelist and philosophy teacher Muriel Barbery. The book follows events in the life of a concierge, Renée Mich...
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10 . Persepolis Two by Marjane Satrapi
The great-granddaughter of Iran's last emperor and the daughter of ardent Marxists continues her description of growing up in Tehran, a country plagued by political upheaval and vast contradictions...
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11 . Lives Other Than My Own by Emmanuel Carrère
From the acclaimed Emmanuel Carrère, an act of generous imagination that unflinchingly records devastating loss and, equally vividly, the wealth of human solace that follows in its wake In Sri Lank...
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12 . The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck
A historical epic that tells an unusual love story, The News from Paraguay offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of nineteenth-century Paraguay, a largely untouched wilderness where Europeans and North A...
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13 . I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé
This wild and entertaining novel expands on the true story of the West Indian slave Tituba, who was accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, arrested in 1692, and forgotten in jail until the ...
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14 . I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere by Anna Gavalda
Collects eleven short stories about individuals longing to connect with others.
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15 . Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou
"A man sits in a bar, ruminating on his own failures and conversing with an ensemble of memorable characters that pass in and out of the same space. It’s archetypal stuff, but Mabanckou transforms ...
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16 . Betty Blue: The Story of a Passion by Philippe Djian
BETTY BLUE remains a cult book and film nearly twenty years since its first outing. The extraordinary story of an erotic, doomed love affair has transfixed hundreds of thousands of readers around t...
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