The 21st Century's 12 Greatest Novels

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

BBC, 20 Books

What are the greatest novels of the opening years of this tumultuous century? In search of a collective critical assessment, BBC Culture contributor Jane Ciabattari polled several dozen book critics, including The New York Times Book Review’s Parul Sehgal, Time magazine's book editor Lev Grossman, Newsday book editor Tom Beer, Bookslut founder Jessa Crispin, C Max Magee, founder of The Millions, Booklist's Donna Seaman, Kirkus Reviews' Laurie Muchnick and many more. We asked each to name the best novels published in English since 1 January 2000. The critics named 156 novels in all, and based on the votes these are the top 12.

*Note
Although it says 12, they list more

Who voted? It says "several dozen" people and lists a few by name. I am going to go with 36

This list was originally published in 2015 and was added to this site almost 7 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
396 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
574 The Known World Edward P. Jones 2003 American English
397 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 2009 British English
475 Gilead Marilynne Robinson 2004 American English
237 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen 2001 American English
314 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
421 A Visit From The Goon Squad Jennifer Egan 2010 American English
3139 Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk Ben Fountain 2012 American English
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
1158 Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2006 Nigerian English
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
418 Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides 2002 American English
443 Americanah Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2013 Nigerian English
262 Austerlitz W. G. Sebald 2001 German German
409 My Brilliant Friend Elena Ferrante 2012 American Italian
723 The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst 2004 British English
290 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
1751 NW Zadie Smith 2012 British English
232 2666 Roberto Bolaño 2004 Chilean Spanish
2817 The Great Fire Shirley Hazzard 2003 Australian English