100 Best Novels, in Translation, Since 1900

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

About this list

CounterPunch, 100 Books

Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn's list of the best novels, in translation, since 1900.

This list was originally published in 2014 and was added to this site over 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
82 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
123 Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar 1951 French French
44 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1943 French French
473 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami 1994 Japanese Japanese
48 Journey to the End of The Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French French
2993 A Book Of Memories Péter Nádas 1986 Hungarian Hungarian
329 History Elsa Morante 1974 Italian Italian
5593 How It Is Samuel Beckett 1961 Irish French
231 Death of Virgil Hermann Broch 1945 Austrian German
7572 The Conformist Alberto Moravia 1951 Italian Italian
1299 My Name is Red Orhan Pamuk 1998 Turkish Turkish
296 The Lover Marguerite Duras 1984 French French
147 Confessions of Zeno Italo Svevo 1923 Italian Italian
355 The Savage Detectives Roberto Bolaño 1998 Chilean Spanish
148 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1962 Russian Russian
245 Nausea Jean Paul Sartre 1938 French French
1260 The President Miguel Angel Asturias 1946 Guatemalan Spanish
3841 All Our Yesterdays Natalia Ginzburg 1952 Italian Italian
114 The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco 1980 Italian Italian
2965 The Erasers Alain Robbe-Grillet 1953 French French
1375 The Sea of Fertility Yukio Mishima 1965 Japanese Japanese
701 The Feast of the Goat Mario Vargas Llosa 2000 Peruvian Spanish
7734 Despair Vladimir Nabokov 1934 Russian Russian
9594 The Gospel According To Jesus Christ José Saramago 1991 Portuguese Portuguese
477 Fateless or Fatelessness Imre Kertész 1975 Hungarian Hungarian
1233 Children of Gebelawi Naguib Mahfouz 1959 Egyptian Arabic
1092 Snow Country Yasunari Kawabata 1937 Japanese Japanese
1807 Beware Of Pity Stefan Zweig 1939 Austrian German
1722 The Joke Milan Kundera 1967 Czech Czech
594 Growth of the Soil Knut Hamsun 1917 Norwegian Norwegian
6713 The Land Of Green Plums Herta Müller 1994 German German
4440 The Thief's Journal Jean Genet 1949 French French
3087 Summer in Baden-Baden Leonid Tsypkin 1980 Russian Russian
789 The Piano Teacher Elfriede Jelinek 1983 Austrian German
568 The Mandarins Simone de Beauvoir 1954 French French
213 The Counterfeiters André Gide 1925 French French
3519 Sidetracked Henning Mankell 1995 Swedish Swedish
9255 Portrait Of A Man Unknown Nathalie Sarraute 1948 French French
272 The Devil to Pay in the Backlands Joao Guimaraes Rosa 1956 Brazilian Portuguese
172 Man's Fate Andre Malraux 1933 French French
996 Journey by Moonlight Antal Szerb 1937 Hungarian Hungarian
201 Berlin Alexanderplatz Alfred Döblin 1929 German German
186 Bonjour Tristesse Francoise Sagan 1954 French French
532 The Passion According to G.H. Clarice Lispector 1964 Brazilian Portuguese
276 Life, a User's Manual Georges Perec 1978 French French
834 Story of O Pauline Reage 1954 French French
394 Nadja André Breton 1928 French French
11293 This Life Karel Schoeman 1993 South African Afrikaans
11651 Yo Yo Boing! Giannina Braschi 1998 American Spanish
426 The Moon and the Bonfires Cesare Pavese 1950 Italian Italian
263 The Tartar Steppe Dino Buzzati 1940 Italian Italian
725 The Kingdom of This World Alejo Carpentier 1949 Cuban Spanish
2169 Terra Nostra Carlos Fuentes 1975 Mexican Spanish
9320 Red Lights Georges Simenon 1953 Belgian French
1088 The Dwarf Par Lagerkvist 1944 Swedish Swedish
207 Zorba the Greek Nikos Kazantzakis 1946 Greek Greek
384 Ferdydurke Witold Gombrowicz 1937 Polish Polish
171 Steppenwolf Hermann Hesse 1927 German German
873 Call to Arms Lu Xun 1922 Chinese Chinese
452 A Heart So White Javier Marias 1992 Spanish Spanish
672 Three Trapped Tigers Guillermo Cabrera Infante 1965 Cuban Spanish
4813 Happy Moscow Andrey Platonov 1991 Russian Russian
124 Pedro Páramo Juan Rulfo 1955 Mexican Spanish
11869 Century Of Locusts Malika Mokedden 1999 Algerian French
604 The Blind Owl Ṣādiq Hidāyat 1937 Iranian Persian
327 Solaris Stanislaw Lem 1961 Polish Polish
1719 No Longer Human Osamu Dazai 1948 Japanese Japanese
2466 La Grande Maison Mohammed Dib 1952 Algerian French
2189 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson 2005 Swedish Swedish
10899 Hotel Splendid Marie Redonnet 1986 French French
9364 A Dark Night's Passing Naoya Shiga 1937 Japanese Japanese
1303 The Seventh Cross Anna Seghers 1942 German German
9366 The Conspiracy Paul Nizan 1938 French French
745 Memed, My Hawk Yashar Kemal 1955 Turkish Turkish
695 Boys Alive Pier Paolo Pasolini 1955 Italian Italian
1809 The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon 2001 Spanish Spanish
9374 Stolen Spring Hans Scherfig 1940 Danish Danish
398 The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke 1910 German German
1237 Jacob the Liar Jurek Becker 1969 German German
697 The Rings of Saturn W. G. Sebald 1995 German German
7996 Black Rain Masuji Ibuse 1965 Japanese Japanese
5982 The Open Door Latifa Zayyat 1960 Egyptian Arabic
5261 Death And The Penguin Andrey Kurkov 1996 Ukrainian Russian
10008 Tamas Bhisham Sahni 1974 Indian Hindi
971 The Discovery of Heaven Harry Mulisch 1992 Dutch Dutch
656 The Time Of The Doves Merce Rodoreda 1962 Spanish Catalan
9508 Dita Saxova Arnost Lustig 1962 Czech Czech
474 Embers Sandor Marai 1942 Hungarian Hungarian
7963 The Good Hope William Heinesen 1964 Danish Danish
1670 The Emigrants Vilhelm Moberg 1949 Swedish Swedish
12222 The Swallows Of Kabul Yasmina Khadra 2002 Algerian French
771 God's Bits of Wood Ousmane Sembène 1960 Senegalese French
56 The Leopard Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 1958 Italian Italian
884 Homo Faber Max Frisch 1957 Swiss German