The 100 Novels That Have Most Enthralled "Le Monde" Since 1944
This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.
About this list
Le Monde, 100 Books
This list highlights the 100 novels that have most captivated the editors and critics at Le Monde since the year 1944.
The list reflects a subjective selection of novels that have captivated the editors and critics at Le Monde over the past 75 years. The list does not aim to be an objective ranking or a comprehensive panorama of literature since 1944, but rather a collection of literary works that have left a significant impression on the contributors to the newspaper.
The selection process involved Le Monde's literary team diving into the newspaper's archives, sifting through decades of articles and reviews. The books were chosen based on moments of enthusiasm and admiration expressed by the critics over the years. This approach underscores the subjective nature of literary criticism and emphasizes the personal connection between the critics and the texts. Rather than striving for an exhaustive or algorithm-driven list, the focus was on highlighting the passionate, sometimes contradictory, and always personal responses that these novels elicited from the critics of Le Monde.
Who picked the books? The list was hand-curated by three in-house critics – Jean Birnbaum (then editor-in-chief of Le Monde des livres), Florent Georgesco and Raphaëlle Leyris – “with the invaluable help of our librarians.”
This list was originally published in 2019 and was added to this site almost 2 years ago.