100 Must-Read Classics in Translation

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

About this list

Bookriot, 100 Books

Here is a list of must-read classics in translation from around the world, written in languages other than English.
All of these were published before 1967.

The voter for this list seems to be only 1 person, Rebecca Hussey.

This list was originally published in 2017 and was added to this site over 1 year ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
24 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek
900 The Poems of Sappho Sappho -569 Greek Ancient greek
125 Antigone Sophocles -441 Greek Ancient greek
13362 The Selected Poems Of T’ao Ch’ien T’ao Ch’ien -365 Chinese Classical chinese
14377 The Kagero Diary Sonja Arntzen 1997 Japanese Japanese
865 The Pillow Book Sei Shōnagon 1002 Japanese Japanese
130 The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu 1001 Japanese Classical japanese
13362 The Sarashina Diary Sugawara no Takasue no Musume 1050 Japanese Classical japanese
11545 Hildegard Of Bingen Hildegard of Bingen 1152 German Latin
14122 Lais Of Marie De France Marie de France 2010 French Anglo-norman
4801 The Confessions Of Lady Nijo Lady Nijo 1307 Japanese Japanese
11562 Essays In Idleness Yoshida Kenko 1330 Japanese Japanese
807 The Book of the City of Ladies Christine De Pizan 1405 French French
5481 The Inferno Dante Alighieri 1308 Italian Italian
1266 The Heptameron Marguerite de Navarre 1558 French French
75 Essays Michel de Montaigne 1580 French French
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
5392 Poems Of Juana Inés De La Cruz Juana Inés de la Cruz 1689 Mexican Spanish
1475 Lettres de madame de Sévigné Marie de Rabutin-Chantal marquise de Sévigné 1671 French French
284 The Princess of Cleves Madame de La Fayette 1678 French French
2714 The Narrow Road to the Deep North Matsuo Bashō 1684 Japanese Japanese
13362 Letters Of A Peruvian Woman Françoise de Graffigny 1747 French French
484 Dream of the Red Chamber Cao Xueqin 1754 Chinese Chinese
13362 The Story Of Beauty And The Beast Madame de Villeneuve 1740 French French
282 The Sorrows of Young Werther Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1774 German German
210 Dangerous Liaison Pierre Choderlos de Laclos 1782 French French
13362 Voyage Around My Room Xavier de Maistre 1794 French French
13362 Delphine Madame de Staël 1802 French French
4309 Indiana George Sand 1832 French French
87 The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
424 A Doll's House Henrik Ibsen 1879 Norwegian Norwegian
1072 Gösta Berling's Saga Selma Lagerlöf 1891 Swedish Swedish
11546 Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral Gabriela Mistral 1922 Chilean Spanish
200 The Book of Disquiet Fernando Pessoa 1982 Portuguese Portuguese
2440 Poems Of Anna Akhmatova Anna Akhmatova 1912 Russian Russian
877 The Cherry Orchard Anton Chekhov 1904 Russian Russian
13362 I Am A Cat Natsume Sōseki 1905 Japanese Japanese
482 Jakob Von Gunten Robert Walser 1909 Swiss German
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
13362 The Wild Geese Ōgai Mori 1911 Japanese Japanese
66 The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka 1915 Czech German
1236 Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories Ryunosuke Akutagawa 1915 Japanese Japanese
1087 Home and the World Rabindranath Tagore 1916 Indian Bengali
1235 Cheri Colette 1920 French French
299 Kristin Lavransdatter Sigrid Undset 1920 Norwegian Norwegian
163 Siddhartha Hermann Hesse 1922 German German
11546 A Madman's Diary 狂人日記 Lu Xun 1918 Chinese Chinese
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
1108 Chaka Thomas Mofolo 1925 South African Sesotho
4213 Miss Sophie's Diary And Other Stories Ding Ling 1928 Chinese Chinese
86 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque 1928 German German
1914 Grand Hotel Vicki Baum 1929 German German
1436 Letters to a Young Poet Rainer Maria Rilke 1929 Austrian German
727 The Street of Crocodiles Bruno Schulz 1934 Polish Polish
996 Journey by Moonlight Antal Szerb 1937 Hungarian Hungarian
13362 A Riot Of Goldfish Kanoko Okamoto 1937 Japanese Japanese
1092 Snow Country Yasunari Kawabata 1937 Japanese Japanese
13362 Child Of All Nations Irmgard Keun 1938 German German
1807 Beware Of Pity Stefan Zweig 1939 Austrian German
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
2654 Iceland’s Bell Halldor Laxness 1943 Icelandic Icelandic
1566 Love In A Fallen City Eileen Chang 1943 Chinese Chinese
1360 The Makioka Sisters Junichiro Tanizaki 1948 Japanese Japanese
949 Nada Carmen Laforet 1944 Spanish Spanish
1409 No Exit Jean Paul Sartre 1944 French French
1023 Transit Anna Seghers 1944 German German
113 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 1947 Dutch Dutch
140 The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir 1949 French French
13006 Thus Were Their Faces Silvina Ocampo 1988 Argentinian Spanish
1780 Poems of Pablo Neruda Pablo Neruda 1970 Chilean Spanish
4661 The Complete Stories Clarice Lispector 2016 Brazilian Portuguese
2654 The Skeleton Amrita Pritam 1950 Indian Punjabi
2521 Waiting For God Simone Weil 1950 French French
123 Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar 1951 French French
186 Bonjour Tristesse Francoise Sagan 1954 French French
11546 The Ten Thousand Things Maria Dermoût 1955 Dutch Dutch
2051 Palace Walk Naguib Mahfouz 1956 Egyptian Arabic
1532 Arturo's Island Elsa Morante 1957 Italian Italian
2930 The Waiting Years Fumiko Enchi 1957 Japanese Japanese
13362 Memoirs Of A Woman Doctor Nawal El Saadawi 1958 Egyptian Arabic
3895 The Planetarium Nathalie Sarraute 1959 French French
5982 The Open Door Latifa Zayyat 1960 Egyptian Arabic
13362 The Book Of Lamentations Rosario Castellanos 1962 Mexican Spanish
1280 The Death of Artemio Cruz Carlos Fuentes 1962 Mexican Spanish
312 Labyrinths Jorge Luis Borges 1962 Argentinian Spanish
5699 The Little Virtues Natalia Ginzburg 1962 Italian Italian
354 Hopscotch Julio Cortazar 1963 Argentinian Spanish
13362 Iza's Ballad Magda Szabó 1963 Hungarian Hungarian
4407 The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea Yukio Mishima 1963 Japanese Japanese
1480 Divided Heaven Christa Wolf 1963 German German
2163 A Personal Matter Kenzaburō Ōe 1964 Japanese Japanese
895 The Ravishing of Lol Stein Marguerite Duras 1964 French French
2213 Closely Watched Trains Bohumil Hrabal 1965 Czech Czech
13362 The Doctor's Wife Sawako Ariyoshi 1966 Japanese Japanese
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish