Magnesia Litera: The Books of the Century
This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.
About this list
Magnesia Litera, 81 Books
This list, titled 'Magnesia Litera: Book of the Century,' was created to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the Czechoslovak Republic's founding in 2018. It aimed to establish a canon of modern Czech literature by identifying the most significant Czech books from each year since 1918. The selection process involved experts initially nominating five books per year, from which readers selected the 'book of the year' via the Magnesia Litera website, excluding years post-2001 when the Magnesia Litera survey was already in place. From this pool of 99 books spanning 1918 to 2017, both an expert jury and the public chose three books representing the century's best. Notably, the list included translated works and plays in the initial selection phase, though plays were excluded post-2000 in the Magnesia Litera competition, prompting some media criticism of the methodology.
This list was originally published in 2018 and was added to this site over 1 year ago.