The 100 Best Novels in Translation by Boyd Tonkin

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Book, 102 Books

The 100 Best Novels in Translation by Boyd Tonkin is a curated guide to world literature, presenting a personal selection of 100 outstanding novels originally written in languages other than English and published between 1600 and 2000. Drawing on his deep experience as a literary critic and former judge of major international fiction prizes, Tonkin aims not to establish a rigid canon but to inspire curiosity, debate, and discovery. Each entry offers a thoughtful summary and analysis, along with praise for the translators who bring these works to English-speaking audiences. While the book has faced some criticism for its Eurocentric focus and gender imbalance, it remains a passionate, well-informed celebration of global fiction and the art of translation.

This list was originally published in 2019 and was added to this site over 1 year ago.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
284 The Princess of Cleves Madame de La Fayette 1678 French French
80 Candide Voltaire 1759 French French
210 Dangerous Liaison Pierre Choderlos de Laclos 1782 French French
282 The Sorrows of Young Werther Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1774 German German
484 Dream of the Red Chamber Cao Xueqin 1754 Chinese Chinese
412 Jacques the Fatalist and His Master Denis Diderot 1796 French French
7019 Corinne Madame de Staël 1807 French French
724 Michael Kohlhaas Heinrich von Kleist 1810 German German
273 The Betrothed Alessandro Manzoni 1827 Italian Italian
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
4309 Indiana George Sand 1832 French French
228 Father Goriot Honoré de Balzac 1835 French French
249 A Hero of Our Time Mikhail Lermontov 1840 Russian Russian
104 Dead Souls Nikolai Gogol 1842 Russian Russian
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
179 Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev 1862 Russian Russian
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
742 The Crime of Father Amaro Eça de Queirós 1875 Portuguese Portuguese
301 The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas Machado de Assis 1881 Brazilian Portuguese
1592 Niels Lyhne Jens Peter Jacobson 1880 Danish Danish
18 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880 Russian Russian
356 Germinal Émile Zola 1885 French French
209 Hunger Knut Hamsun 1890 Norwegian Norwegian
13361 The Duel And Other Stories Anton Chekhov 1891 Russian Russian
2265 The Murderess Alexandros Papadiamantis 1903 Greek Greek
13361 The Gate Natsume Sōseki 1910 Japanese Japanese
398 The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke 1910 German German
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
3901 Canne Al Vento Grazia Deledda 1913 Italian Italian
730 Petersburg Andrei Bely 1913 Russian Russian
1087 Home and the World Rabindranath Tagore 1916 Indian Bengali
299 Kristin Lavransdatter Sigrid Undset 1920 Norwegian Norwegian
1235 Cheri Colette 1920 French French
147 Confessions of Zeno Italo Svevo 1923 Italian Italian
159 The Good Soldier Švejk Jaroslav Hašek 1921 Czech Czech
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
201 Berlin Alexanderplatz Alfred Döblin 1929 German German
930 The Seven Madmen Roberto Arlt 1929 Argentinian Spanish
82 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
1605 The Foundation Pit Andrey Platonov 1930 Russian Russian
48 Journey to the End of The Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French French
199 The Radetzky March Joseph Roth 1932 Austrian German
288 Independent People Halldor Laxness 1934 Icelandic Icelandic
996 Journey by Moonlight Antal Szerb 1937 Hungarian Hungarian
960 The Gift Vladimir Nabokov 1938 Russian Russian
245 Nausea Jean Paul Sartre 1938 French French
1286 The Invention Of Morel Adolfo Bioy Casares 1940 Argentinian Spanish
263 The Tartar Steppe Dino Buzzati 1940 Italian Italian
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
1448 Suite Française Irène Némirovsky 2004 French French
2693 Near To The Wild Heart Clarice Lispector 1943 Brazilian Portuguese
430 The Bridge on the Drina Ivo Andrić 1945 Bosnian Serbo-croatian
847 Only Yesterday Shmuel Yosef Agnon 1945 Israeli Hebrew
1360 The Makioka Sisters Junichiro Tanizaki 1948 Japanese Japanese
1622 Fortress Besieged Qian Zhongshu 1947 Chinese Chinese
11577 Dirty Snow Georges Simenon 1948 Belgian French
426 The Moon and the Bonfires Cesare Pavese 1950 Italian Italian
151 Molloy Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
270 Malone Dies Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
326 The Unnamable Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
692 The Hive Camilo José Cela 1951 Spanish Spanish
123 Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar 1951 French French
124 Pedro Páramo Juan Rulfo 1955 Mexican Spanish
1115 The Cairo Trilogy Naguib Mahfouz 1956 Egyptian Arabic
1699 That Awful Mess On Via Merulana Carlo Emilio Gadda 1957 Italian Italian
56 The Leopard Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 1958 Italian Italian
91 The Tin Drum Günter Grass 1959 German German
214 Life and Fate Vasily Grossman 1980 Russian Russian
327 Solaris Stanislaw Lem 1961 Polish Polish
13361 The Time Regulation Institute Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar 1954 Turkish Turkish
335 The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Giorgio Bassani 1962 Italian Italian
13361 The Slave Isaac Bashevis Singer 1962 Polish Yiddish
1280 The Death of Artemio Cruz Carlos Fuentes 1962 Mexican Spanish
354 Hopscotch Julio Cortazar 1963 Argentinian Spanish
672 Three Trapped Tigers Guillermo Cabrera Infante 1965 Cuban Spanish
516 Season of Migration to the North Al-Tayyib Salih 1966 Sudanese Arabic
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
2204 The Quest for Christa T. Christa Wolf 1968 German German
566 I Served The King Of England Bohumil Hrabal 1983 Czech Czech
3262 Chronicle In Stone Ismail Kadare 1971 Albanian Albanian
6446 The Bridge Of Beyond Simone Schwarz-Bart 1972 French French
2256 Correction Thomas Bernhard 1975 Austrian German
276 Life, a User's Manual Georges Perec 1978 French French
1093 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
318 If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino 1979 Italian Italian
12076 Basti Intizar Husain 1979 Pakistani Urdu
1278 So Long a Letter Mariama Bâ 1980 Senegalese French
12134 Buru Quartet Pramoedya Ananta Toer 1980 Indonesian Indonesian
6791 The True Deceiver Tove Jansson 1982 Finnish Swedish
296 The Lover Marguerite Duras 1984 French French
1242 The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis José Saramago 1984 Portuguese Portuguese
5717 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World Haruki Murakami 1985 Japanese Japanese
8774 See Under: Love David Grossman 1986 Israeli Hebrew
4125 The Black Book Orhan Pamuk 1990 Turkish Turkish
1344 The Emigrants W. G. Sebald 1992 German German
6713 The Land Of Green Plums Herta Müller 1994 German German
5417 A Dictionary Of Maqiao Han Shaogong 1996 Chinese Chinese
701 The Feast of the Goat Mario Vargas Llosa 2000 Peruvian Spanish