The Greatest Books of All Time on Human Suffering

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This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 759 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
375 Kolyma Stories Varlam Shalamov 1954 Russian Russian
559 Christ Stopped at Eboli Carlo Levi 1945 Italian Italian
1137 Miss Lonelyhearts Nathanael West 1933 American English
1315 Voices from Chernobyl Svetlana Alexievich 1997 Belarusian Russian
1522 Cancer Ward Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1967 Russian Russian
2957 The Lower Depths Maxim Gorky 1902 Russian Russian
3387 Human Poems César Vallejo 1939 Peruvian Spanish
4207 The Case Worker György Konrád 1969 Hungarian Hungarian
6002 Les Murs De Fresnes Henri Calet 1945 French French
13817 La Morte Del Fiume Guglielmo Petroni 1958 Italian Italian
17002 The Fate Of A Man And Early Stories Mikhail Sholokhov 1967 Russian Russian