The Greatest Modernist Books of All Time

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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
5900 Parables, Fragments, Aphorisms Franz Kafka 1935 Czech German
5911 Poems Of Fernando Pessoa Fernando Pessoa 1942 Portuguese Portuguese
5993 Writing Degree Zero Roland Barthes 1953 French French
5999 After Virtue Alasdair MacIntyre 1981 British English
6004 Collected Stories Franz Kafka 1931 Austrian German
6004 Ivanov Anton Chekhov 1887 Russian Russian
6004 The Lord Chandos Letter And Other Writings Hugo von Hofmannsthal 1902 Austrian German
6004 A Certain Plume Henri Michaux 1930 French English
6004 Die Niederschrift Des Gustav Anias Horn Hans Henny Jahnn 1949 German German
6004 Dire I–Ii Danielle Collobert 1972 French French
6004 Divagations Stéphane Mallarmé 1897 French French
6004 Le Bavard Louis-René Des Forêts 1946 French French
6004 Les Métamorphoses Du Cercle Georges Poulet 1961 Belgian French
6004 Madness Of The Day Maurice Blanchot 1949 French French
6004 My Feminine Brother Marina Tsvetaeva 1923 Russian Russian
6004 No One's Rose Paul Celan 1963 German German
6004 Note Conjointe Charles Péguy 1914 French French
6004 Pylon William Faulkner 1935 American English
6004 Quai Des Grands Augustins Jean Rhys 1930 Unknown French
6004 Someone Robert Pinget 1965 French French
6004 The Burrow Franz Kafka 1924 Austrian German
6004 The Flood Yevgeny Zamyatin 1929 Russian Russian
6004 The Golden Fruits Nathalie Sarraute 1963 French French
6004 The Ratcatcher Marina Tsvetaeva 1926 Russian Russian
6004 The Sailor From Gibraltar Marguerite Duras 1952 French French
6004 The Story Of My Wife Milán Füst 1942 Hungarian Hungarian
6004 Three Women Robert Musil 1924 Austrian German
6075 The Voyeur Alain Robbe-Grillet 1955 French French
6078 The Questionnaire Jiří Gruša 1975 Czech Czech
6088 The End Of The World News Anthony Burgess 1982 British English
6124 Inland Gerald Murnane 1988 Australian English
6127 Selected Poems, 1965-1975 Margaret Atwood 1976 Canadian English
6151 The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet David Mitchell 2010 British English
6160 The Star Of Redemption Franz Rosenzweig 1971 German German
6171 The Fantastic Tzvetan Todorov 1970 French French
6176 The Mansion William Faulkner 1959 American English
6188 Guerrillas V. S. Naipaul 1975 Trinidadian English
6200 The Elegies Of Oxopetra Odysseas Elytis 1991 Greek Greek
6200 Amantul Colivăresei Radu Aldulescu 1996 Romanian Romanian
6208 Let The River Stand Vincent O’Sullivan 1993 New Zealand English
6217 The Origin Thomas Bernhard 1975 Austrian German
6222 In Country Sleep Dylan Thomas 1952 Welsh English
6235 Petrolio Pier Paolo Pasolini 1992 Italian Italian
6256 Omensetter's Luck William H. Gass 1966 American English
6258 Moments Of Being Virginia Woolf 1976 British English
6279 Nothing Henry Green 1950 British English
6281 The Mirror and the Lamp Meyer Howard Abrams 1953 American English
6288 Visitation Jenny Erpenbeck 2008 German German
6291 Amers Saint-John Perse 1957 French French
6301 Rejection Tony Tulathimutte 2024 American English
6302 Lord Of The Barnyard Tristan Egolf 1998 American English
6303 Les Lieux De Marguerite Duras Marguerite Duras 1977 French French
6326 The Day Of Creation J. G. Ballard 1987 British English
6350 Karingana Ua Karingana José Craveirinha 1982 Mozambican Portuguese
6355 Delirious New York Rem Koolhaas 1978 Dutch English
6362 Master Georgie Beryl Bainbridge 1998 British English
6361 Во сне ты горько плакал Yuri Kazakov 1995 Russian Russian
6374 The Feeling Of What Happens Antonio Damasio 1999 Portuguese English
6381 Literature And Revolution Leon Trotsky 1924 Russian Russian
6405 L'iguana Anna Maria Ortese 1965 Italian Italian
6421 The Laws Connie Palmen 1991 Dutch Dutch
6421 Typical Padgett Powell 1991 American English
6420 A Czech Dreambook Ludvík Vaculík 1981 Czech Czech
6432 La Jeune Parque Paul Valéry 1917 French French
6472 The Sound Of My Voice Ron Butlin 1987 British English
6486 The Philosopher's Stone Colin Wilson 1969 British English
6513 Incest Christine Angot 1999 French French
6516 Language, Truth, And Logic A. J. Ayer 1936 British English
6517 Ghost Image Hervé Guibert 1981 French French
6521 The Escaped Cock D. H. Lawrence 1929 British English
6524 Le Coq Et L'arlequin Jean Cocteau 1918 French French
6535 Modern Fantasy C. N. Manlove 1975 British English
6575 Phenomenology Of Perception Maurice Merleau-Ponty 1945 French French
6580 Zuckerman Bound Philip Roth 1985 American English
6586 Im Bach Des Wals Paul Nizon 1983 Swiss German
6589 The Works Of Johannes Bobrowski Johannes Bobrowski 1969 German German
6637 The Opoponax Monique Wittig 1983 French French
6637 The Ruin Of Kasch Roberto Calasso 1983 Italian Italian
6667 Magorovy Labutí Písně Ivan Martin Jirous 1985 Czech Czech
6678 The Concept Of Mind Gilbert Ryle 1949 British English
6803 On Photography Susan Sontag 1977 American English
6821 Tales Of The Jazz Age F. Scott Fitzgerald 1922 American English
6821 The Swimmer John Cheever 1964 American English
6838 Frontier Can Xue 2008 Chinese Chinese
6840 Other Inquisitions Jorge Luis Borges 1952 Argentinian Spanish
6853 Kairos Jenny Erpenbeck 2023 German German
6857 Hell Has No Limits José Donoso 1965 Chilean Spanish
6865 Loupežník Karel Čapek 1988 Czech Czech
6870 The Mother Grazia Deledda 1920 Italian Italian
6871 The Field of Vision Wright Morris 1956 American English
6912 Herrumbrosas Lanzas Juan Benet 1983 Spanish Spanish
6920 The Reluctant Fundamentalist Mohsin Hamid 2007 Pakistani English
6924 Życie Jest Gdzie Indziej Milan Kundera 1989 Czech Czech
6924 Agogh Oldřich Mikulášek 1989 Czech Czech
6927 Travesties Tom Stoppard 1974 British English
6948 The Fantastic In Literature Eric S. Rabkin 1976 American English
6969 Collected Shorter Poems W. H. Auden 1966 British English
6984 Sleeping It Off in Rapid City August Kleinzahler 2008 American English
6996 You Don't Love Yourself Nathalie Sarraute 1989 French French
7056 Some Thing Black Jacques Roubaud 1990 French French
7098 Gli Imperdonabili Cristina Campo 1987 Italian Italian
7108 The Children Of The Dead Elfriede Jelinek 2024 Austrian German
7120 A Louis Zukofsky 1991 American English
7130 Beauty Is A Wound Eka Kurniawan 2002 Indonesian Indonesian
7134 Slow Man J. M. Coetzee 2005 South African English
7136 Chronicler Of The Winds Henning Mankell 1995 Swedish Swedish
7160 The Poems Of Manolis Anagnostakis Manolis Anagnostakis 2001 Greek Greek
7163 A Million Little Pieces James Frey 2003 American English
7165 A Fable William Faulkner 1954 American English
7175 Out Of Sheer Rage Geoff Dyer 1997 British English
7202 Gb84 David Peace 2004 British English
7205 Voroshilovgrad Serhiy Zhadan 2010 Ukrainian Ukrainian
7215 Naked Masks Luigi Pirandello 1922 Italian Italian
7215 Orphic Songs Dino Campana 1914 Italian Italian
7215 Selected Poems Federico García Lorca 1928 Spanish Spanish
7215 The Keeper Of Sheep Fernando Pessoa 1925 Portuguese Portuguese
7215 Anabasis Saint-John Perse 1924 French French
7215 Seven Dada Manifestoes Tristan Tzara 1924 French French
7215 The Use Of Speech Nathalie Sarraute 1933 French French
7215 Wolf Solent John Cowper Powys 1929 British English