• The Best South Asian Novels in Translation - Phoolsunghi by Pandey Kapil, translated by Gautam Choubey
  • The Best South Asian Novels in Translation - The Bronze Sword of Tengphakhri Tehsildar by Indira Goswami, translated by Aruni Kashyap
  • The Best South Asian Novels in Translation - The Upheaval by Pundalik Naik, translated by Vidya Pai
  • The Best South Asian Novels in Translation - Battles of Our Own by Jagadish Mohanty, translated by Himansu S. Mohapatra and Paul St-Pierre
  • The Best South Asian Novels in Translation - Sarasvatichandra by Govardhanram Madhavram Tripathi, translated by Tridip Suhrud

The Best South Asian Novels in Translation, recommended by Jenny Bhatt

The writer and translator Jenny Bhatt selects five key works of South Asian literature, all historical novels available in English translation, that showcase the richness and diversity of the region’s lesser known languages: from a modernist classic decrying the depradations of the coal mining industry to a ‘loose, baggy monster’ of a Victorian novel exploring utopian ideals.

  • The Best Ukrainian Literature - Voroshilovgrad Serhiy Zhadan, Reilly Costigan-Humes & Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler (translators)
  • The Best Ukrainian Literature - Cassandra: A Dramatic Poem by Lesia Ukrainka & Nina Murray (translator)
  • The Best Ukrainian Literature - The Death of a Soldier Told by His Sister by Olesya Khromeychuk
  • The Best Ukrainian Literature - The Moscoviad by Yuri Andrukhovych, Vitaly Chernetsky (translator)
  • The Best Ukrainian Literature - The Torture Camp on Paradise Street by Stanislav Aseyev, Nina Murray & Zenia Tomkins (translators)

The Best Ukrainian Literature, recommended by Sasha Dovzhyk

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, many people around the world have become more familiar with the country’s recent history, but many of us still don’t know much about its literary traditions. Academic and activist Sasha Dovzhyk introduces five works of Ukrainian literature, from an early 20th-century dramatic poem to devastating first-person accounts of the war that started in 2014.

  • The Best of World Literature: The 2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist - At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop, translated by Anna Moschovakis
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist - The Dangers of Smoking in Bed: Stories by Mariana Enríquez, translated by Megan McDowell
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist - When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut, translated by Adrian Nathan West
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist - The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist - In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, by Sasha Dugdale
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist - The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard, translated by Mark Polizzotti

The Best of World Literature: The 2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist, recommended by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

Every year the International Booker Prize judges read dozens of novels from around the world, which are newly translated into English. Here Lucy Hughes-Hallett—award-winning author and chair of this year’s judging panel—talks us through the six books that made their 2021 shortlist of the best world literature.

  • The Best Vietnamese Novels - The Lover by Marguerite Duras
  • The Best Vietnamese Novels - The Zenith: A Novel by Duong Thu Huong
  • The Best Vietnamese Novels - The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh
  • The Best Vietnamese Novels - The Crystal Messenger by Pham Thi Hoai
  • The Best Vietnamese Novels - The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Best Vietnamese Novels, recommended by Sherry Buchanan

Vietnam has had a tumultuous history and its literature is one powerful way of trying to understand it better. Journalist, author and publisher Sherry Buchanan—who has spent two decades introducing Vietnam’s culture to English-speaking audiences—talks us through the best Vietnamese novels available in English, spanning the years from French colonialism to the 2016 Pulitzer Prize.

  • The best books on The Harlem Renaissance - Harlem Shadows by Claude McKay
  • The best books on The Harlem Renaissance - Passing by Nella Larsen
  • The best books on The Harlem Renaissance - Cane by Jean Toomer
  • The best books on The Harlem Renaissance - When Harlem Was in Vogue by David Levering Lewis
  • The best books on The Harlem Renaissance - Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals by Saidiya Hartman

The best books on The Harlem Renaissance, recommended by William J. Maxwell

It was a golden age for American culture, a flourishing of Black literature, music and the arts that exploded in the 1910s and lasted through to the Great Depression. It was focused on Harlem, the area of New York City above Central Park, but its origins and its impact were much, much broader. William J. Maxwell, Professor of English and African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, recommends some of the best books on the Harlem Renaissance.

  • The Best Goethe Books - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe by Jeremy Adler
  • The Best Goethe Books - Italian Journey by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • The Best Goethe Books - Elective Affinities by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • The Best Goethe Books - Faust I & II by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • The Best Goethe Books - Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe by George Santayana

The Best Goethe Books, recommended by David E. Wellbery

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) has been described as ‘the last true polymath to walk the earth’. A defining figure in German literature, Goethe coined the concept of world literature. And his literary and dramatic achievements are matched by his scientific work. David E. Wellbery, Professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago and recipient of the Golden Goethe Medal, introduces us to the life and work of Goethe. He explores why figures such as Beethoven and Napoleon were magnetised to him, how Rousseau influenced Faust, and why Goethe’s Faust does not sell his soul to the devil.

  • Essential Norwegian Fiction - Gisli Sursson’s Saga by Various
  • Essential Norwegian Fiction - Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun and Sverre Lyngstad (translator)
  • Essential Norwegian Fiction - Shyness and Dignity by Dag Solstad and Sverre Lyngstad (translator)
  • Essential Norwegian Fiction - Beatles by Don Bartlett (translator) & Lars Saabye Christensen
  • Essential Norwegian Fiction - My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgård and Don Bartlett (translator)

Essential Norwegian Fiction, recommended by Roy Jacobsen

Sagas old and new, from Gisli Sursson’s trials to Knausgård’s struggle, form the backbone of Roy Jacobsen’s selection of essential fiction from Norway, a country that is like ‘a black and not very polished diamond’, and where writers and readers seek out the human, ‘no matter how awkward, grandiose, sentimental, nostalgic, embarrassing, hyperbolic, stupid, hilarious or dangerous it may be’

  • Landmarks of Scottish Literature - The Heart of Mid-Lothian by Walter Scott
  • Landmarks of Scottish Literature - The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Landmarks of Scottish Literature - Gillespie by John MacDougall Hay
  • Landmarks of Scottish Literature - The Grampian Quartet by Nan Shepherd
  • Landmarks of Scottish Literature - Silence by James Kennaway

Landmarks of Scottish Literature, recommended by James Robertson

Scottish culture is best understood as related to, but distinct from, that of Britain or England, says the acclaimed novelist James Robertson. Here, he selects five landmark works of Scottish literature, from Sir Walter Scott’s sweeping, panoramic social novels of the 18th century, through Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde, to Nan Shepherd’s beloved nature writing.