• The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated by Daisy Rockwell
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - The Books of Jacob: A Novel by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist, recommended by Frank Wynne

The International Booker Prize celebrates the best fiction in translation published over the previous year. Frank Wynne, acclaimed translator and chair of the 2022 judging panel, tells Five Books about the six novels that made the shortlist, and reminds readers that world literature need not be tough, consumed only in the interests of self-improvement—but is often joyful, surprising and full of feeling.

  • 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 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.

  • The Best Fyodor Dostoevsky Books - Lectures on Dostoevsky by Joseph Frank
  • The Best Fyodor Dostoevsky Books - Memoirs from the House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Jessie Coulson
  • The Best Fyodor Dostoevsky Books - Dostoevsky: Reminiscences by Anna Dostoevsky
  • The Best Fyodor Dostoevsky Books - The Master of Petersburg: A Novel by J M Coetzee
  • The Best Fyodor Dostoevsky Books - Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Best Fyodor Dostoevsky Books, recommended by Alex Christofi

His father had clawed his way up into the minor aristocracy, but Fyodor Dostoevsky chose to live the life of an impecunious author. He was sentenced to death, but his execution was stayed and he spent years in a Siberian labour camp instead. His books are about human compassion, but he was a difficult man who had trouble with his own personal relationships. Alex Christofi, author of a brilliant new biography of Dostoevsky, one of Russia’s greatest novelists, recommends five books to learn more about the man and his work—including the novel of which Tolstoy said he ‘didn’t know a better book in all our literature’.