World Literature

Want to read something that won’t feel out of date next year? Something from a different time and place, but with universal resonance? Five Books contributing editor Tuva Kahrs picks five classic books from China, Japan and Korea that have stood the test of time, from a blockbuster adventure novel to a murderous memoir.

We asked the award-winning Mexican novelist Ave Barrera—whose latest book, The Forgery, has recently been translated into English—to recommend five classic Mexican novels. Here she discusses her choices, which include books by Juan Rulfo, Elena Garro and Nellie Campobello.

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.

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 award-winning Cameroonian novelist Mutt-Lon selects five of the best recent novels from Francophone Africa, including Mohamed Mbougar Sarr's Prix Goncourt-winning La plus secrète mémoire des hommes. These novels, he notes—as with many others from West and Central Africa—are united by a common search for identity in post-colonial Africa.

For a long time, Catalan fiction was eclipsed by books in Spanish but these days it's flourishing, says translator and editor Gala Sicart. Here, she recommends four of the best contemporary Catalan novels and one book of short stories, from the classic Mercè Rodoreda to her 21st-century equivalent.

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.

They're among the finest novels ever written, often vast in their scope and ambitious in their subject matter. Some are long, others can be read in an afternoon. They're also one of the best ways of understanding Russian history. Historian Orlando Figes, author of The Story of Russia and Natasha's Dance, recommends his favourite Russian novels, from the 19th century to today.

There's never been a better time to be an Indonesian writer, says the singer-songwriter and bestselling author of Supernova Dee Lestari, as she recommends five fascinating works of contemporary Indonesian literature.

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.