Some years ago I realized that I have read substantial amount of European/American literature but nothing from many countries around the world. So, I have decided to read at least one book from each country in the world. I still haven’t accomplished this task, but working on it 🙂
Here is the list I am compiling. I tried to find the most reveled writers/novels from each country. I mainly go for fiction and try to forego poems, biographies, etc. Of course, given the limited number of languages I can read in and the limited availability of some books, finding the titles on this list is not always easy. As a result, some of these are the novels I liked, others are simply the only ones I have read from that particular country.
Many of the books on the list I have already read, some are waiting on my bookshelves to be read and copies of some I am still looking for.
This list is missing titles from a lot of countries and I will be happy to receive recommendations.
- Afghanistan
Khaled Hosseini – Kite Runner
Atiq Rahimi – Patience of Stone
- Albania
Ismail Kadare – Broken April
- Algeria
Mohammed Dib – Algerian Trilogy
Assia Djebar – So Vast the Prison
- Andorra
Albert Salvadó – The Teacher of Cheops
- Angola
Agualusa – My father’s wives, The Book of Chameleons
Ondjaki – Good Morning Comrades
- Antigua & Barbuda
Jamaica Kincaid – Lucy
- Argentina
Julio Cortázar – Hopscotch
Borges – Ficciones
- Armenia
Khachatur Abovian – Wounds of Armenia
Hovhannes Tumanyan
- Australia
Colleen McCullough – The thorn birds
Markus Zusack – the book thief
- Austria
Stefan Zweig – Mary Stuart
Elfriede Jelinek – the piano teacher
- Azerbaijan
Ali and Nino
- Bahamas
Ian Strachan – God’s angry babies
- Bahrain
Ali Saeed – Quixotiq
Sarah Shaffi- Yumai
- Bangladesh
Tahmima Anam – Golden Age
Zahir Raihan – For Thousand Years
- Barbados
George Lamming – In the Castle of My Skin
- Belarus
Svetlana Alexeevich – Voices from Chernobyl
- Belgium
Amelie Nothomb – Bluebird
- Belize
Zee Edgell – Beka Lamb
- Bhutan
Choden – The Circle of Karma
- Bolivia
Alcides Arguedas – bronze Race
- Bosnia & Herzegovina
Ivo Andrich – The bridge on Drina
Meša Selimović – Death and Dervish
- Botswana
Bessie Head – When rain clouds gather
- Brazil
Jorge Amado – Gabriela, Dona Flor
Machado de Assis – Dom Casmurro
- Brunei
Aammton Alias – The Last Bastion of Ingei, Imminent
- Bulgaria
Ivan Vazov – Ude Yoka
Georgi Gospodinov – Natural Novel
- Burkina Faso
Norbert Zongo – Parachute Drop
- Cambodia
Vaddey Ratner – In the Shadow of the Banyan
Loung Ung – First They Killed My Father
- Cameroon
Mongo Beti – Mission to Kala
Ferdinand Oyono – Houseboy
- Canada
Margaret Atwood – Handmaid’s tale
- Cape Verde
Germano Almeida – The Last Will and Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo
- CAR
Pierre Makombo Bamboté – Princesse Mandapu
- Chile
Isabel Allende – House of Spirits
- China
Mo Yan – Red Sorghum
Cao Xueqin – Dream of the Red Chamber
Eileen Chang – Love in the fallen city
- Colombia
Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Love in the time of cholera
- Comoros
Mohamed Toihiri – The Kafir of Karthala
- Congo
Alain Mabanckou – Broken Glass
- DRC
Valentin Y Mudimbe – Before the Birth of the Moon
- Costa Rica
José León Sánchez – Island of Lonely Men
- Cote D’Ivoire
Ahmadou Kourouma – Allah is Not Obliged
- Croatia
Krleza – Edge of Reason, Return of Philip Latinowicz
Diakalic – Café Europaine
- Cuba
Alejo Carpentier – Explosion in a Cathedral
Leonardo Padura The Man Who Loved Dogs
- Cyprus
Panos Ioannides – Census
- Czech Republic
Bohumil Hrabal – I Served the King of England
Milan Kundera – The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- Denmark
Henrik Ibsen – Doll house
Blixen – out of Africa
- Djibouti
Abdourahman A. Waberi – Passage of tears
- Dominica
Jean Rhys – Wide Sargasso Sea
- Dominican Republic
Junot Diaz – The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- East Timor
Cardoso – The Crossing
- Ecuador
Jorge Icaza – Huasipungo
Martinez –
- Egypt
Baha Tahir – Aunt Safiya and the Monastery
Naguib Mahfouz – The Cairo Trilogy
- El Salvador
Horacio Castellanos Moya – Senselessness
- Equatorial Guinea
Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo – Shadows of Your Black Memory
- Eritrea
Sulaiman Addonia – The Consequences of Love
- Estonia
Kross – The Czar’s Madman
Mati Unt The Autumn Ball
- Ethiopia
Dinaw Mengestu – All our names
Maaza Mengiste – Beneath the Lion’s Gaze
- Fiji
Epeli Hauʻofa – Tales of the Tikongs
- Finland
Väinö Linna – Under the North Star
Tove Jansson – Tales from Moominvalley
- France
I simply can’t make a choice here, I have too many favourates, what with Hugo, Stendahl, Dumas, Verne, Balzac, etc. etc.
- Germany
Herman Hesse – Steppenwolf
- Georgia
Guram Dochanashvili – First Robe
As his novella – The man who loved literature is not translated, if at all translatable
- Ghana
Armah – The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born
Gyasi – homegoing
- Guatemala
Asturias – Senor President
- Guinea
Camara Laye – The Radiance of the King
- Greece
Nikos Kazantzakis – Zorba the Greek
- Guyana
Wilson Harris – Palace of the Peacock
- Haiti
Danticat – Breathe, Eyes, Memory
- Honduras
Ramón Amaya Amador – Cipotes
- Hungary
Antal Szerb – Journey by moonlight
Imre Kertész – Fatelessness
- Iceland
Haldor Laxness – The Fish can sing
- Israel
Amos Oz – My Michael
- Italy
Italo Calvino – If on a winter’s night a traveler
I will bypass the classics like Dante and Bocaccio.
I quite like Eco and Pirandello as well J
- India
Arundhati Roy – The God of small things
Amitav Ghosh – the Glass Palace
- Indonesia
Pramoedya Ananta Toer – The Buru Quartet
- Iraq
Fadhil Al-Azzawi – The Last of the Angels
Ahmed Sadawi – Frankenstein in Baghdad
- Iran
Goli Taraghi
Marjane Satrapi – Persepolis
- Ireland
As Ulysses is one of those few books lying on my shelf for ages, though I just can’t get around reading it, here are some other books J
George Bernard Shaw – Pygmalion
Oscar Wild – Picture of Dorian Gray
- Japan
Kobo Abe – The woman in sand
Haruki Murakami – Norwegian wood
- Kazakhstan
Mukhtar Auezov – Abai
- Kenya
Ngugi Wa Thiong’o – A Grain of Wheat
- Kiribati
Teweiariki Teaero – Waa in Storms
- Kyrgizstan
Chingiz Aitmatov – Jamila
- Kuwait
Saud Alsanousi – Bamboo Stalk
- Latvia
Alberts Bels – The Cage
Blaumanis – in the shadow of death
- Lebanon
Amin Maalouf – Samarkand
- Lesotho
Mofolo – Chaka
- Liechtenstein
Iren Nigg
- Libya
Ibrahim Al Kuni – The Bleeding of the Stone
- Lithuania
Ričardas Gavelis – Vilnius Poker
Balys Sruoga Forest of the Gods
- North Macedonia
Venko Andonovski – Navel of the World
- Madagascar
Naivo – Beyond the Rice Fields
- Malaysia
Tan Twan Eng – Garden of Evening mists
Samad Said – Salina
- Malawi
Steve Chimombo – The Basket Girl
- Maldives
Abdullah Sadiq – Dhon Hiyala and Ali Fulhu
- Mali
Amadou Hampâté Bâ – The Strange Destiny of Wangrin
- Malta
Immanuel Mifsud – In the Name of the Father
- Mexico
Carlos Fuentes – The Death of Artemio Cruz
- Morocco
Taher Ben Jelloun
- Mozambique
Mia Couto – Terra Somnambula
Paulina Chiziane – Niketche
- Nepal
Narayan Wagle – Palpasa Cafe
- Netherlands
Anne Frank’s Diary
Herman Koch – Naked lunch
- New Zealand
Keri Hulme – Bone people
- Nicaragua
Ruben Dario – Azul
- Nigeria
Chihua Achebe – Things Fall Apart
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Norway
Hamsun – Mysteries
- Oman
Abdulaziz Al Farsi – Earth Weeps, Saturn Laughs
- Palestine
Ghassan Kanafani – Men in the Sun
- Pakistan
Mohsin Hamid – The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Mohammed Hanif – The case of exploding mangoes
- Panama
Gloria Guardia – Freedom in flames
- Papua New Guinea
Vincent Eri – The Crocodile
- Paraguay
Augusto Roa Bastos – I the Supreme
- Peru
Ljosa – Aunt Julia and the Screenwriter
- Philippines
Rizal – Noli me Tangere, El Filibusterismo
Bob Ong – ABNKKBSNPLAko?!
- Poland
Sienkiewicz – Quo Vadis, With Fire and Sword
Boleslaw Pruss – The Doll
- Portugal
Saramago – Blindness
- Romania
Herta Müller – The Hunger Angel
Mircea Eliade – The Forbidden Forest
- Russia
Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev – choice is very difficult
Dostoevsky – Crime and Punishment
- Rwanda
Scholastique Mukasonga – Our lady of the Nile
- Saint Lucia
Derek Walcott – Omeros
- Samoa
albert wendt – leaves of the banyan tree
- Saudi Arabia
Rajaa al-Sanea – Girls of Riyadh
- Senegal
Mariama Ba – So Long the letter
- Serbia
Milorad Pavich – Khazar Dictionary
- Sierra Leone
Aminatta Forna – Memory of Love
- Singapore
Rachel Heng – Suicide Club
- Slovakia
Peter Pišťanek – Rivers of Babylon
- Slovenia
Vladimir Bartol – Alamut
Drago Jančar – I Saw Her That Night
- Solomon Islands
Rexford Orotaloa – Two Times Resurrection
- Somalia
Nuruddin Farah – From a Crooked Rib ; Crossbones
- South Africa
Coetzee – Life and Times of Michael K , Disgrace
Nadine Gordimer – Burger’s Daughter
- South Korea
Han Kang – the Vegetarian
- Sri Lanka
Michael Ondaatje
Shyam Selvadurai – Cinnamon Gardens
- Spain
Cervantes – Don Quixote
Unamuno – Mist
- Sudan
Tayeb Salih – Season of Migration to the North
- Suriname
Cyntia McLeod – Cost of Sugar
- Sweden
Astrid Lindgren – well, anything J
Selma Lagerlof
- Switzerland
Max Frisch – Homo Faber
Friedrich Dürrenmatt – The Pledge
- Syria
Rafik Schami – Dark side of love
Salwa al Neimi – The proof of the honey
- Taiwan
Li-Hung Hsiao – A Thousand Moons on a Thousand Rivers
- Tanzania
Abdulrazak Gurnah – Desertion
- Thailand
Kukrit Pramoj – Four Reigns
- Tonga
Joshua Taumoefolau – A Providence of War
- Trinidad &Tobago
V.S. Naipaul – A House For Mr Biswas
Shiva Naipaul – Chip Chip Gatherers
- Tunisia
Hassouna Mosbahi – A Tunisian Tale
- Turkey
Reşat Nuri Güntekin – The Wren
I am not such a fan of the famous modern authors, Pamuk or Shafak.
- UAE
Maha Gargash – The Sand Fish
- Uganda
Isegawa – Abysinian Chronicles
Plot p’Bitek – White Teeth
- Ukraine
Gogol – Taras Bulba
- UK
Shakespeare to Austen, Dickens to Hillary Mantel it’s extremely difficult to choose a favorite
Orwell – 1984
- USA
Another difficult choice, but I will go for
Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451
Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby
- Uruguay
Juan Carlos Onetti The Shipyard
Eduardo Hughes Galeano – Walking words
- Venezuela
Rómulo Gallegos – Donna Barbara
- Vietnam
Viet Thanh Nguyen – Sympathizer
Bao Ninh – The Sorrow of War
- Yemen
Zayd Mutee Dammaj, The Hostage
- Zambia
Luka Mwango – Perdition
- Zimbabwe
Tsitsi Dangarembga – Nervous Conditions
Charles Mungoshi – Waiting for the rain
Hello I am Ket,
A traveler, planner, and sweet tooth behind Hit the Road Ket.
Travel isn’t just my passion – it’s a lifeline for my mental health. Having lived in three cities and explored 60 countries (and counting!), I created this blog to share my experiences, smart tips, and itinerary advice with fellow travel lovers. I’m all about making the most of limited time, finding scenic routes, and turning every trip into something memorable – coffee in hand, of course.
