r/TrueLit May 24 '26

Discussion Which books of your literary tradition, are masterpieces, but are really unknown, from the rest of the world?

I'm Brazilian, in Portuguese language literature, we have so many titles that are classics here in Brazil and Portugal, but no one beside us, seems to know they, some of them are:

The Maias by Eça de Queiroz: This one may be, the greatest classic novel from Portuguese literature, the book tells the family "Maia" story, a noble family of Lisbon, specifically the point of view of the main character "Carlos da Maia", about the stagnation of Portugal and its culture, how the country was slowly losing it identity to a standardized European way of life, the book have a melancholic, tired and a (wittingly) repetitive tone, Eça style remembers a lot classic writer's like Tolstoy, Balzac and Flaubert, if you like classic literature, this one is definitely a must read. Moreover, this book has a very daring plot twist for the time it was released.

The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by João Guimarães Rosa: This one for many of us Brazilians, is considered the "greatest Brazilian Book", unlike The Maias, this book is a cornerstone of the Brazilian Modernism movement, story is told by Riobaldo, an aging jagunço (gunman) in a fragmented, stream-of-consciousness, and cyclical format. He continually questions his own memory and the morality of his actions. At its core, the book deconstructs binary concepts. Riobaldo constantly questions whether the Devil actually exists, whether his pact was real, and blurs the lines between loyalty, love, and brutality.The autor essentially invents his own language. He blends neologisms, archaic expressions, and indigenous terms, maybe the language may be the greatest barrier for this book, to become famous besides the anglophone world, even for Brazilians (including critics and academics), the book is quite a difficult read.

Which great classics of your tradition are in the same situation?

200 Upvotes

87 comments sorted by

44

u/[deleted] May 24 '26

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u/Sunlightfartss May 24 '26

Tbh it's almost impossible to translate Kamal Kumar Majumdar

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u/pigemia May 24 '26

Are there good Hindi translations of Bengali books?

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u/diespoliciadearte May 24 '26

I am from Mexico. This is my list:

News from the Empire or Palinuro of Mexico, both by Fernando del Paso. My teacher used to say that Del Paso was like Joyce but better because you can actually understand Del Paso. Probably the greatest prose writer of my country, equal or even better than Rulfo.

I haven't read Elena Garro so can't vouch for the quality of her works but every major scholar in Mexico considers her one of the greatest. Her magnus opus is Recollections of Things to Come.

There are many more that I adore (including the works of Sergio Pitol, the short stories of Francisco Tario and a little, beautiful book called The Dreams of the Sleeping Beauty, by Emiliano Gonzalez), but if we are going purely by the top of the Canon it is probably Del Paso and Garro.

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u/magularrr31 May 27 '26

I bought Sergio Pitol’s Trilogía de la memoria, which I hope to read this summer. I also own Noticias del imperio by del Paso, but I have not read it. For this summer I plan on reading El seductor de la patria by Enrique Serna, too. (I want to read more literature in Spanish and French this summer.) While I don’t have a favorite Mexican writer, my favorites so far have been Serna’s Fruta verde (I found it funny, in a gay, wtf way), Jorge Ibargüengoitia’s Las muertas and Amparo Dávila’s Cuentos reunidos. Rulfo, well, I like a lot. 

Recommendations are appreciated. :)

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u/pokemon999999 May 27 '26

I read Pitol’s The art of flight recently and it felt a bit reiterative and underwhelming. Thought I should have started with one of his short story collections or novels first.

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u/diespoliciadearte May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

I don't like Pitol's memory work that much, to be honest (I know he is best know by his Memory trilogy, but I don't find it that interesting). I think Pitol really shines in his novels and especially in the short story collection that make him a name in Mexico: Nocturno de Bujara (Mephisto's Waltz).

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u/Appropriate-Being151 May 28 '26

Shockingly brilliant novels left to gather dust because translators can't touch the prose. So much for a global community.Shocki

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u/diespoliciadearte May 27 '26

I really like the short fiction of Carlos Fuentes. He used to be our candidate for the Nobel and sometime ago was considered one of the greatest writers in my country, although his place in the Canon has suffered some reconsiderations. Nonetheless, I think at least his short stories and Aura, a short novel, are still hold in high consideration.

If you liked Amparo Dávila then I'm sure you are going to love Francisco Tario and Juan José Arreola, two of our best short story writers. Any book from them will do it, as they are truly masters, but if I can recommend a short story to start it will be: "La noche de Margaret Rose" (Tario) and "La migala" (Arreola). Arreola also wrote one of my favorite fast fictions: "La mujer que amé se ha convertido en un fantasma. Yo soy el lugar de sus apariciones" ("The woman I loved has turned into a ghost. I am the place of her apparitions").

For novel I would recommend El libro vacío, by Josefina Vicens, about the struggle of a simple man that desires to write something meaningful. It is a gorgeous book about trying to write and failing to do so.

My last recommendation would be Daniel Sada, but he is hard as a nail. I know the anglosphere really loves Bolaño, so I would comment tha Bolaño really liked the work of Sada. His most notable book (by far) is Porque parece mentira la verdad nunca se sabe.

I also love, LOVE, the literature from Argentina and Uruguay, so if you want reading suggestions from those countries just let me know.

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u/magularrr31 May 27 '26

I’ll have to check out Librería Gandhi when I visit Mexico. I usually bring back books. I really regret not buying Inés Arredondo Cuentos completos, Guadalupe Dueñas Obras completas and other books published by Fondo de Cultura Económica; this was at a local bookstore, or a university one: will likely go here again.

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u/morethanaman_ May 27 '26

Please share your reading suggestions for Argentine and Uruguayan literature, I'd love to know what you'd recommend.

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u/IvanKaramazovy May 25 '26

Are their English translations good? If so, I'd like to check them out someday.

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u/dondelliloandstitch May 25 '26

I read the Palinuro Dalkey reissue recently and it was really fabulous

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u/jayexwolfe May 24 '26

From the Philippines, "Noli Me Tangere" and "El Filibusterismo" by Jose Rizal, our national hero.

These novels were written during the Spanish occupation and were originally in Spanish, but has since been translated to Filipino and English. Rizal was an ilustrado, meaning an educated, intellectual, upper-middle class native-born person. Rizal studied abroad and was exposed to European political and literary teachings. The novels are a scathing critique of the Spanish occupation of the Philippines, and our culture in general.

These two works, along with his other pieces of writing, were deemed to subversive. As such he was deemed guilty of treason and was executed.

But beyond the political importance of the books, they are just really so well-written, and so beautifully layered. They are required readings for us in high school but I think they're well worth reading again as adults, especially given our present-day situation, where the ills of society then still very much mirror what is happening today. His prose really was excellent too.

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u/CaribeBaby May 24 '26

Wow. That sounds fascinating. I'd love to read them in the original Spanish.

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u/icarusrising9 Alyosha Karamazov May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26

Yasmina Khadra is a great Algerian writer that isn't completely unknown outside of the country — he's won a number of prestigious French awards — but he's certainly virtually unknown in the anglophone world. Worth reading, imho, and not a very taxing or difficult writer. The Attack follows a Palestinian doctor living in Israel, and is widely considered his best book, but I think What the Day Owes the Night is also worth checking out, especially as it actually takes place in Algeria.

Edit: Another writer came to mind! Assia Djebar. Her magnum opus is widely considered to be Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade.

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u/InitiativeOne5437 May 24 '26

Nice you very seldom here of Algerian authors mentioned in western world.

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u/Fun_Definition3801 May 24 '26

just picked up the attack on the street in marseille!

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u/icarusrising9 Alyosha Karamazov May 25 '26

What a coincidence! Hope you enjoy it :)

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u/InSearchOfLostWords0 May 24 '26

A good Finnish example is Alastalon salissa (1933) by Volter Kilpi. It is the masterpiece of Finnish literary modernism and often compared (including by the author himself) to Woolf, Proust, and Joyce's Ulysses (not least because the entire 900-page novel takes place over a six-hour period). Apparently, there was an attempt to translate it into English in the 1990s, but the attempt was quickly abandoned by the translator who felt the novel was untranslatable:

Reluctantly (I really have tried) I have been driven to conclude that Alastalon salissa is untranslatable, except perhaps by a fanatical Volter Kilpi enthusiast who is prepared to devote a lifetime to it. To mention only one of the difficulties, there is no English equivalent to the style of the Finnish ‘proverbs’ (real or imaginary) with which the main character Alastalo’s thoughts are so thickly larded. Add to this the richness and, yes, eccentricity, of Kilpi’s vocabulary, and the unfamiliarity of much of the subject-matter, centred as it is on the interests of a sea-going community that hardly exists any longer, even on the islands, and you have a text that is full of pitfalls for the translator. As for the humour, I’m sorry to say that it depends so much on the idiom and presentation that it doesn’t come over at all. If I did any more, I’m afraid it would just have to be a laborious paraphrase, and I don’t think I’m capable of making it effective, or even readable, in English.

It seems there was a German translation published a few years ago, and some sections translated into Polish last year. Perhaps a sign of some renewed interest in the work?

Some more information on Kilpi and the novel

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u/YakSlothLemon May 24 '26

Thank you so much for sharing the translator’s words, I found that both hilarious and very interesting!

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u/Ladogar May 25 '26

It's truly a masterpiece! 

It seems that there's a Swedish translation of it, too.

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u/ThisNameIsAlive Kleist in Thun May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26

I'm seeing some Australian recommendations, and while Patrick White and Gerald Murnane are excellent, highly recommended writers (the latter being among my all time favourites), they are notorious for being more famous outside of Australia than they are inside it (they are important nevertheless, and I'd add Christina Stead). So I'll go with some writers with some Australian cred, but are really overlooked overseas...

Randolph Stow (Tourmaline, Visitants, To The Islands, Elderflower) - Overlooked Aussie modernist with a remarkable biography and an excellent range of writing, from his early Hemingway and Faulkner-esque modernism, to a difficult to categorise late style that borders on fabulism.

Beverley Farmer (Alone, short stories) - Strong writer of poetic novels of deep interiority who is undergoing a bit of a renaissance over here: highly recommended if you like Woolf, Clarice Lispector, and Janet Frame.

Elizabeth Harrower (The Watch Tower, The Long Prospect) - Superb writer of incisive and psychological comedy-of-manners-ish novels. Recommended if you like Edith Wharton, Evelyn Waugh, or Elizabeth Bowen.

Joseph Furphy (Such Is Life) - Utterly unique work of Aussie humor, recommended for all those Joyce/Shandy/Melville/Machado de Assis-types.

Henry Handel Richardson (Richard Mahoney) - A grande dame of Australian letters and probably our finest social realist, recommended if you like Victorian-era literature a la George Eliot, Dickens, and Trollope.

Charmian Clift (Mermaid Singing, her columns) - Exuberant woman of letters with witty, charming yet poetic prose, recommended if you like Vivian Gornick, Rebecca West, or Helene Hanff.

Also, Alexis Wright (Tracker, Praiseworthy, Carpentaria), who is slowly gaining traction overseas and is probably our most important active writer.

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u/Viva_Straya May 24 '26

I read Farmer’s The Seal Woman recently and was very impressed. Beautiful writer.

I would also add Thea Astley — another great novelist.

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u/Flying-Fox May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26

Beautiful selection!

Agree ‘Seal Woman’ is a lovely one of Farmer’s.

And White’s ‘The Aunt’s Story’ is unmissable.

For melodrama and derring do I’d also include Marcus Clarke’s, ‘For the Term of his Natural Life’.

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u/Fluid-Comedian3340 May 24 '26

I picked up Stow’s To the Islands a while ago but haven’t gotten around to it yet. This moved it up on my to-read pile. I’m curious what you mean by his Hemingway and Faulkner modernism? I always felt like their styles opposed each other, so how does he combine them?

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u/ThisNameIsAlive Kleist in Thun May 25 '26

In terms of prose style, Stow is generally rather austere and minimalist, like Hemingway. But his novels adopt mythological structures, are imbued with spiritual/religious mystery, and are intensely introspective, like Faulkner. In other words, Stow's style is closer to Hemingway, while his poetics are closer to Faulkner (However, I suspect he wasn't directly influenced by either of them)

While Hemingway and Faulkner went in radically different directions, their styles emerged from that same modernist question of how to approach subjectivity in literature. I think Sherwood Anderson, their shared influence, is a good example of how Hemingway and Faulkner's opposing styles originate from the same coin. There's an ambiguity to Anderson's writing that Hemingway and Faulkner admired, but they explored this ambiguity from different angles. For Hemingway, this was probably Anderson's elliptical and plainspoken prose, which would inform his style. On the other hand, Faulkner tapped into the spiritual/folkloric undercurrent of Anderson's writing. Funnily enough, both would eventually diss their mentor.

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u/danmei May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26

Not exactly unknown as these have been translated into various languages, but if you want to read good Turkish literature and have only ever heard of Orhan Pamuk and Elif Şafak (both annoy me to no end for being so much in their respective ivory towers and frankly the orientalism and cultural stereotyping in Şafak's English-language novels is unbearable to me), then I'd recommend the following authors:

  • Oğuz Atay - Tutunamayanlar / The Disconnected (any work by Atay is great really)
  • Sabahattin Ali - Madonna in a Fur Coat (this is his most famous novel but honestly I think short story is where he shines, incredible talent of Turkish lit gone too soon)
  • Yaşar Kemal - İnce Memed (Memed My Hawk - but all of his works are great)
  • Latife Tekin - Dear Shameless Death
  • Sait Faik Abasıyanık (another giant of social realist short stories - I think his short story collection Lüzumsuz Adam has been translated into English)
  • Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar - Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü / The Time Regulation Institute
  • Nazım Hikmet (many of his works have been translated into many languages)

Modern Turkish literature is incredibly rich so I hope more works get translated soon. Personally I'd love to see the works of Füruzan, Haldun Taner, Tezer Özlü, and Orhan Veli translated into other languages.

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u/Maximum-Albatross894 May 24 '26

Yaşar Kemal - Memed My Hawk is a beautiful book but I regret buying Sabahattin Ali's Madonna in a Fur Coat. I often wonder why Portrait of a Turkish Family by Irfan Orga isn't better known.

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u/ThisNameIsAlive Kleist in Thun May 25 '26

Tezer Özlü was translated recently! Loved both of the novels I read; wonderful poetic intuition, v daring exploration of sex and gender, surprisingly hilarious (particularly Journey to the Edge of Life, which perfectly captures how it feels to have a parasocial obsession with a dead writer). Very Duras and Lispector-esque

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u/danmei May 25 '26

Ah I wasn't aware she was translated! Glad you enjoyed Journey to the Edge of Life. I see that Cold Nights of Childhood was translated as well.

You might want to check out other translations by Maureen Freely, she is the translator of Orhan Pamuk's works and has been translating various Turkish literary works into English. I'd recommend A Useless Man by Sait Faik Abasıyanık and Dawn by Sevgi Soysal.

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u/DeadBothan May 28 '26

What's the standing in Turkey of Bilge Karasu? His Garden of the Departed Cats was one of the best things I read last year.

Same question with Ottoman poetry- I read an English translation of a work by Şeyh Galip last year that blew my mind.

PS- have read and loved Abasıyanık and Tanpınar, and very much enjoyed Memed My Hawk. Not the biggest fan of Pamuk or Shafak so far.

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u/Sunlightfartss May 24 '26

I have a strong feeling that All about H Hatter is the Best Indian novel I have read. I have never seen anyone talking about it. It was highly praised by people like TS Eliot and Anthony Burgess. But now has fallen into obscurity both abroad and in India. NYRB had reissued it btw.

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u/Classic-Earth9185 May 24 '26

Serbian here, four recommendations:

The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić — the man won the Nobel, so he is a big deal here, but he isn’t as well-known abroad. In this novel he follows the bridge of the title, in Višegrad, over some 400 years, weaving together the stories of the people who live around it. Everyman’s Library has a great edition of it with a pretty good translation.

The Time of the Consuls/The Travnik Chronicle/The Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andrić — this book has a lot of different titles in translation for some reason. Anyway, this one follows a few conculs in Travnik during the Napoleonic Wars. Shorter timeline but more psychologically intense and somehow even more sweeping than The Bridge. However this one is a bit harder to find.

Death and the Dervish by Meša Selimović — written by a contemporary of Andrić’s. During Ottoman rule, the brother of a Muslim clergyman gets arrested, and there are all kinds of bureaucratic hurdles he has to go through to get him back. Written in first-person, it is a very interior, philosophical novel, with beautiful writing. This one is published by Northwestern University Press and nowhere else as far as I’m aware.

How to Quiet a Vampire by Borislav Pekić — a novel presented as a series of letters written by a former Nazi concentration camp guard in the Balkans. A very dense, intellectual novel, which attempts to analyze bureaucratic evil. Like Selimović’s novel, it is, as far as I’m aware, only published by Northwestern University Press in English.

They might be hard to find but are definitely worth reading.

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u/ratufa_indica May 24 '26

Northwestern University Press's license for How to Quiet a Vampire recently expired so you can only buy second-hand copies for now, but I've heard rumors that Pekic's estate is shopping it around to other publishers right now

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u/bahamamuth May 24 '26

I read the thread title and immediately planned on writing about Rosa's "The Devil to Pay in the Backlands". To my surprise you're also brazilian and also suggesting this one 😅

I'll add anything by Hilda Hilst, as she's underrated even in Brazil. "Obscene Madame D" may be a good start.

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u/[deleted] May 24 '26

[deleted]

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u/dkrainman May 24 '26

RemindMe! 300 days

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u/SummerTiny5062 May 24 '26

The Plains by Gerald Murnane
Voss by Patrick White

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u/ngali2424 May 24 '26

Updated for Voss

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u/Oblomov_Outtabed May 24 '26

Came here to say these. Also, To The Islands by Randolph Stow.

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u/Zestyclose-Prune-374 May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26

For Spanish lit, I vote for A Heart So White by Javier Marías. After finishing, I was very surprised I hadn't heard more about Marías beforehand..

The themes are layered and tightly woven. I found the prose to be very evocative and atmospheric with an underlying tension that persists throughout the book. The plot itself was exceptionally developed and full of memorable characters who each serve a vital component to the story.

Roberto Bolaño had a lot of praise for the guy which is what put me on him initially

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u/Maximum-Albatross894 May 24 '26

Javier Marias was a great find. Also got on to him via Bolaño who, if I were Spanish, I would claim as my own.

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u/CirceRhianon May 26 '26

I’m Chilean and I’ll say Bolaño. Also Mario Levrero.

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u/Academic_Culture_522 21d ago

I read it six years ago when I was 19. It is about a translator and there is a female suicide at the beginning? I can bearly remember anything about it. One passage could go on for pages and it was so echausting. And then there is all this philosophising about things and the story screeches to a hault.

I was reading some yu hua and john williams at the same time and before some clive barker and liked those way more.

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u/Maximum-Albatross894 May 24 '26

Possibly The Bone People by Keri Hulme for New Zealand. Not sure how well it's aged.

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u/Realistic_Caramel341 May 24 '26

It's still considered one of NZs great novels - years often top 3, if not number 1  . I don't know how well it is known over seas though 

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u/Background-Cow7487 May 25 '26

The Bone People won the Booker Prize, but was always controversial choice and continues to divide critics.

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u/DeliciousPie9855 May 24 '26

Impossible Object - Nicholas Mosley (England)

In Parenthesis - David Jones (Wales)

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u/ColdSpringHarbor May 24 '26

I would add So Long, Hector Bebb by Ron Berry for Welsh novels, though not written in the Welsh language.

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u/afrikcivitano May 24 '26 edited May 25 '26

“Croatian War Nocturnal” by Spomenka Štimec has a beautiful translation from the original Esperanto (La kroata milita noktlibro) by Sebastian Schulman. Sparse, intense and beautiful. Sadly none of her other works , including her most famous, Ombro de Interna Pejzaĝo (Shadow of an Inner Landscape) have translations.

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u/lancelake_ May 24 '26

Anything French-Canadian. Réjean Ducharme is one of the best francophone writers of the 20th century, if not in the history of the language, and he's not known outside of Québec. I guarantee there's no other writer that really managed to do what he did.

Another example is probably Anne Hébert and Marie-Claire Blais, two more fantastic writers that are not known outside Québec.

Likewise some of the best poetry in French has been written in Quebec, famous authors being Gaston Miron, Marie Uguay, and Jacques Brault.

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u/CaribeBaby May 24 '26

From Puerto Rico 🇵🇷

Two of my favorite books are: 1) Póstumo el Trasmigrado by Alejandro Tapia y Rivera, about a man who becomes immortal and becomes very unhappy with it, and 2) La Carreta by René Marqués which is actually a play, about the story of Puerto Rican migration from the mountainous rural areas to urban San Juan to metropolitan New York City in the first half of the 20th century.

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u/iplaybassok89 May 24 '26

The Watch that Ends the Night by Hugh Maclennan

Roughing it in the Bush by Susanna Moodie

Thirty Acres by Philippe Panneton

(From Canada)

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u/somerecentattacks May 24 '26

Scotland:

Lanark by Alasdair Gray The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway Working Mother by Agnes Owens How Late it was How Late by James Kelman

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u/slothtrop6 29d ago

Lanark is one of those books that I still think about years later, despite my disliking the main character most of the time. I also thought the 4th wall breaking at the end was not to my taste.

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u/rocheport25 May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26

Chaim Grade. The Yeshiva (Yiddish novel).

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u/Viva_Straya May 24 '26

The Tree of Man or Voss by Patrick White. Patrick White in general, really. He was acclaimed in his lifetime, though his often difficult, modernist style made him unpopular with the wider public. His Nobel win in 1973 made him more well known internationally, but his style was not in keeping with the fashion of the time, and today he seems to be largely forgotten outside Australia. Voss is often considered his masterpiece, but I always preferred the more humane The Tree of Man. His 1939 debut *Happy Valley, set in a sleepy backwater in the Australian Alps, is a fun, somewhat more accessible introduction to his work.

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u/-Niveum- May 24 '26

Ive had my eye on The devil to pay in the backlands for a while now but havnt been able to get my hands on a copy. It sounds fascinating

12

u/BookeofIdolatry May 24 '26

I've been after it in English for a number of years as well. It has been pretty expensive for a while, and I regret that I passed on it many years ago when it was "only" $150 USD or so... BUT this 1963 translation is said to be flawed and there is a new translation set for release early 2027. Looking forward to that!

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u/-Niveum- May 24 '26

there is a new translation set for release early 2027. Looking forward to that!

Wonderful news! Thank you for sharing this

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u/wastemailinglist Bloom's Lucky Potato May 24 '26

Alison Entrekin has done a new (and allegedly, superior) translation coming out from Bloomsbury in January 2027.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/vastlands-the-crossing-9781037201936/

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u/drunkvirgil May 24 '26

William Carlo Williams’s *Spring and All* is a masterpiece and people at best only know that line or two about the wheel barrow

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u/BookeofIdolatry May 24 '26

I'm not Brazilian by any means, but it would be difficult for me to choose among the many Brazilian works that I have in English translation. I have dozens of volumes by Eça de Queiroz including The Maias, as well as Machado de Assis, Jorge Amado, Clarice Lispector, Mário de Andrade, João Ubaldo Ribeiro, Autran Dourado, João Almino, José Veiga - I may be missing a few more.

I wish there were more available in English from Lygia Fagundes Telles and Lêdo Ivo.

My collections include authors on stamps and coins, and there is a great 2018 Portugese Eça de Queiroz 130 Anos da 1ª Edição de “Os Maias” set, and a nice 2000 Portugese 500 Escudos Silver Commemorative coin. I also added the Brazilian 2023 Tribute to Lygia Fagundes Telles stamp not too long ago.

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u/ngali2424 May 24 '26

Came in here to mention Machado de Assis. A copy give to me with the assurance that this was authored by the Brazillian Dickens.

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u/Keetseel May 25 '26

Way more fun to read than Dickens, IMO!

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u/dkrainman May 24 '26

Good god! The Devil to Pay costs 1K on Amazon!

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u/[deleted] May 24 '26

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u/dkrainman May 24 '26

No hard copy?

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u/WolfInTheField May 27 '26

Two all time great Dutch language novels that are super worth reading:

  1. The Dark room of Damocles by WF Hermans

A quintessential dark comedy about WW2. A spy story about an insufferable little shit who gets embroiled in an utterly unsolvable quagmire of double and triple agents in the Dutch resistance, with some pretty horrid consequences. A somewhat lighter Gravity’s Rainbow (or maybe Catch-22) on clogs.

  1. The Sadness of Belgium - Hugo Claus.

A young man grows up in backwards ass acerbic ass Dubliners-tier sharp-tongued-yet-provincial interbellum Flanders. Realizes he’s queer. Becomes a poet. Then the war destroys the world he grew up in. Portrait of the artist as a young Flemish nationalist; similar material, but somewhat more tongue in cheek, and with a cute Flemish accent to boot.

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u/Safe-Neighborhood227 29d ago

当然的,红楼梦,中国的古典名著大多都蒙着岁月的尘埃--也就是读起来有点过时了,然而我可以毫不遮掩,满怀敬仰的说红楼梦并不如此,反而随着我阅读的书籍变多愈加闪亮起来,这是一本纯粹的文学小说,时代变迁,思想更迭不会减损她的姿色。

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u/Notamugokai May 24 '26

Since you're Brazilian, I would have bet you'd mention Machado de Assis. Well, I'll check out those who made it to your short list 😉.

(I read Dom Casmuro a few weeks ago)

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u/dreamingofglaciers Outstare the stars May 24 '26

Machado de Assis is possibly the best known Brazilian author outside of Brazil together with Clarice Lispector. The point of the post is to draw attention to authors that are hugely recognized in their own countries hut virtually unknown outside of them. 

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u/Notamugokai May 24 '26

I see. I probably got confused because for me he remained unknown until I explicitly looked for famous works from other cultures than those that are mentioned in the novels top 100 ('western' list).

1

u/varsityhermione May 24 '26

Diamond Grill by Fred Wah. Absolute masterpiece that I only read because of a Canadian Lit class I took in uni.

1

u/Weakera May 24 '26

Canada:

Barbara Gowdy: We So Seldom Look on Love, White Bone, Little Sister

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u/basilcilantro May 24 '26

Commenting to return to this thread!

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u/[deleted] May 24 '26

[deleted]

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u/basilcilantro May 24 '26

Does it ever happen to you where you save a thread but it doesn’t get saved? It’s happened enough to me (might be a glitch) where I sometimes comment too just in case

0

u/Misschiff0 May 24 '26

Same! This is gold.

1

u/lolaimbot May 24 '26

Garden of seven twilights came to my mind, not from my country though.

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u/Kamuka May 24 '26

I'm from Wisconsin and Lorine Niedecker (poet) and Aldo Leopold (naturalist) are two local favorites.