Grandma had these white books, one for each decade, that collected short works or excerpts from the Nobel prize of Lit. winners... Dad got them when she died, and I got through many in my early twenties, before mom got sick of them taking up so much shelf space and packed them up in a box under the stairs.

Without that cheat, my list would be much shorter

Tomas Tranströmer

Discounting the few poems in newspapers this week, nothing.

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio

Hard to avoid for francophones...

Doris Lessing

Le Carnet d'or, maybe one or two others - all in translation as it's Mom's stuff, really.

Günter Grass

The Danzig trilogy, and one novel with a fish name in the title.


José Saramago

Perused through Mom's copy of his "Gospel".

Dario Fo

Saw at least Mort Accidentelle d'un Anarchiste on stage.



Kenzaburo Oe

A few novels (I know only their French titles), and maybe 3-4 short story collections.

Claude Simon

La route des Flandres.


William Golding

King of the Flies, and only in translation.

Gabriel García Márquez

Two and a half novel (never finished "the general..."

Saul Bellow

I've started a novel that I never finished (too boring) and don't remember much except it was about two writers.

Pablo Neruda

A few poems in school.

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

L'archipel du goulag.

Samuel Beckett

I've seen his plays more than I've read them, with a few exceptions like Waiting for Godot. I've read a novel he wrote in French (it's one long sentence without any punctuation, not one of his most accessible works...)

Yasunari Kawabata

Several novels I don't know the English titles of. Les Belles Endormies, Kyoto, La danseuse d'Izu, Chronique d'Asukaga etc. He's one of the most read Japanese writers by francophones.


Jean-Paul Sartre

Most of his fiction, not so much of his philosophy.

John Steinbeck

Had to suffer through a few in English classes, and to watch productions too.

Saint-John Perse

A few of his poems in French classes.

Boris Pasternak

Docteur Jivago. If anything else, it would be non fiction, but I think I have him mixed up with another Russian novelist who wrote biographies/history books.

Albert Camus

L'Étranger, La Chute, Le Mythe de Sysiphe, Les Justes. Maybe others, but I've read him mostly between 16 and 25 with borrowed books, so I don't remember.

I've seen at least three plays on stage.

Ernest Hemingway

Alas we had to study The Old Man and the Sea in English classes. Yuk.

Winston Churchill

Parts of war memoirs, before I got bored.

François Mauriac

Le Cahier Noir, a few others Dad had from his school years. Didm't really liked him or cared much for his christian themes.

William Faulkner

Several short stories in school, none of his novels.

T.S. Eliot

Part of The Waste Land.

André Gide

Les nourritures terrestres, Prométhé mal enchainé, Les Faux-Monnayeurs are the ones I remember reading. It's from those years I was mostly borrowing's friends' books, so I'm not sure about others.

Hermann Hesse

Just Le Loup des Steppes.

Pearl Buck

Only Le Pavillon des femmes, in translation

Roger Martin du Gard

Mom had Les Thibault, but I don't remember reading them.


Eugene O'Neill

Only saw one stage production

Luigi Pirandello

Six personnages en quête d'auteur, but only seen on stage.

Thomas Mann

La Montagne magique, Mort à Venise, but I think I saw more movies based on his works.

Henri Bergson

Just excerpts in philosophy classes.

George Bernard Shaw

Never read, saw one of his plays.

William Butler Yeats

Some poems, some writings on Irish mythology.

Anatole France

Les Dieux ont soif. Read a few of his contes (tales) in school.

Romain Rolland

Only excepts in French literature classes.

Maurice Maeterlinck

Didn't ring a bell, but I found out I've actually seen a famous Debussy opera he wrote.

Rudyard Kipling

The Jungle book, and novellas in school.

Frédéric Mistral

Nope. He's the one French writer on the list I had to look up first, and it's still a big nope. Never even heard the name.


Sully Prudhomme

Some poems in school. Tedious.