Literature of the 20th century refers to world literature produced during the 20th century (1901 to 2000).
In terms of the Euro-American tradition, the main periods are captured in the bipartite division, Modernist literature and Postmodern literature, flowering from roughly 1900 to 1940 and 1960 to 1990 respectively, divided, as a rule of thumb, by World War II. The somewhat malleable term of contemporary literature is usually applied with a post-1960 cutoff point.
Although these terms (modern, contemporary and postmodern) are most applicable to Western literary history, the rise of globalization has allowed European literary ideas to spread into non-Western cultures fairly rapidly, so that Asian and African literatures can be included into these divisions with only minor qualifications. And in some ways, such as in Postcolonial literature, writers from non-Western cultures were on the forefront of literary development.
Technological advances during the 20th century allowed cheaper production of books, resulting in a significant rise in production of popular literature and trivial literature, comparable to the similar developments in music. The division of "popular literature" and "high literature" in the 20th century is by no means absolute, and various genres such as detectives or science fiction fluctuate between the two. Largely ignored by mainstream literary criticism for the most of the century, these genres developed their own establishments and critical awards; these include the Nebula Award (since 1965), the British Fantasy Award (since 1971) or the Mythopoeic Awards (since 1971).
Towards the end of the 20th century, electronic literature developed due to the development of hypertext and later the world wide web.
The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded annually throughout the century (with the exception of 1914, 1918, 1935 and 1940–1943), the first laureate (1901) being Sully Prudhomme. The New York Times Best Seller list has been published since 1942.
The best-selling works of the 20th century are estimated to be Quotations from Chairman Mao (1966, 900 million copies), The Lord of the Rings (1954/55, 150 million copies), Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997, 120 million copies) and And Then There Were None (1939, 115 million copies). The Lord of the Rings was also voted "book of the century" in various surveys. Perry Rhodan (1961 to present) proclaimed as the best-selling book series, with an estimated total of 1 billion copies sold.
The Fin de siècle movement of the Belle Époque persisted into the 20th century, but was brutally cut short with the outbreak of World War I (an effect depicted e.g. in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, published 1924). The Dada movement of 1916-1920 was at least in part a protest against the bourgeois nationalist and colonialist interests which many Dadaists believed were the root cause of the war; the movement heralded the Surrealism movement of the 1920s.
1900
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (Poland, England)
Genre fiction
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (USA)
1901
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann (Germany)
The Inheritors by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford (England)
Kim by Rudyard Kipling (India, England)
Genre fiction
The Purple Cloud by M. P. Shiel (Montserrat, England)
The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells (England)
1902
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Immoralist by André Gide (France)
The Wings of the Dove by Henry James (USA, England)
The Grand Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett (England)
Genre fiction
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (Scotland)
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Plays
Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw (Ireland)
1903
Romance by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford
The Ambassadors by Henry James
The Pit by Frank Norris (USA)
In Wonderland by Knut Hamsun (Norway)
Genre fiction
The Call of the Wild by Jack London (USA)
The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers (England, Ireland)
1904
The Golden Bowl by Henry James
Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton (England)
Genre fiction
The Food of the Gods by H. G. Wells
The Sea-Wolf by Jack London
Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson (Argentina, England)
Plays
John Bull's Other Island by George Bernard Shaw
1905
Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe aka Baron Corvo (England, Italy)
Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster (England)
Kipps by H. G. Wells
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (USA)
The Club of Queer Trades by G. K. Chesterton
1906
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (USA)
The Confusions of Young Törless by Robert Musil (Austria)
Genre fiction
Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling
Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by J. M. Barrie (Scotland)
Time and the Gods by Lord Dunsany (Ireland, England)
White Fang by Jack London
Plays
The Aran Islands by John Millington Synge (Ireland)
1907
The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster
Genre fiction
The Listener and Other Stories by Algernon Blackwood (England) - contains The Willows, one of the first 'cosmic horror' stories
The Hill of Dreams by Arthur Machen (England)
Plays
The Playboy of the Western World by John Millington Synge
Poetry
Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc (France, England)
1908
The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
The Iron Heel by Jack London
Hell by Henri Barbusse (France, Russia)
The Magician by Somerset Maugham (England, France) - based on the author's meeting with Aleister Crowley
Genre fiction
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (England)
Poetry
Personae by Ezra Pound (USA, England, Italy) - one of the first examples of 'modernist' poetry
1909
Martin Eden by Jack London
Sparrows: the story of an unprotected girl by Horace W C Newte
Tono-Bungay by H. G. Wells
Three Lives by Gertrude Stein (USA, France)
Poetry
Exultations by Ezra Pound
Poems by William Carlos Williams (USA)
Plays
The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck (Belgium)
1910
Howards End by E. M. Forster
The Card by Arnold Bennett
The History of Mr Polly by H. G. Wells
1911
Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm (England)
In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield (England) - short stories
Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad
The White Peacock by D. H. Lawrence (England)
Jennie Gerhardt by Theodore Dreiser (USA)
Genre fiction
Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie (Scotland)
1912
The Trespasser by D. H. Lawrence
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (Germany)
Genre fiction
Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey (USA)
The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs (USA)
Plays
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
1913
Petersburg by Andrei Bely (Russia)
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust (France)
Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier (France)
Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
Chance by Joseph Conrad
Genre fiction
A Prisoner in Fairyland by Algernon Blackwood - adapted into a play, it later became the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Starlight Express
The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu by 'Sax Rohmer' (England)
Poetry
Alcools by Guillaume Apollinaire (Poland, France) - dada poems
Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore
1914
Dubliners by James Joyce (Ireland, France, Italy) - short stories
The Prussian Officer and Other Stories by D. H. Lawrence - short stories
The Vatican Cellars by André Gide
Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein
The Golem by Gustav Meyrink (Austria)
Maurice by E. M. Forster - unpublished
Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (Scotland, Greece)
The Flying Inn by G. K. Chesterton
Poetry
North of Boston by Robert Frost (USA)
1915
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham
Victory by Joseph Conrad
Pointed Roofs by Dorothy Richardson
The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf (England)
Vainglory by Ronald Firbank (England)
Rashōmon by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
Genre fiction
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (Scotland, Canada)
1916
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence - initially banned, published in 1920
Genre fiction
Greenmantle by John Buchan
Poetry
Salt-Water Poems and Ballads by John Masefield (England)
Mountain Interval by Robert Frost
1917
Under Fire by Henri Barbusse (France, Russia)
Walpurgis Night by Gustav Meyrink
Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun
The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad
Caprice by Ronald Firbank
Poetry
Dulce et Decorum est and Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen (England) - published posthumously
Prufrock and Other Observations by T. S. Eliot (USA, England)
1918
Tarr by Wyndham Lewis (Canada, England)
Man of Straw by Heinrich Mann (Germany)
Poetry
Calligrammes by Guillaume Apollinaire - dada poetry
Non-fiction
Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey (England)
The 1920s were a period of literary creativity, and works of several notable authors appeared during the period. D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover was a scandal at the time because of its explicit descriptions of sex. James Joyce's novel, Ulysses, published in 1922 in Paris, was one of the most important achievements of literary modernism.
1919
Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust
Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson (USA) - the first 'lost generation' novel
Valmouth by Ronald Firbank
Bazaar-e-Husn by Premchand (publ. in Hindi as Seva-sadan)
Genre fiction
Dope by Sax Rohmer - inspired by the true story of Limehouse dope-dealer Brilliant Chang
Dope Darling by Leda Burke (David Garnett) (England)
1920
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (Russia)
Limbo by Aldous Huxley (England) - short stories
The Lost Girl by D. H. Lawrence
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (USA)
The London Venture by Michael Arlen (Armenia, England)
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger (Germany)
A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay (Scotland)
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (USA)
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (USA)
Plays
Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello (Italy)
Beyond the Horizon and Anna Christie by Eugene O'Neill - Pulitzer prize winner
1921
The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust
Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley
England, My England and Other Stories by D. H. Lawrence - short stories
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (England) - pentology, first volume published in 1906
My Life and Loves by Frank Harris (England, USA) - four volumes of quasi-factual sex gossip, the fifth completed by Alex Trocchi
Plays
Back to Methuselah by George Bernard Shaw
R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Čapek - from which the term 'robot' was coined
1922
Ulysses by James Joyce
Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
Sodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust
Croatian God Mars by Miroslav Krleža
The Enormous Room by E. E. Cummings (USA)
Futility by William Gerhardie (Russia, England)
The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Mortal Coils by Aldous Huxley - short stories
Aaron's Rod by D. H. Lawrence Kim
The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield - short stories
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (Germany, Switzerland)
Peter Whiffle by Carl Van Vechten (USA)
Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
Lady into Fox by David Garnett
Poetry
The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot
1923
Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo (Italy)
The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek (Czechoslovakia)
The Captive by Marcel Proust
Kangaroo by D. H. Lawrence
Antic Hay by Aldous Huxley
Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos (USA)
The Great American Novel by William Carlos Williams
The Devil in the Flesh by Raymond Radiguet (France)
Aelita by Alexey Tolstoy (Russia)
Plays
The Shadow of a Gunman by Seán O'Casey (Ireland)
Poetry
New Hampshire by Robert Frost
The Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke
1924
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (Germany)
In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway (USA) - short stories
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
Little Mexican by Aldous Huxley - short stories
The Fox and The Captain's Doll by D. H. Lawrence - short stories
Genre fiction
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (England)
Plays
Juno and the Paycock by Seán O'Casey
The Vortex by Noël Coward (England)
1925
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
The Trial by Franz Kafka (Czechoslovakia) - posthumous, first English translation in 1930
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - often described as the epitome of the "Jazz Age" in American literature
The Green Hat by Michael Arlen - perhaps the epitome of the jazz age in British literature
Paris Peasant by Louis Aragon (France)
Albertine disparue by Marcel Proust
Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
In the American Grain by William Carlos Williams
The Desert of Love by François Mauriac (France)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos (USA)
Those Barren Leaves by Aldous Huxley
St Mawr by D. H. Lawrence - short stories
The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein
Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov (Russia)
Genre fiction
Beau Geste by P. C. Wren (England)
Poetry
The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot
Non-fiction
The Old Straight Track by Alfred Watkins (England) - introducing ley lines
1926
The Castle by Franz Kafka - posthumous, first English translation in 1932
The Counterfeiters by André Gide
The Sun Also Rises aka Fiesta by Ernest Hemingway
Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars (France)
Nigger Heaven by Carl Van Vechten
Two or Three Graces by Aldous Huxley - short stories
The Plumed Serpent by D. H. Lawrence
The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft
Genre fiction
Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne (England)
Poetry
A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle by 'Hugh MacDiarmid' (Scotland)
Plays
The Plough and the Stars by Seán O'Casey
Non-fiction
Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence (England, Arabia)
1927
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Time Regained by Marcel Proust
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
Men Without Women by Ernest Hemingway - short stories
Vestal Fire by Compton Mackenzie
Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann (England)
Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis
The Rocking-Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence - short stories
Plays
The Silver Tassie by Seán O'Casey
1928
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin (Germany)
Nadja by André Breton (France)
Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille (France)
Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford - war tetralogy, first volume in 1926
Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence - banned until 1963
Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh (England)
Amerika by Franz Kafka - posthumous, first English translation in 1938
Plays
Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill (USA) - Pulitzer prize winner
Messrs. Glembay by Miroslav Krleža
Non-fiction
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (Germany) - recounts the horrors of World War I and also the deep detachment from German civilian life felt by many men returning from the front
1929
Les Enfants Terribles by Jean Cocteau (France)
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (USA)
Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington (England)
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (USA)
Mario and the Magician by Thomas Mann (Germany)
The Escaped Cock by D. H. Lawrence (England)
The Defence by Vladimir Nabokov (Russia, France)
Wolf Solent by John Cowper Powys (England)
The Good Companions by J. B. Priestley (England)
Non-fiction
Good-Bye to All That by Robert Graves (England)
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (England)
Genre fiction
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett (USA) - the first hard-boiled American detective novel
1930
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
The Apes of God by Wyndham Lewis
Brief Candles by Aldous Huxley - short stories
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
Angel Pavement by J. B. Priestley
The Virgin and the Gypsy and Love Among the Haystacks by D. H. Lawrence - short stories
Genre fiction
Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon (England)
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (USA)
Poetry
Whoroscope by Samuel Beckett (Ireland, France)
Plays
Private Lives by Noël Coward
Non-fiction
Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon (England) - 2 volumes, 1st in 1929
1931
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (France)
Genre fiction
The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett
At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft
Plays
Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O'Neill
Cavalcade by Noël Coward
Non-fiction
Axel's Castle by Edmund Wilson (USA)
Music at Night by Aldous Huxley
1932
The Return of Philip Latinowicz by Miroslav Krleža
Journey to the End of Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline (France)
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (England)
The Memorial by Christopher Isherwood (England)
Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov (Russia, France)
Light in August by William Faulkner
A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys
Stamboul Train by Graham Greene (England)
Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh
Radetzky March by Joseph Roth (Austria)
Jew Boy by Simon Blumenfeld (England)
Poetry
The Orators by W. H. Auden (England)
1933
Man's Fate by André Malraux (France)
Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood (England)
Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West (USA)
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
Genre fiction
Lost Horizon by James Hilton (England)
Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers (England)
Non-fiction
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell (England)
Texts and Pretexts by Aldous Huxley
In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
1934
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (USA) - a groundbreaking obscenity case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1961 allowed its publication there
Call It Sleep by Henry Roth (Austria, USA)
Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Threepenny Novel by Bertolt Brecht (Germany)
Despair by Vladimir Nabokov
It's a Battlefield by Graham Greene
A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
20,000 Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton (England)
Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys (Dominica, France, England)
Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara (USA)
A Scots Quair by Lewis Grassic Gibbon (Scotland) - trilogy, first volume published in 1932
Genre fiction
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain (USA)
Novel with Cocaine aka Cocain Romance by M. Ageyev (Russia)
Poetry
18 Poems by Dylan Thomas (Wales)
Non-fiction
Burmese Days by George Orwell
Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway
1935
Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood
Eyeless in Gaza by Aldous Huxley
Auto-da-Fe by Elias Canetti (Bulgaria, Germany)
A Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell
England Made Me by Graham Greene
A House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen (Ireland)
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck (USA)
Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell (USA) - trilogy, first volume published in 1932
Genre fiction
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (USA)
Poetry
Collected Poems by Cecil Day-Lewis (Northern Ireland)
Plays
Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets (USA)
1936
Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Black Spring by Henry Miller
U.S.A. by John Dos Passos
Mephisto by Klaus Mann (Germany, USA)
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
Confession of a Murderer by Joseph Roth
Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov
The Wessex Novels by John Cowper Powys (England) - tetralogy, 1st vol published in 1927
Godaan by Premchand
Poetry
Ballads of Petrica Kerempuh by Miroslav Krleža
Genre fiction
Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier (England)
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (USA)
A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene
1937
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
The Years by Virginia Woolf
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Lions and Shadows by Christopher Isherwood
The Black Book by Lawrence Durrell (UK, Egypt)
Revenge for Love by Wyndham Lewis
White Mule by William Carlos Williams
Wide Boys Never Work by Robert Westerby (England, USA)
Genre fiction
Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
Night and the City by Gerald Kersh (England, USA)
The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor by Cameron McCabe (Ernest Bornemann) (Germany, England)
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien (England)
Non-fiction
The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell
How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn (Wales)
1938
Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre (France)
Murphy by Samuel Beckett
Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller
Man's Hope by André Malraux
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov
Genre fiction
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Non-fiction
Journey to a War by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
Enemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly (England)
1939
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
The Banquet in Blitva by Miroslav Krleža
At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien (Ireland)
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
After Many a Summer by Aldous Huxley
Coming Up for Air by George Orwell
On the Marble Cliffs by Ernst Jünger
Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys
The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
The Legend of the Holy Drinker by Joseph Roth
Lotte in Weimar by Thomas Mann
The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene
Mister Johnson by Joyce Cary (Ireland)
Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Pal Joey by John O'Hara
Genre fiction
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (USA)
Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household (England)
The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Poetry
Autumn Journal by Louis MacNeice (N Ireland)
The Map of Love by Dylan Thomas
Plays
This Happy Breed by Noël Coward
1940
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler (Hungary, England)
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - published in English 1966
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Native Son by Richard Wright (USA, France)
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (USA)
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan Thomas
Owen Glendower by John Cowper Powys
You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe
And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov (Russia) - two volumes, first published in 1934
Genre fiction
Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler (England)
Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
Plays
The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill
Non-fiction
To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson
1941
Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers
The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
Genre fiction
Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain
Non-fiction
Grey Eminence by Aldous Huxley
1942
The Stranger by Albert Camus (Algeria, France)
Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet (France)
Flight to Arras by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Plays
The Flies by Jean-Paul Sartre
1943
Arrival and Departure by Arthur Koestler
The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene
The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil (Austria) - trilogy, first volume published 1930
Genre fiction
Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (France)
Poetry
Selected Poems by Keith Douglas (England)
Non-fiction
Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
1944
The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary
Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina) - short stories
The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham
Time Must Have a Stop by Aldous Huxley
Plays
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (USA)
1945
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Watt by Samuel Beckett - published in 1953
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson (England) - trilogy, first volume in 1939
Genre fiction
If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes (USA, France)
The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis (N Ireland) - first volume published in 1938
1946
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (South Africa)
The Miracle of the Rose by Jean Genet
Froth on the Daydream by Boris Vian (France)
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
Poetry
Deaths and Entrances by Dylan Thomas
Plays
The Winslow Boy by Terence Rattigan (England)
Non-fiction
Alamein to Zem Zem by Keith Douglas
Memoirs of Hecate County by Edmund Wilson
1947
The Plague by Albert Camus
Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry (England, Canada)
Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov
The Victim by Saul Bellow (Canada, USA)
The Conformist by Alberto Moravia (Italy)
The Middle of the Journey by Lionel Trilling (USA)
Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton
Of Love and Hunger by Julian MacLaren-Ross (England)
Funeral Rites by Jean Genet
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
Plays
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Non-fiction
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (Netherlands)
1948
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer (USA)
Confessions of a Mask by 'Yukio Mishima' (Japan)
The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal (USA)
Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley
Querelle of Brest by Jean Genet
Genre fiction
No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase (England)
Plays
The Browning Version by Terence Rattigan
Non-fiction
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (France — early feminist study
1949
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
The Roads to Freedom by Jean-Paul Sartre - trilogy, first volume published 1945
The Thief's Journal by Jean Genet
The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren (USA)
The Train Was on Time by Heinrich Böll (Germany)
The Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges
The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier (Mexico)
The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
Genre fiction
The Trouble with Harry by Jack Trevor Story (England)
The Mating Season by P. G. Wodehouse
Plays
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (USA)
The intermediate postwar period separating "Modernism" from "Postmodernism" (1950s literature) is the floruit of the beat generation and the classical science fiction of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Robert A. Heinlein. This period also saw the publication of Samuel Beckett's trilogy of novels, Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnameable, which enacted the dissolution of the self-identical human subject and inspired later novelists such as Thomas Bernhard, John Banville, and David Markson.
1950
Scenes from Provincial Life by William Cooper (England) - the first of the British 1950s 'kitchen sink' novels
Genre fiction
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute (England, Australia)
Strangers On a Train by Patricia Highsmith (USA)
Non-fiction
The Authoritarian Personality by Theodor Adorno (Germany, USA)
1951
Molloy by Samuel Beckett (Ireland, France)
Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett (Ireland, France)
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (USA)
Porius (A Romance of the Dark Ages) by John Cowper Powys (England)
The Grass Harp by Truman Capote (USA)
Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar (France)
The Opposing Shore by Julien Gracq (France)
Non-fiction
The Rebel by Albert Camus (France)
1952
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (USA)
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor (USA)
Go by John Clellon Holmes (USA) - the first Beat novel
The Natural by Bernard Malamud (USA)
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Genre fiction
The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham (England)
The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson (USA)
Plays
The Chairs by Eugène Ionesco (Romania, France)
1953
The Unnameable by Samuel Beckett (Ireland, France)
Junkie and Queer by William S. Burroughs (USA)
Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin (USA, France)
The Outsider by Richard Wright
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
Hurry on Down by John Wain (England) - the first 'angry young man' novel
Genre fiction
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (England, Jamaica) - first James Bond novel
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke (England, Sri Lanka)
Foundation by Isaac Asimov (USA) - trilogy, first volume published in 1951
Prelude to a Certain Midnight by Gerald Kersh
Plays
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
1954
Lord of the Flies by William Golding (England)
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (England) - the most famous 'angry young man' novel
Under the Net by Iris Murdoch (England)
Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan (France)
Genre fiction
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (USA)
Story of O by Pauline Réage (France)
Plays
Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas
The Quare Fellow by Brendan Behan (Ireland)
Non-fiction
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
1955
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
One by David Karp (USA)
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
The Bread of Those Early Years by Heinrich Böll
The Tree of Man by Patrick White (Australia)
The Inheritors by William Golding
The Voyeur by Alain Robbe-Grillet (France)
The Genius and the Goddess by Aldous Huxley
The Deer Park by Norman Mailer
The Recognitions by William Gaddis (USA)
Memed, My Hawk by Yaşar Kemal (Turkey)
Genre fiction
The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, first volume in 1954
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
Plays
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams
Bus Stop by William Inge (USA)
Poetry
The Less Deceived by Philip Larkin (England)
1956
The Fall by Albert Camus
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by João Guimarães Rosa
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
The Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvon (Trinidad, England)
A Walk on the Wild Side by Nelson Algren
Genre fiction
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (N Ireland) - seven volumes, first in 1950
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith (England)
Plays
Look Back In Anger by John Osborne (England) - the first 'angry young man' play
Poetry
Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg (USA)
Non-fiction
Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley
1957
On the Road by Jack Kerouac (Canada, USA)
Young Adam by Alexander Trocchi (Scotland)
Room at the Top by John Braine (England)
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (Russia)
Voss by Patrick White
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
Second Thoughts by Michel Butor (France)
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt)
Gimpel the Fool by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Poland, USA) - short stories, originally published in Yiddish years earlier
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (USA)
Genre fiction
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
Plays
The Room and The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter (England)
Endgame by Samuel Beckett
The Entertainer by John Osborne
Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams
The Visit by Friedrich Dürrenmatt (Switzerland)
1958
If This Is a Man by Primo Levi (Italy)
Breakfast At Tiffany's by Truman Capote
The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe (England)
A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney (England)
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
The Bell by Iris Murdoch
Fowlers End by Gerald Kersh
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
Candy by Terry Southern (USA)
Genre fiction
Exodus by Leon Uris (USA)
Zimiamvian Trilogy by E. R. Eddison (England) - first volume in 1935
Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans (England) and Ronald Searle (England, France) - tetrology, first book in 1954
Plays
Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett
Suddenly, Last Summer by Tennessee Williams
Non-fiction
The Theatre and Its Double by Antonin Artaud (France)
Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan
1959
The Tin Drum by Günter Grass (Germany)
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
The Last of the Just by André Schwarz-Bart (France)
Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth (USA)
Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau (France)
In the Labyrinth by Alain Robbe-Grillet
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe
Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse (England)
The Long Day Wanes by Anthony Burgess (England) - trilogy, first volume published in 1956
The Magic Christian by Terry Southern
Genre fiction
The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake (England) - first volume in 1946
The Getaway by Jim Thompson
Plays
The Dumb Waiter and The Caretaker by Harold Pinter
Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco
1960
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (USA)
The London Trilogy by Colin MacInnes (England) - first volume, Absolute Beginners, published in 1957
Cain's Book by Alexander Trocchi (UK, France, USA)
This Sporting Life by David Storey (UK)
A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene
Hiroshima Mon Amour by Marguerite Duras (France)
The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark (Scotland)
The Rosy Crucifixion by Henry Miller (USA) - trilogy, first volume published 1949
The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth (USA),
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
The Morning of the Magicians by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier (France) - the 1960s obsession with the occult starts here. Published in English 1963
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. (USA)
1961
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller (USA)
A House for Mr Biswas by V. S. Naipaul (Trinidad, England)
Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch
Sword of Honour by Evelyn Waugh - trilogy, first volume published in 1952
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (USA)
Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place by Malcolm Lowry - posthumous
Genre fiction
Solaris by Stanisław Lem (Poland)
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (USA)
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (USA)
1962
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Russia)
A Clockwork Orange and The Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess (England)
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Island by Aldous Huxley
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (Zimbabwe, England)
The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes (Mexico)
The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell - first volume published 1957
Big Sur by Jack Kerouac - the last of the Lost Generation at the end of the Beat Generation
Genre fiction
The IPCRESS File by Len Deighton (England) - first of the Harry Palmer novels
Non-fiction
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (USA) - the first major popular study on the deterioration of the environment
1963
V. by Thomas Pynchon (USA)
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (USA, England)
The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey (USA)
The Collector by John Fowles (England)
The Lowlife by Alexander Baron (England)
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (USA)
Genre fiction
Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle (France)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré (England)
The Grifters by Jim Thompson
Non-fiction
The Truce by Primo Levi)
1964
Herzog by Saul Bellow
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby (USA)
The Spire by William Golding (England)
Nothing Like the Sun by Anthony Burgess
Genre fiction
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl (UK)
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick (USA)
Little Big Man by Thomas Berger (USA)
Non-fiction
Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan (Canada)
1965
The Magus by John Fowles
The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)
Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino (Italy)
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski (Poland, USA)
Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush by Hunter Davies (England) - the kitchen sink novel mutates into the swinging 1960s novel
Plays
Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss (Germany, Sweden)
Poetry
Briggflatts by Basil Bunting
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby by Tom Wolfe (USA)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley (USA)
1966
A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
Alfie by Bill Naughton (England)
The Comedians by Graham Greene
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Tremor of Intent by Anthony Burgess
Genre fiction
Pavane by Keith Roberts (England)
The Anti-Death League by Kingsley Amis
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs by Hunter S. Thompson (USA)
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me by Richard Fariña (USA)
1967
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia)
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
The Vendor of Sweets by R. K. Narayan (India)
Poor Cow by Nell Dunn (England)
A Grain of Wheat by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Non-fiction
In the First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
1968
Cocksure by Mordecai Richler (Canada)
Couples by John Updike (USA)
The Public Image by Muriel Spark
Lunar Caustic by Malcolm Lowry - posthumous
Non-fiction and quasi-fiction
Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
The Armies of the Night and Miami and the Siege of Chicago by Norman Mailer
Bomb Culture by Jeff Nuttall (England)
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (USA)
The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda (USA)
1969
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
A Void by Georges Perec (France)
Passacaille by Robert Pinget (France)
Dark as the Grave wherein my Friend is Laid by Malcolm Lowry - posthumous
Genre fiction
Barefoot in the Head by Brian Aldiss
The Final Programme by Michael Moorcock (England, USA)
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (USA)
The Godfather by Mario Puzo (Italy)
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
Papillon by Henri Charrière (France)
The View Over Atlantis by John Michell (England)
1970
Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion
Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow
October Ferry to Gabriola by Malcolm Lowry - posthumous
Genre fiction
The Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake (USA)
Deliverance by James Dickey (USA)
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (Australia, England)
Groupie by Jenny Fabian (England)
Playpower by Richard Neville (Australia, England)
Revolt into Style by George Melly (England)
Soledad Brother by George Jackson (USA) - prison letters
Soul On Ice by Eldridge Cleaver (USA)
1971
In a Free State by V. S. Naipaul (Trinidad, England)
M/F by Anthony Burgess
Our Gang by Philip Roth
The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart (USA)
Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins (USA)
Being There by Jerzy Kosiński
Genre fiction
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth (England)
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
The Happy Hooker by Xaviera Hollander (Indonesia, Netherlands)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
1972
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman by Angela Carter (England)
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
G by John Berger (England, France)
The Good for Nothing by Oğuz Atay (Turkey)
Genre fiction
The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins (USA)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach (USA)
The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth
Poetry
Crossing the Water and Winter Trees by Sylvia Plath
1973
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Crash by J. G. Ballard (England)
Season of Anomy by Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)
Life Is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera (Czechoslovakia, France)
Sweet Dreams by Michael Frayn (England)
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (USA)
The Great American Novel by Philip Roth
Genre fiction
Frankenstein Unbound by Brian Aldiss
1974
The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer (South Africa)
The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle (USA)
The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll
Napoleon Symphony by Anthony Burgess
Myra Breckinridge and Myron by Gore Vidal - first of pair published in 1968
Genre fiction
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré
Fletch by Gregory Mcdonald (USA)
Genre fiction
Jaws by Peter Benchley (USA)
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (USA)
1975
Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies - first volume published 1970
Dead Babies by Martin Amis (England)
The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez
The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (England)
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi - short stories
Genre fiction
Watership Down by Richard Adams (England)
The Choirboys by Joseph Wambaugh (USA)
Shōgun by James Clavell (England, USA)
'Salem's Lot by Stephen King (USA)
1976
Ragtime by EL Doctorow (USA)
Genre fiction
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (USA)
Non-fiction and quasi-fiction
Roots by Alex Haley
Drama
Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka
1977
The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Škvorecký (Czechoslovakia)
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (USA)
1978
Success by Martin Amis
The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch
Lanark: A Life in Four Books by Alasdair Gray (Scotland)
Life A User's Manual by Georges Perec
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
Jake's Thing by Kingsley Amis
The World According to Garp by John Irving (USA)
1985 by Anthony Burgess
Horatio Stubbs by Brian Aldiss - trilogy, first volume published in 1970
Genre fiction
Rumpole of the Bailey by John Mortimer (England)
1979
A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul
The Unlimited Dream Company by J. G. Ballard
Sophie's Choice by William Styron (USA)
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
The White Album by Joan Didion
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe (USA)
1980
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Pascali's Island by Barry Unsworth (England)
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
1981
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (India, UK)
The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan (England)
The White Hotel by D. M. Thomas (England)
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver (USA) - short stories
Genre fiction
The Red Dragon by Thomas Harris (USA)
Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith (England, Russia)
1982
Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally (Australia)
An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd (Ghana, Scotland)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker (USA)
A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
Genre fiction
Prizzi's Honor by Richard Condon
1983
Waterland by Graham Swift (England)
Shame by Salman Rushdie
Genre fiction
The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett (England) - first book of the Discworld series
1984
Money by Martin Amis
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney (USA)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (England)
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
Enderby by Anthony Burgess - tetrology, first volume published in 1963
The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
Non-fiction
Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard
1985
White Noise by Don DeLillo (USA)
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis (USA)
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson (England)
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler (USA)
Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd (England)
Illywhacker by Peter Carey (Australia)
The Kingdom of the Wicked by Anthony Burgess
Genre fiction
L.A. Noir by James Ellroy (USA) - trilogy, first volume published 1984
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - (USA)
1986
Slaves of New York by Tama Janowitz (USA)
The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (Japan, UK)
Non-fiction
Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
1987
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (Brasil)
Genre fiction
Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow (USA)
1988
Mother London by Michael Moorcock
Libra by Don DeLillo
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (Australia)
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
Genre fiction
Sprawl by William Gibson (Canada, USA) - trilogy, first volume published 1984
1989
London Fields by Martin Amis
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
To the Ends of the Earth by William Golding - trilogy, first volume published 1980
The Book of Evidence by John Banville (Ireland)
The Trick of It by Michael Frayn
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Boris Akunin
Slam poetry
1990
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster (USA) - first volume published 1985
The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk (Turkey)
Restoration by Rose Tremain (England)
Possession by A. S. Byatt (England)
The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi (England)
Dirty Weekend by Helen Zahavi (England)
Genre fiction
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley (USA)
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
1996
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (USA)
1997
Underworld by Don DeLillo (USA)
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
Genre fiction
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling (England) - first in series
