UniLang

Psi-Lord wrote:'The Scarlet Letter' is a literary milestone in my life, because it was the first unabridged 19th century novel I've read in English. I absolutely love novels written by that time (Machado de Assis' 'Dom Casmurro' and José de Alencar's 'Senhora: Profile of a Woman' and 'Five Minutes' are definitely my three favourite books ever! And right now I'm reading a book with short stories by José de Alencar, such as 'O Ermitão da Glória'.), but I had never dared read one in English till I bumped into a copy of 'The Scarlet Letter' my ex-sister-in-law lent me.

It seems that your literary preferences are very similar to mine...
I have read "Le rouge et le noir" translated to Portuguese about 10 years ago, because at that time I didn't know French. But I have read "Manon Lescault" in French because it was only about 3 or 4 years ago. Ok, maybe "Manon Lescault" has an easier vocabulary than "Le rouge et le noir", but I think that if it was nowadays I would try to read "Le rouge et le noir" in French. I like challenges, at least when I think that I have some chances of being successful...

[quote="Weldal
I have read "Le rouge et le noir" translated to Portuguese about 10 years ago, because at that time I didn't know French. But I have read "Manon Lescault" in French because it was only about 3 or 4 years ago. Ok, maybe "Manon Lescault" has an easier vocabulary than "Le rouge et le noir", but I think that if it was nowadays I would try to read "Le rouge et le noir" in French. I like challenges, at least when I think that I have some chances of being successful... [/quote]

and I recommend you to read Le Rouge et le noir, it's ten times more interesting than Manon Lescaut which is too "gnan-gnan" whatever the language...RetN is perhaps a little bit more diffiult but it's worth it.

I know this message is a little too late, though I would like to show you my little list

Some Dutch books:

Ontdekking van de Hemel - Harry Mulish
De kleine blonde dood - Boudewijn Büch
Granida - Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft
De Travelinck Trilogie - Jo van Ammer - Küller


Some books in other languages:

Μορίασ εκώμιον [moriae enconium] (laus stultitae) - Desiderius Erasmus
La Divina Comedia - Dante Alighieri
Illiad - Homer
Odyssey - Homer

Best Regards,
Ron de Leeuw
the Netherlands

Very difficult to choose, but i think - talking about brazilians authors - you are forgetting Clarice Linspector. She was great. Also Machado de Assis and Guimarães Rosa.

There is an author in Brazil who is almost unknowed even here, but he is amazing: Cruz e Souza.

And we can't forget the classics. Goethe, Mann, Hugo, Hemingway, Faulkner and more...

Cécile wrote:and I recommend you to read Le Rouge et le noir, it's ten times more interesting than Manon Lescaut which is too "gnan-gnan" whatever the language...RetN is perhaps a little bit more diffiult but it's worth it.

I 100% agree with you. I would add it's cucu.

Zoroa

ekalin wrote:Yuck! To me Guimarães Rosa is the kind of author that should be forgotten. I've never read James Joyce, but I think I'd probably have the same opinion about him.

Well, I've tried to read James Joyce and can only tell you: I DO have that opinion about him.

Zuramon wrote:Well...
From Germany I could name at least three author I would take:


Der Sandmann: E.T.A. Hoffmann
Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts - Eichendorff

And the shortstories of Tucholsky.

Oh, a wonderful idea! I just love Eichendorff's "Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts" and "Das Marmorbild".

So we already have Twain from the USA, which is a choice I think no one can argue with. I would hope people would feel the same about Faulkner, though I recognise that a lot of people have the same prejudices against him as they do against Joyce. To that list, I would add Toni Morrison and Walt Whitman. I'll leave it to someone else to choose the fifth (unless we're going with Hawthorne, who I don't have an opinion on). I can tell you who I'd love off, however: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Steinbeck. Each brilliant in their own way, but ultimately somewhat overrated.

Whether you enjoy reading him or not, Joyce has to be on the list. But to balance him out, I would include Flann O'Brien (Brian O'Nolan), his sadly overlooked contemporary. While Joyce was writing modernism, O'Brien was inventing postmodernism with the stunning metafiction At Swim-Two-Birds. It's one of those novels where it's a damn shame you can only read it for the first time once. I would add to that list Yeats for poetry and the Táin Bó Cúailnge (though really I think Irish-language literature should be a category all its own).

I agree with Borges and Cortázar and would add to that the masterworks of Fuentes, Rulfo (Mexico), Bolaño (Chile), Lezama Lima (Cuba), and García Márquez (Colombia). I haven't read Puig or Quiroga.

Maybe a bit obvious but:

[flag=]it[/flag]

Cantico delle Creature - San Francesco d'Assisi

La Divina Commedia - Dante Alighieri

Decameron - Giovanni Boccaccio

Petrarca's poems

Orlando Furioso - Ludovico Ariosto

Orlando Innamorato - M.M Boiardo

Gerusalemme Liberata - Torquato Tasso

Foscolo's poems

Leopardi's poems

Pascoli's poems

I Promessi Sposi - Alessandro Manzoni

I Malavoglia - Giovanni Verga

Ungharetti's poems

Il Piacere - Gabriele d'Annunzio

Uno, Nessuno e Centomila and Il Fu Mattia Pascal - Luigi Pirandello

"I Nostri Antenati" trilogy - Italo Calvino

La Coscienza di Zeno - Italo Svevo

Montale's poems

I saw this thread and started thinking about what I'd save of Malayalam literature if I could only take a few titles. I can't come up with an exhaustive list right now or anything, but I think I would have to include Pithaamahan by V. K. N., Randidangazhi by Thakazhi, and Unnikkuttante Lokam by Nandanar (maybe I'm putting too much stock into the last one, though). Aitheehyamaala would also be important to preserve for historical reasons, perhaps even more than the other three.

The "Grande Sertão: Veredas"

This one shines for me brighter than anything I've read, if we don't include music.

I confess to never have read a novel from Clarice, but the few passages I've read made me believe her books will touch me.
In poetry, a few lines of Hilda Hilst marvelled inasmuch as Horace's Odes. But I haven't read a single book of her yet, I started to dream with this since some years.

In other languages(with equals pointing to my literature tastes) it could be
Theocritus, Sappho, Pindar, Herodotus, Horace, Bernat Ventadorn, Kalidasa, Saadi, Hafez, Dostoievsky, Tolstoi, Kafka, Borges.