List of novelists

Well-known authors of novels, listed by country:

See also: Lists of authors, List of poets, List of playwrights, List of short story authors

Table of contents

1 Argentina 2 Armenia 3 Australia 4 Austria 5 Belarus 6 Bosnia and Herzegovina 7 Brazil 8 Canada 9 Catalonia 10 Chile 11 China 12 Colombia 13 Cosmopolitan 14 Croatia 15 Czech Republic 16 Denmark 17 Egypt 18 England 19 Finland 20 France 21 Germany 22 Hungary 23 Iceland 24 India 25 Ireland 26 Israel 27 Italy 28 Japan 29 Kenya 30 Lebanon 31 Netherlands 32 Nigeria 33 Norway 34 Pakistan 35 Peru 36 Poland 37 Portugal 38 Romania 39 Russia 40 Scotland 41 Serbia and Montenegro 42 Spain 43 Sweden 44 Switzerland 45 Turkey 46 United States 47 Venezuela 48 Wales 49 Yiddish

Argentina

• Julio Cortazar, (1914 - 1984)
• Ricardo Güiraldes, (1886-1927) Don Segundo Sombra
• Manuel Puig, author of Kiss of the Spider Woman

Armenia

• Alexander Shirvanzade

Australia

• Amy Witting
• Carmel Bird
• Christina Stead, author of The Man Who Loved Children (1940)
• D.B.C. Pierre, 2003 Booker Prize
• David Foster
• David Malouf
• Dorothy Hewett
• Elizabeth Jolley
• Frank Moorhouse
• George Johnston
• Gerald Murnane
• Greg Egan, science fiction
• Helen Garner
• Henry Handel Richardson
• James Clavell, screenwriter, director (of the original The Fly among others), author of Shogun
• Jessica Anderson
• John Marsden, author of the Tomorrow series
• Joseph Furphy
• Kate Grenville
• Kerry Greenwood
• Lily Brett, author of Just Like That (1994)
• Marcus Clarke
• Miles Franklin
• Murray Bail
• Nevil Shute
• Patrick White, Nobel Prize for Literature (1973), noted for his examinations of his native land
• Peter Carey
• Peter Goldsworthy
• Randolph Stow
• Richard Flanagan
• Rolf Boldrewood
• Thea Astley
• Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's Ark (1985), on which the film Schindler's List was based, Confederates (1979)
• Tim Winton
• Traci Harding
• Xavier Herbert

Austria

(see also German literature)

• Hugo Bettauer
• Peter Handke, (1942- )
• Josef Haslinger
• Peter Henisch
• Robert Musil, (1880 - 1942), Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man Without Qualities)
• Arthur Schnitzler
• Stefan Zweig, (1881-1942)

Belarus

• Vasil Bykov (1924-2003)

Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Ivo Andrić, (1892-1975)

Brazil

• Paulo Coelho, (1947- )

Canada

(see also: Canadian literature, List of Canadian writers)

• Margaret Atwood, (1939- ), author of The Handmaid's Tale (1985)
• Pierre Berton, (1920- )
• Marie-Claire Blais, (1939- )
• Morley Callaghan, (1903-1990) author of Strange Fugitive (1928)
• Deborah Joy Corey, (1958- ) winner Books in Canada First Novel Award
• Robertson Davies, (1913-1995), author of Fifth Business
• Réjean Ducharme
• Timothy Findley (1930-2002) (See also France)
• Hugh MacLennan,
• Margaret Laurence,
• Stephen Leacock
• Yann Martel, author of "Life of Pi", 2002 Booker Prize
• Rohinton Mistry, (1952- )
• Lucy Maude Montgomery, (1874-1942)
• Susanna Moodie, (1803-1885)
• Farley Mowat
• Alice Munro, (1931- )
• Michael Ondaatje, (1943- ), author of The English Patient (1993)
• Mordecai Richler, (1931-2001), author of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959)
• Gabrielle Roy, (1909-1983)
• Carol Shields, (1935-2003)
• Catharine Parr Traill, (1802-1899)
• Jane Urquhart, (1949- )

Catalonia

• Raimon Llull, (1235-1315), author of Libre de meravelles
• Ramon Muntaner, (circa 1270-1336), author of Cronica
• Joanot Martorell, (1413-1468), author of Tirant lo Blanch
• Narcís Oller, (1846-1930), author of La febre d'or
• Mercè Rodoreda, (1909-1983), author of La plaça del diamant

Chile

• Isabel Allende
• Manuel Rojas
• Francisco Coloeane

China

(see also: Chinese literature)

• Lao She, (1899-1966), author of Si Shi Tong Tang
• Zhang Ailing, (1920-1995), female romantic story writer
• Qian Zhongshu, (1910-1998), author of "Wei Cheng''
• Lu Xun, (1881-1936), author of The True Story of Ah Q
• Mao Dun, (1896-1981), author of Zi Ye

Colombia

• Gabriel García Márquez, (1928- ), author of One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), Nobel Prize for Literature (1982), journalist, publisher, avatar of magical realism
• José Eustasio Rivera, (1888-1928), author of La vorágine

Cosmopolitan

• Romain Gary, Russian-born French writer
• Franz Kafka, (1883-1924) lived in Prague during Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovakia; German language writer; see also German literature
• Arthur Koestler (1905-1983)
• Milan Kundera, (1929- ) born in Czechoslovakia, but moved to France. Multi-language writer.
• Salman Rushdie, (1947- ) born in India, but moved abroad later. English language writer, placed under fatwah (death sentence) by Muslim clerics

Croatia

(see also: Croatian literature)

• Miroslav Krleža (1893-1981)

Czech Republic

(see also: Literature of the Czech Republic)

• Karel Capek, (1890-1938) inventor of the word robot, moralist, ironist, Czech patriot
• Jaroslav Hasek, (1883-1923), author of The Good Soldier Svejk
• Vaclav Havel, (born 1936, President of Czech Republic (1993-2003) and famous playwright)
• Bohumil Hrabal, (1914-1997), author of Closely Watched Trains, died trying to feed pigeons.
• Jaroslav Seifert (1901-1986), (Nobel Prize for Literature) (1984)

Denmark

(see also: Danish Literature)

• Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)
• Isak Dinesen, (1885-1962) (real name: Karen Blixen), author of Seven Gothic Tales (1934), Out of Africa (1937)
• Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1873-1950)
• Peter Kjaerulff (1946 - )

Egypt

• Naguib Mahfouz, (1911- ) Nobel Prize for Literature (1988), famous for the Cairo Trilogy about life in the sprawling inner city.

England

See also List of novelists by country: England

• Aldous Huxley, (1884-1963), author of Brave New World
• Anthony Burgess, (1917-1993), composer, essayist, author of A Clockwork Orange
• Anthony Trollope
• C. H. B. Kitchin
• Charles Dickens, (1812-1870), master of the novel, wrote for serial publication
• Charlotte Brontë, (1816-1855)
• Doris Lessing, (born 1919)
• E. M. Forster, (1879-1970)
• Elizabeth Gaskell
• Emily Brontë, (1816-1855)
• Evelyn Waugh
• George Eliot, (1819-1880)
• George Orwell, (1903-1950) author of Animal Farm (1945), 1984 (1949), Burmese Days
• Graham Greene, (1904-1991)
• H. G. Wells, (1866-1946), author and essayist, early writer of science fiction, author of The War of the Worlds
• Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
• J. R. Ackerley
• J. R. R. Tolkien, (1892-1973), author of The Lord of the Rings
• James Follet, (1939- ), author of over 20 novels, plus works for radio and television.
• Jane Austen, (1775-1817)
• Joseph Conrad, (1857-1924), Polish-born mariner, author of Heart of Darkness
• Kingsley Amis
• Martin Amis
• Nevil Shute (1899-1960), On the Beach, The Trustee from the Toolroom, A Town like Alice
• Nick Hornby, author of About a Boy (1998)
• P. G. Wodehouse, (1881-1975), creator of Jeeves and Wooster
• P.D. James, author of crime fiction but also the dystopian novel The Children of Men (1992)
• Rudyard Kipling, author of Kim (1904)
• Thomas Hardy, (1840-1928)
• Virginia Woolf, (1882-1941), feminist, modernist
• William Golding

Finland

• Tove Jansson, (1914-2001) she wrote in Swedish
• Aino Kallas, (1878-1956), female
• Aleksis Kivi, (1834-1872)
• Väinö Linna, (1920-1992)
• Frans Emil Sillanpää, (1888-1964), (Nobel Prize for Literature) (1939)
• Mika Waltari, (1908-1979)

France

See also List of novelists by country: France

(see also: French literature)

• Honoré de Balzac, (1799-1850), author of La Comedie Humaine, a series of novels presenting a full picture of France in the early 19th century
• Albert Camus, (1913-1960)
• Alexandre Dumas, (1802-1870), perhaps more movies have been made from his novels than any other; The Count of Monte Cristo has been filmed on an average of once every 18 months since films were first made.
• Michel Houellebecq, Impact award winner
• Gustave Flaubert, (1821-1880)
• Anatole France
• Victor Hugo, (1802-1885), author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Les Misérables
• Marcel Proust, (1871-1922)
• François Rabelais, (ca. 1493-1553)
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (1712-1778)
• Jean-Paul Sartre, (1905-1980), existentialist
• Jules Verne, (1828-1905), writer of techno-thrillers, and founding father of science fiction.
• Voltaire, (1694-1778), satirist
• Emile Zola, (1840-1902), realist

Germany

(see also German literature)

• Heinrich Böll, (1917-1985)
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, (1749-1832), polymath.
• Günter Grass, (1927- )
• Hermann Hesse, (1877-1962), author of The Glass Bead Game, Steppenwolf
• Siegfried Lenz, (1926- )
• Thomas Mann, (1875-1955)
• Erich Maria Remarque, (1898-1970), author of Im Westen nichts Neues, or All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
• Patrick Süskind (1949- ), author of Perfume

Hungary

• György Dalos, (1943- )
• Mór Jókai, (1825-1904)
• István Örkény, (1912-1979)

Iceland

• Snorri Sturluson, (1179-1241), author of the Younger Edda
• Halldor Laxness, (1903-1998)

India

• Salman Rushdie, (1947- ), of the fatwa fame.
• R.K. Narayan, (1906-2001)
• Vaikom Muhammad Basheer (1908-1994)

Ireland

see also Irish fiction

• Samuel Beckett, (1906-1989)
• Brendan Behan, (1923-1964)
• Thomas Flanagan, (1923-2002)
• James Joyce, (1882-1941), author of Ulysses, Finnegans Wake
• Iris Murdoch
• Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds
• Brian O'Nolan, (1911-1966) better known as Flann O'Brien, Myles na Gcopaleen, Cruiskeen Lawn...
• Laurence Sterne, (1713-1768) played with text and self-referential narrative two centuries before Postmodernism was invented.
• Jonathan Swift, (1667-1745) author of biting satires. Gulliver's Travels was Bowdlerised into children's literature.
• Oscar Wilde, (1854-1900), also a playwright, imprisoned for homosexual acts

Israel

• Amos Oz, author of Black Box, My Michael
• A. B. Yehoshua, author of Mr. Mani

Italy

• Riccardo Bacchelli
• Alessandro Baricco
• Stefano Benni, journalist, poet, novelist, Terra (1985) is most popular work in English
• Alberto Bevilacqua
• Giovanni Boccaccio
• Vitaliano Brancati
• Gesualdo Bufalino
• Aldo Busi
• Dino Buzzati
• Italo Calvino, Cosmicomics
• Luigi Capuana
• Andrea Camilleri
• Carlo Cassola
• Carlo Collodi
• Gabriele D'Annunzio, revolutionary
• Massimo D'Azeglio
• Grazia Deledda
• Giuseppe Dessi
• Umberto Eco
• Carlo Emilio Gadda
• Natalia Ginzburg
• Primo Levi, resistance fighter, chemist and novelist
• Emilio Lussu
• Alessandro Manzoni
• Dacia Maraini
• Elsa Morante
• Alberto Moravia
• Cesare Pavese
• Luigi Pirandello, playwright, Six Characters in Search of an Author
• Vasco Pratolini
• Andrea di Robilant
• Salvatore Satta
• Alberto Savinio
• Leonardo Sciascia

• Ignazio Silone
• Mario Soldati
• Italo Svevo
• Susanna Tamaro
• Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard
• Giovanni Verga
• Elio Vittorini

Japan

(see also Japanese literature, List of Japanese authors)

• Kobo Abe (1924-1993) The Woman In the Dunes, The Magic Chalk
• Ryunosuke Akutagawa, (1892-1927), Rashomon
• Osamu Dazai, (1909-1948), No Longer Human, Melos, Run!
• Fumiko Enchi (1905-1986) A Tale of False Fortunes, The Waiting Years
• Shusaku Endo, (1923-1996) Silence, Deep River
• Ichiyo Higuchi, (1872-1896) Child's Play, The Thirteenth Night
• Masuji Ibuse, (1898-1993) Black Rain
• Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) Snow Country, The Izu Dancer (Winner of the Nobel Prize, 1968)
• Yukio Mishima, (1925-1970), The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Confessions of a Mask
• Kenji Miyazawa, (1896-1933) Night Train to the Stars, Matasaburo the Wind Imp
• Ogai Mori, (1862-1922), The Wild Goose, The Dancing Girl
• Soseki Natsume, (1867-1916), Kokoro, I Am a Cat
• Kenzaburo Oe (1935-) Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, A Personal Matter (Nobel Prize, 1994)
• Junichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965) Some Prefer Nettles, The Makioka Sisters

Kenya

• Ngugi wa Thiongo, (1938- )

Lebanon

• Amin Maalouf

Netherlands

• Harry Mulisch
• Tip Marugg
• Willem Frederik Hermans
• Jan Wolkers
• Gerard van het Reve
• A.F.Th. van der Heijden

Nigeria

• Chinua Achebe, (1930- ) Things Fall Apart, stories about the dissolution of traditional African society.

Norway

(see also: Norwegian literature)

• Ingvar Ambjørnsen
• Lars Saabye Christensen
• Olav Duun
• Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World
• Erik Fosnes Hansen
• Knut Hamsun, Hunger
• Roy Jacobsen
• Alexander Kielland
• Jan Kjærstad
• Jonas Lie
• Axel Sandemose
• Gabriel Scott
• Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavandsdatter

Pakistan

(see also: Pakistani literature)

• Ahmed Ali
• Zulfikar Ghose
• Bapsi Sidhwa
• Tariq Ali

Peru

• Mario Vargas Llosa, (1936- ), ran for president, author of Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

Poland

(see also: Polish literature)

• Witold Gombrowicz, (1904-1969)
• Stanislaw Lem, (1921- )
• Eliza Orzeszkowa, (1841-1910)
• Boleslaw Prus, (1847-1912)
• Wladyslaw Reymont, (1867-1925) Nobel Prize for Literature 1924, author of national epic The Peasants
• Henryk Sienkiewicz, (1846-1916), Nobel Prize for Literature 1905, Quo Vadis
• Stefan Zeromski, (1864-1925)

Portugal

• António Lobo Antunes
• Fernando de Campos
• Eca de Queiróz
• Aqulino Ribeiro
• Albino Forjaz de Sampaio, (1884-1949)
• José Saramago, (1922- ), Nobel Prize for Literature 1998

Romania

(see also: Romanian literature)

• Mircea Cartarescu, (born 1956), Nostalgia (1993), Orbitor
• Ion Creanga, (1839-1889)
• Mircea Eliade, (1907-1986),
• Panait Istrati, (1884-1935)
• Camil Petrescu, (1894-1957), Patul lui Procust (1933)
• Marin Preda, (1927-1980), Morometii
• Liviu Rebreanu, (1885-1944)
• Mihail Sadoveanu, (1880-1961)
• Ioan Slavici (1848-1925), Moara cu noroc

Russia

(see also: Russian literature)

• Andrey Bely, (1880-1934)
• Mikhail Bulgakov, (1891-1940, author of The Master and Margarita
• Fyodor Dostoyevsky, (1821-1881), author of The Brothers Karamazov, The Possessed
• Nikolai Gogol, (1809-1852), author of Dead Souls
• Ivan Goncharov, (1812-1891), Oblomov, a tale of a "superfluous" man
• Mikhail Lermontov, (1814-1841)
• Nikolai Leskov, (1831-1895)
• Vladimir Nabokov, (1899-1977) early novels in Russian, later, including Lolita, in English.
• Boris Pasternak, (1890-1960), refused the Nobel Prize for Literature, Doctor Zhivago
  • Aleksandr Pushkin, (1799-1837)
• Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, (1826-1889)
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, (1918- ), One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, also historian
• Aleksey K. Tolstoy, (1817-1875)
• Aleksey N. Tolstoy, (1883-1945)
• Leo Tolstoy, (1828-1910) of whose greatest book it was said, "Loved the war, hated the peace".

Scotland

• Iain Banks aka Iain M. Banks, (1954- ) writes mainstream novels under the first name, science-fiction novels under the second.
• J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan among others.
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the Great Detective, discoverer of the Lost World, believer in fairies.
• James Kelman
• Ken MacLeod, (1954- ), science fiction
• Ian Rankin
• Sir Walter Scott, (1771-1832), innovator of the historical novel
• Robert Louis Stevenson, (1850-1894), author of Treasure Island
• Mary Stewart, (1916- )
• Nigel Tranter, (1909-2000), Scottish historical novels.
• Irvine Welsh, (1961- )

Serbia and Montenegro

• Desanka Maksimovic
• Milorad Pavic, (1929- )
• Petar Petrovic Njegos

Spain

• Leopoldo Alas, author of 'La Regenta'
• Miguel de Cervantes, : El Quijote, or Don Quixote
• Pérez Galdós
• Juan Goytisolo: El sitio de los sitios
• Juan Marsé: La Muchacha de las bragas de oro (Premio planeta)
• Eduardo Mendoza: La ciudad de los prodigios, Sin Noticias de Gurp, El Misterio de la cripta embrujada
• Arturo Pérez-Reverte: El Club Dumas
• Miguel de Unamuno: Niebla, San Manuel Bueno Martir

Sweden

• Marianne Fredriksson
• Gustaf Fröding
• Jan Guillou
• Eyvind Johnson
• Pär Lagerkvist
• Selma Lagerlöf
• Astrid Lindgren
• Harry Martinson
• Vilhelm Moberg
• August Strindberg (1849 - 1912)

See also: List of Swedish language writers

Switzerland

• Max Frisch (1911 - 1991), Stiller (1954) (I'm Not Stiller), Mein Name sei Gantenbein (1964)

Turkey

• Cem Akas
• Metin Kacan
• Yahya Kemal
• Yasar Kemal, author of "Mehmed, My Hawk"
• Orhan Pamuk, author of "Black Book" and "The White Castle"
• Aziz Nesin
• Haldun Taner

United States

See also List of novelists by country: United States

• Kathy Acker, (1943-1997)
• Robert H. Adleman (1919-1995)
• Louisa May Alcott, (1832-1888), author of Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys
• Nicholson Baker (born 1957), author of The Mezzanine and Vox
• Ray Bradbury, (born 1920), author of The Illustrated Man, Something Wicked This Way Comes
• Charles Bukowski, (1920-1994), poet & novelist, author of Post Office, Factotum
• William S. Burroughs, (1914-1997)
• Truman Capote, (1924-1984)
• Raymond Chandler, (1888-1959)
• Tom Clancy, (born 1947), The Hunt for Red October
• Stephen Crane, (1871-1900), The Red Badge of Courage, Maggie, a Girl of the Streets.
• John Fante, (1909-1983), author of Ask the Dust, Full of Life
• William Faulkner, (1897-1962), Southern Modernist, author of A Light in August
• F. Scott Fitzgerald, (1896-1940), author of The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise
• Dashiell Hammett, (1894-1961)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, (1804-1864), author of The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables
• Ernest Hemingway, (1899-1961), author of For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Farewell to Arms, and ''The Sun Also Rises
• Frank Herbert, (1920-1986), famous science fiction writer, notably Dune saga.
• John Irving, (born 1942), author of A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Cider House Rules
• Jack Kerouac, beatnik, author of On the Road (1952).
• Stephen King, prolific horror author.
• Jack London, (1876-1916), The Call of the Wild, Martin Eden, The Sea-Wolf
• Herman Melville, (1819-1891), Moby-Dick
• Henry Miller (1891-1980)
• Thomas Pynchon, (born 1937) V, The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow
• Philip Roth, (born 1933), author of Portnoy's Complaint and The Human Stain
• J. D. Salinger, author of Catcher in the Rye
• John Steinbeck, (1902-1968), The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, In Dubious Battle, Cannery Row, East of Eden
• Mark Twain, (1835-1910), pseudonym for Samuel Clemens author of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper
• Kurt Vonnegut, (born 1922), author of Cat's Cradle
• Tom Wolfe, (born 1931), author of The Bonfire of the Vanities
• Thomas Wolfe, (1900-1938), Look Homeward, Angel. A Story of the Buried Life (1929)

Venezuela

• Romulo Gallegos, (1884-1969) Canaima, Doña Bárbara

Wales

• English language
  • Mary Balogh
  • Ken Follett
  • Richard Hughes, (1900-1976), A High Wind in Jamaica
  • Jack Jones, (1884-1970)
  • Richard Llewellyn, (1907-1983), How Green Was My Valley
  • Jean Rhys
  • Bernice Rubens, author of A Solitary Grief
  • Howard Spring, (1889-1965)
• Welsh language
  • Daniel Owen, (1836-1895)
  • Kate Roberts, (1891-1985)

Yiddish

• Sholom Aleichem, (1859-1916) (real name: Solomon Rabinovitz), Fiddler on the Roof was based on his stories
• Sholom Asch, (1880-1957)
• Mendele Moykher Sforim, (1836-1917), pseud. for Sholem Yankev Abramovitch
• Yitzok Lebesh Peretz, (1852-1915)
• Isaac Bashevis Singer, (1904-1991)