20th century in literature

Literature of the 20th century refers to world literature produced during the 20th century.
The main periods in question are often grouped by scholars as Modernist literature, Postmodern literature, flowering from roughly 1900 to 1940 and 1960 to 1990 respectively, roughly using World War II as a transition point. After 1960, the somewhat malleable term "contemporary literature" widely appears.
Although these terms are generally applicable to and stem from Western literary history, scholars often use them in reference to Asian, Latin American and African literatures. Non-western writers, in particular in Postcolonial literature, have been at the forefront of literary evolution during the twentieth century.
Technological advances facilitated lower production cost for books, coupled with rising populations and literacy rates, which resulted 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 overlapped by genres such as detectives or science fiction, despite being largely ignored by mainstream literary criticism for most of the century. These genres developed their own establishments and critical awards; these include the Nebula Award, the British Fantasy Award or the Mythopoeic Awards.
Towards the end of the 20th century, electronic literature grew in importance in light of the development of hypertext and later the World Wide Web.
The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded annually throughout the century, the first laureate being Sully Prudhomme. The New York Times Best Seller list has been published since 1942.
The best-selling literary works of the 20th century are estimated to be The Lord of the Rings, Le Petit Prince, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and And Then There Were None.
The Lord of the Rings was also voted "book of the century" in various surveys.
Perry Rhodan proclaimed as the best-selling book series, with an estimated total of 1 billion copies sold.

1901–1918

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. 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.
1900Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad The Knights of the Cross by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Genre fictionThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
1901Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann The Inheritors by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford Kim by Rudyard Kipling
Genre fictionThe Purple Cloud by M. P. Shiel The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells
1902Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad The Immoralist by André Gide The Wings of the Dove by Henry James The Grand Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett
Genre fictionThe Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
PlaysMan and Superman by George Bernard Shaw The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky
1903Romance by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox FordThe Ambassadors by Henry JamesThe Pit by Frank Norris In Wonderland by Knut Hamsun
Genre fictionThe Call of the Wild by Jack London The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
1904The Golden Bowl by Henry JamesNostromo by Joseph ConradThe Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton The Peasants by Władysław Reymont
Genre fictionThe Food of the Gods by H. G. WellsThe Sea-Wolf by Jack LondonGreen Mansions by William Henry Hudson
PlaysJohn Bull's Other Island by George Bernard ShawThe Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov
1905Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe aka Baron Corvo Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster Kipps by H. G. Wells

Songs of Life and Hope by Rubén Darío The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton The Club of Queer Trades by G. K. Chesterton

1906The Jungle by Upton Sinclair The Confusions of Young Törless by Robert Musil Mother by Maxim Gorky
Genre fictionPuck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard KiplingPeter Pan in Kensington Gardens by J. M. Barrie Time and the Gods by Lord Dunsany White Fang by Jack London
PlaysThe Aran Islands by John Millington Synge The Morality of Mrs. Dulska by Gabriela Zapolska
1907Bardidi by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay The Secret Agent by Joseph ConradThe Longest Journey by E. M. Forster
Genre fictionThe Listener and Other Stories by Algernon Blackwood – contains The Willows, one of the first 'cosmic horror' storiesThe Hill of Dreams by Arthur Machen
PlaysThe Playboy of the Western World by John Millington Synge
PoetryCautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc
1908The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. ChestertonA Room with a View by E. M. ForsterThe Iron Heel by Jack LondonHell by Henri Barbusse The Magician by Somerset Maugham – based on the author's meeting with Aleister Crowley
Genre fictionThe Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
PoetryPersonae by Ezra Pound – one of the first examples of 'modernist' poetry
1909Martin Eden by Jack London

by Horace W C NewteTono-Bungay by H. G. WellsThree Lives by Gertrude Stein

PoetryExultations by Ezra PoundPoems by William Carlos Williams
PlaysThe Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck
1910Howards End by E. M. ForsterThe Card by Arnold BennettThe History of Mr Polly by H. G. Wells
1911Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield – short storiesUnder Western Eyes by Joseph ConradThe White Peacock by D. H. Lawrence Jennie Gerhardt by Theodore Dreiser

In Desert and Wilderness by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Genre fictionPeter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie
1912The Trespasser by D. H. LawrenceDeath in Venice by Thomas Mann
Genre fictionRiders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey The Lost World by Arthur Conan DoyleTarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
PlaysPygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
1913Petersburg by Andrei Bely Swann's Way by Marcel Proust Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier Sons and Lovers by D. H. LawrenceChance by Joseph Conrad
Genre fictionA Prisoner in Fairyland by Algernon Blackwood – adapted into a play, it later became the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Starlight ExpressThe Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu by 'Sax Rohmer'
PoetryAlcools by Guillaume Apollinaire – dada poemsGitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore
1914Dubliners by James Joyce – short storiesThe Prussian Officer and Other Stories by D. H. Lawrence – short storiesDer Untertan by Heinrich MannThe Vatican Cellars by André GideTender Buttons by Gertrude SteinThe Golem by Gustav Meyrink

Mist by Miguel de Unamuno Maurice by E. M. Forster – unpublishedSinister Street by Compton Mackenzie The Flying Inn by G. K. Chesterton
The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Noonan

PoetryNorth of Boston by Robert Frost
1915The Good Soldier by Ford Madox FordThe Rainbow by D. H. LawrenceThe Metamorphosis by Franz KafkaOf Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham

The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela Victory by Joseph ConradPointed Roofs by Dorothy RichardsonThe Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf Vainglory by Ronald Firbank Rashōmon by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Genre fictionThe Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
1916A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James JoyceWomen in Love by D. H. Lawrence – initially banned, published in 1920
Genre fictionGreenmantle by John Buchan
PoetryPoems and Ballads by John Masefield Mountain Interval by Robert Frost
1917Under Fire by Henri Barbusse Walpurgis Night by Gustav MeyrinkGrowth of the Soil by Knut HamsunThe Shadow-Line by Joseph ConradCaprice by Ronald FirbankDevdas by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay
PoetryDulce et Decorum est and Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen – published posthumouslyPrufrock and Other Observations by T. S. Eliot
Non-fictionThe State and Revolution by Vladimir Lenin
1918Tarr by Wyndham Lewis Man of Straw by Heinrich Mann
PoetryCalligrammes by Guillaume Apollinaire – dada poetry
Non-fictionEminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man by Thomas Mann

Interwar period

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.
1919Within a Budding Grove by Marcel ProustNight and Day by Virginia WoolfWinesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson – the first 'lost generation' novelValmouth by Ronald FirbankBazaar-e-Husn by Premchand
Genre fictionDope by Sax Rohmer – inspired by the true story of Limehouse dope-dealer Brilliant ChangDope Darling by Leda Burke
1920We by Yevgeny Zamyatin Limbo by Aldous Huxley – short storiesThe Lost Girl by D. H. LawrenceThis Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald The London Venture by Michael Arlen Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay Main Street by Sinclair Lewis The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
PlaysSix Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello Beyond the Horizon and Anna Christie by Eugene O'Neill – Pulitzer prize winner
1921The Guermantes Way by Marcel ProustCrome Yellow by Aldous HuxleyEngland, My England and Other Stories by D. H. Lawrence – short storiesThe Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy – pentalogy, first volume published in 1906My Life and Loves by Frank Harris – four volumes of quasi-factual sex gossip, the fifth completed by Alex Trocchi
PlaysBack to Methuselah by George Bernard ShawR.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Čapek – from which the term 'robot' was coined
1922Ulysses by James JoyceJacob's Room by Virginia WoolfSodom and Gomorrah by Marcel ProustCroatian God Mars by Miroslav KrležaThe Enormous Room by E. E. Cummings Futility by William Gerhardie The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott FitzgeraldMortal Coils by Aldous Huxley – short storiesAaron's Rod by D. H. Lawrence KimThe Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield – short storiesSiddhartha by Hermann Hesse Peter Whiffle by Carl Van Vechten Babbitt by Sinclair LewisLady into Fox by David GarnettThe True Story of Ah Q by Lu Xun
PoetryThe Waste Land by T. S. Eliot
1923Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek The Captive by Marcel ProustKangaroo by D. H. LawrenceAntic Hay by Aldous HuxleyThree Soldiers by John Dos Passos The Great American Novel by William Carlos WilliamsThe Devil in the Flesh by Raymond Radiguet Aelita by Alexey Tolstoy
PlaysThe Shadow of a Gunman by Seán O'Casey
PoetryNew Hampshire by Robert FrostThe Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke
1924The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway – short storiesA Passage to India by E. M. ForsterThe Vortex by José Eustasio Rivera Little Mexican and Other Stories by Aldous Huxley – short storiesBohemian Lights by Ramón del Valle-Inclán The Fox and The Captain's Doll by D. H. Lawrence – short stories

Miranda by Antoni Lange
Riddles and Conundrums for All Occasions

Genre fictionThe Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
PlaysJuno and the Paycock by Seán O'CaseyThe Vortex by Noël Coward
1925Mrs Dalloway by Virginia WoolfThe Trial by Franz Kafka – posthumous, first English translation in 1930The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald – often described as the epitome of the "Jazz Age" in American literatureThe Green Hat by Michael Arlen – perhaps the epitome of the jazz age in British literatureParis Peasant by Louis Aragon Albertine disparue by Marcel ProustManhattan Transfer by John Dos PassosIn the American Grain by William Carlos WilliamsThe Desert of Love by François Mauriac Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos Those Barren Leaves by Aldous HuxleySt Mawr by D. H. Lawrence – short storiesThe Making of Americans by Gertrude SteinHeart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov The Artamonov Business by Maxim Gorky
Genre fictionBeau Geste by P. C. Wren
PoetryThe Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot
Non-fictionThe Old Straight Track by Alfred Watkins – introducing ley lines
1926The Castle by Franz Kafka – posthumous, first English translation in 1932The Counterfeiters by André GideThe Sun Also Rises aka Fiesta by Ernest HemingwayMoravagine by Blaise Cendrars Don Segundo Sombra by Ricardo Güiraldes Nigger Heaven by Carl Van VechtenTwo or Three Graces and Other Stories by Aldous Huxley – short storiesThe Plumed Serpent by D. H. LawrenceThe Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft
Genre fictionWinnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
PoetryA Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle by 'Hugh MacDiarmid'
PlaysThe Plough and the Stars by Seán O'CaseyRaktakarabi by Rabindranath Tagore
Non-fictionSeven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence
1927To the Lighthouse by Virginia WoolfTime Regained by Marcel ProustSteppenwolf by Hermann HesseMen Without Women by Ernest Hemingway – short storiesVestal Fire by Compton MackenzieDusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann Elmer Gantry by Sinclair LewisThe Rocking-Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence – short stories
PoetryJhôra Palok by Jibanananda Das
Plays

The Silver Tassie by Seán O'Casey

1928Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin Nadja by André Breton Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford – war tetralogy, first volume in 1926

Gypsy Ballads by Federico García LorcaPoint Counter Point by Aldous HuxleyLady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence – banned until 1963Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh Amerika by Franz Kafka – posthumous, first English translation in 1938All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque – recounts the horrors of World War I and also the deep detachment from German civilian life felt by many men returning from the frontChevengur by Andrei Platonov The City by Valerian Pidmohylny

PlaysStrange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill – Pulitzer prize winnerMessrs. Glembay by Miroslav Krleža
1929Les Enfants Terribles by Jean Cocteau A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas WolfeDeath of a Hero by Richard Aldington The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Doña Bárbara by Rómulo Gallegos Mario and the Magician by Thomas Mann The Escaped Cock by D. H. Lawrence The Defence by Vladimir Nabokov
Wolf Solent by John Cowper Powys The Good Companions by J. B. Priestley

Non-fictionGood-Bye to All That by Robert Graves A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
Genre fictionRed Harvest by Dashiell Hammett – the first hard-boiled American detective novelYogayog by Rabindranath Tagore – original fiction in Bengali
1930Vile Bodies by Evelyn WaughThe Apes of God by Wyndham LewisBrief Candles by Aldous Huxley – short storiesAs I Lay Dying by William FaulknerNarcissus and Goldmund by Hermann HesseAngel Pavement by J. B. PriestleyThe Virgin and the Gypsy and Love Among the Haystacks by D. H. Lawrence – short stories
Genre fictionLast and First Men by Olaf Stapledon The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
PoetryWhoroscope by Samuel Beckett
PlaysPrivate Lives by Noël Coward
Non-fictionMemoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon – 2 volumes, 1st in 1929
1931The Good Earth by Pearl S. BuckThe Waves by Virginia WoolfNight Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Genre fictionThe Glass Key by Dashiell HammettAt the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft
PlaysMourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O'NeillCavalcade by Noël Coward
Non-fictionAxel's Castle by Edmund Wilson Music at Night by Aldous Huxley
1932The Return of Philip Latinowicz by Miroslav KrležaJourney to the End of Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline Brave New World by Aldous Huxley The Memorial by Christopher Isherwood Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov Light in August by William FaulknerA Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper PowysStamboul Train by Graham Greene Black Mischief by Evelyn WaughRadetzky March by Joseph Roth Jew Boy by Simon Blumenfeld
PoetryThe Orators by W. H. Auden
1933Man's Fate by André Malraux Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude SteinCat Country by Lao She
Genre fictionLost Horizon by James Hilton Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers The Oppermanns by Lion Feuchtwanger
Non-fictionDown and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell Texts and Pretexts by Aldous HuxleyIn Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
1934Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller – a groundbreaking obscenity case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1961 allowed its publication thereCall It Sleep by Henry Roth Tender Is the Night by F. Scott FitzgeraldThreepenny Novel by Bertolt Brecht Despair by Vladimir NabokovIt's a Battlefield by Graham GreeneA Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh20,000 Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara A Scots Quair by Lewis Grassic Gibbon – trilogy, first volume published in 1932Novel with Cocaine aka Cocain Romance by M. Ageyev
Genre fictionThe Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
Poetry18 Poems by Dylan Thomas
Non-fictionBurmese Days by George OrwellDeath in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway
1935Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher IsherwoodEyeless in Gaza by Aldous HuxleyAuto-da-Fe by Elias Canetti A Clergyman's Daughter by George OrwellEngland Made Me by Graham GreeneA House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell – trilogy, first volume published in 1932
Genre fictionLittle House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
PoetryCollected Poems by Cecil Day-Lewis
PlaysWaiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets
1936Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand CélineBlack Spring by Henry MillerU.S.A. by John Dos PassosMephisto by Klaus Mann Absalom, Absalom! by William FaulknerKeep the Aspidistra Flying by George OrwellConfession of a Murderer by Joseph RothInvitation to a Beheading by Vladimir NabokovThe Wessex Novels by John Cowper Powys – tetralogy, 1st vol published in 1927Godaan by Premchand
PoetryBallads of Petrica Kerempuh by Miroslav Krleža

Dhushor Pandulipi by Jibanananda Das

Genre fictionJamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene
1937To Have and Have Not by Ernest HemingwayThe Years by Virginia WoolfOf Mice and Men by John SteinbeckLions and Shadows by Christopher IsherwoodThe Black Book by Lawrence Durrell Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz Revenge for Love by Wyndham LewisWhite Mule by William Carlos WilliamsWide Boys Never Work by Robert Westerby Rickshaw Boy by Lao She The Life of Klim Samgin by Maxim Gorky – posthumous, tetralogy, first three volumes published in 1927–1931
Genre fictionStar Maker by Olaf StapledonNight and the City by Gerald Kersh The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor by Cameron McCabe The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
Non-fictionThe Road to Wigan Pier by George OrwellHow Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
1938Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre Murphy by Samuel BeckettTropic of Capricorn by Henry MillerMan's Hope by André MalrauxThe Death of the Heart by Elizabeth BowenBrighton Rock by Graham GreeneScoop by Evelyn WaughThe Gift by Vladimir Nabokov
Genre fictionBrighton Rock by Graham GreeneRebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Non-fictionJourney to a War by W. H. Auden and Christopher IsherwoodHomage to Catalonia by George OrwellEnemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly
1939The Grapes of Wrath by John SteinbeckFinnegans Wake by James JoyceThe Banquet in Blitva by Miroslav KrležaAt Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher IsherwoodAfter Many a Summer by Aldous HuxleyComing Up for Air by George OrwellOn the Marble Cliffs by Ernst JüngerGood Morning, Midnight by Jean RhysThe Day of the Locust by Nathanael WestThe Legend of the Holy Drinker by Joseph RothLotte in Weimar by Thomas MannThe Confidential Agent by Graham GreeneMister Johnson by Joyce Cary Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-ExupéryPal Joey by John O'Hara
Genre fictionThe Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric AmblerAnd Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
PoetryAutumn Journal by Louis MacNeice The Map of Love by Dylan Thomas
PlaysThis Happy Breed by Noël Coward

World War II

1940Native Son by Richard Wright Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov – published in English 1966For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest HemingwayThe Power and the Glory by Graham GreeneThe Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan ThomasOwen Glendower by John Cowper PowysYou Can't Go Home Again by Thomas WolfeAnd Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov – two volumes, first published in 1934

The feeling of the world by Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Genre fictionJourney into Fear by Eric Ambler Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
PlaysThe Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill
Non-fictionTo the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson
1941Hangover Square by Patrick HamiltonReflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullersThe Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
Genre fictionMildred Pierce by James M. Cain
Non-fictionGrey Eminence by Aldous Huxley
1942The Stranger by Albert Camus Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet Flight to Arras by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
PlaysThe Flies by Jean-Paul Sartre
1943Arrival and Departure by Arthur KoestlerThe Ministry of Fear by Graham GreeneThe Human Comedy by William SaroyanThe Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil – trilogy, first volume published 1930
Genre fictionDouble Indemnity by James M. CainThe Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Poetry

Selected Poems by Keith Douglas

Non-fictionBeing and Nothingness by Jean-Paul SartreThe Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
1944The Horse's Mouth by Joyce CaryFicciones by Jorge Luis Borges – short storiesThe Razor's Edge by Somerset MaughamTime Must Have a Stop by Aldous Huxley
PlaysThe Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
1945Black Boy by Richard Wright (author)Animal Farm by George OrwellWatt by Samuel Beckett – published in 1953Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn WaughBlack Boy by Richard WrightLark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson – trilogy, first volume in 1939
Genre fictionIf He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis – first volume published in 1938
1946Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton The Miracle of the Rose by Jean Genet

El Señor Presidente by Miguel Ángel Asturias Froth on the Daydream by Boris Vian The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers

PoetryDeaths and Entrances by Dylan Thomas
PlaysThe Winslow Boy by Terence Rattigan
Non-fictionAlamein to Zem Zem by Keith DouglasMemoirs of Hecate County by Edmund WilsonThis Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski
1947The Plague by Albert CamusUnder the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry Bend Sinister by Vladimir NabokovThe Victim by Saul Bellow The Conformist by Alberto Moravia The Middle of the Journey by Lionel Trilling Slaves of Solitude by Patrick HamiltonOf Love and Hunger by Julian MacLaren-Ross Funeral Rites by Jean GenetSnow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
PlaysA Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Non-fictionThe Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
1948The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer Confessions of a Mask by 'Yukio Mishima' The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene

El Túnel by Ernesto Sabato The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal Ape and Essence by Aldous HuxleyAshes and Diamonds by Jerzy Andrzejewski Querelle of Brest by Jean Genet

Genre fictionNo Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase
PlaysThe Browning Version by Terence Rattigan
Non-fictionThe Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir The Kon-Tiki Expedition by Thor Heyerdahl
1949Nineteen Eighty-Four by George OrwellThe Roads to Freedom by Jean-Paul Sartre – trilogy, first volume published 1945The Thief's Journal by Jean GenetThe Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren The Train Was on Time by Heinrich Böll The Aleph by Jorge Luis BorgesThe Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
Genre fictionThe Trouble with Harry by Jack Trevor Story The Mating Season by P. G. Wodehouse
PlaysDeath of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Postwar period

The intermediate postwar period separating "Modernism" from "Postmodernism" 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. The first works of electronic literature were written in the 1950s.
1950Scenes from Provincial Life by William Cooper – the first of the British 1950s 'kitchen sink' novels

Canto General by Pablo Neruda

PlaysThe Bald Soprano by Eugène Ionesco
Genre fictionA Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute Strangers On a Train by Patricia Highsmith
Non-fictionThe Authoritarian Personality by Theodor Adorno
1951Molloy by Samuel Beckett Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

The Hive by Camilo José Cela Porius (A Romance of the Dark Ages) by John Cowper Powys The Grass Harp by Truman Capote Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar The Opposing Shore by Julien Gracq

PlaysThe Lesson by Eugène Ionesco
Non-fictionThe Rebel by Albert Camus
1952Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor Go by John Clellon Holmes – the first Beat novelThe Natural by Bernard Malamud The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest HemingwayEast of Eden by John SteinbeckLove Letter Generator by Christopher Strachey
Genre fictionThe Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
PlaysThe Chairs by Eugène Ionesco
1953The Unnameable by Samuel Beckett Junkie and Queer by William S. Burroughs Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin The Outsider by Richard WrightThe Adventures of Augie March by Saul BellowThe Captive Mind by Czesław Miłosz Hurry on Down by John Wain – the first 'angry young man' novel
Genre fictionCasino Royale by Ian Fleming – first James Bond novelThe Long Goodbye by Raymond ChandlerChildhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke Foundation by Isaac Asimov – trilogy, first volume published in 1951Prelude to a Certain Midnight by Gerald Kersh
PlaysWaiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
1954Lord of the Flies by William Golding Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis – the most famous 'angry young man' novelUnder the Net by Iris Murdoch Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan
Genre fictionFahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury Story of O by Pauline Réage
PlaysUnder Milk Wood by Dylan ThomasThe Quare Fellow by Brendan Behan
Non-fictionThe Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
1955Lolita by Vladimir NabokovOne by David Karp The Quiet American by Graham GreeneThe Bread of Those Early Years by Heinrich BöllThe Tree of Man by Patrick White The Inheritors by William Golding

Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo The Voyeur by Alain Robbe-Grillet The Genius and the Goddess by Aldous HuxleyThe Deer Park by Norman MailerThe Recognitions by William Gaddis Memed, My Hawk by Yaşar Kemal

Genre fictionThe Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, first volume in 1954The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
PlaysCat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee WilliamsBus Stop by William Inge
PoetryThe Less Deceived by Philip Larkin
1956The Fall by Albert Camus

The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by João Guimarães RosaGiovanni's Room by James BaldwinThe Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvon A Walk on the Wild Side by Nelson Algren

Genre fictionThe Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis – seven volumes, first in 1950Peyton Place by Grace MetaliousThe Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith
PlaysLook Back In Anger by John Osborne – the first 'angry young man' play
PoetryHowl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg
Non-fictionHeaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley
1957On the Road by Jack Kerouac Young Adam by Alexander Trocchi Room at the Top by John Braine Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak Voss by Patrick WhiteThe Assistant by Bernard MalamudSecond Thoughts by Michel Butor Pnin by Vladimir NabokovCairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz Gimpel the Fool by Isaac Bashevis Singer – short stories, originally published in Yiddish years earlierAtlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Genre fictionOn the Beach by Nevil Shute
PlaysThe Room and The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter Endgame by Samuel BeckettThe Entertainer by John OsborneOrpheus Descending by Tennessee WilliamsThe Visit by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
PoetryCalling Out to Yeti by Wisława Szymborska
1958If This Is a Man by Primo Levi Breakfast At Tiffany's by Truman CapoteThe Dharma Bums by Jack KerouacSaturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe The Bell by Iris MurdochFowlers End by Gerald KershOur Man in Havana by Graham GreeneCandy by Terry Southern
Genre fictionExodus by Leon Uris Zimiamvian Trilogy by E. R. Eddison – first volume in 1935Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle – tetralogy, first book in 1954
PlaysKrapp's Last Tape by Samuel BeckettSuddenly, Last Summer by Tennessee Williams
Non-fictionThe Theatre and Its Double by Antonin Artaud Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan
1959A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry The Tin Drum by Günter Grass Naked Lunch by William S. BurroughsThe Last of the Just by André Schwarz-Bart Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau In the Labyrinth by Alain Robbe-GrilletThe Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan SillitoeBilly Liar by Keith Waterhouse The Long Day Wanes by Anthony Burgess – trilogy, first volume published in 1956The Magic Christian by Terry Southern
Genre fictionThe Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake – first volume in 1946The Getaway by Jim Thompson
PlaysThe Dumb Waiter and The Caretaker by Harold PinterRhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco

Cold War period, 1960–1989

1960To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee The London Trilogy by Colin MacInnes – first volume, Absolute Beginners, published in 1957Cain's Book by Alexander Trocchi This Sporting Life by David Storey A Burnt-Out Case by Graham GreeneHiroshima Mon Amour by Marguerite Duras The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark The Rosy Crucifixion by Henry Miller – trilogy, first volume published 1949The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Non-fiction and Quasi-fictionThe Morning of the Magicians by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier – the 1960s obsession with the occult starts here. Published in English 1963A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
1961Catch-22 by Joseph Heller A House for Mr Biswas by V. S. Naipaul Riders in the Chariot by Patrick WhiteThe Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel SparkA Severed Head by Iris MurdochSword of Honour by Evelyn Waugh – trilogy, first volume published in 1952Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place by Malcolm Lowry – posthumous
Genre fictionSolaris by Stanisław Lem Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
1962One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn A Clockwork Orange and The Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess Pale Fire by Vladimir NabokovIsland by Aldous HuxleyThe Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell – first volume published 1957Big Sur by Jack Kerouac – the last of the Lost Generation at the end of the Beat Generation
Genre fictionThe IPCRESS File by Len Deighton – first of the Harry Palmer novels
Non-fictionSilent Spring by Rachel Carson – the first major popular study on the deterioration of the environment
1963V. by Thomas Pynchon The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey The Collector by John Fowles The Lowlife by Alexander Baron Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Genre fictionPlanet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré The Grifters by Jim Thompson
Non-fictionThe Truce by Primo Levi
1964Herzog by Saul BellowA Single Man by Christopher IsherwoodLast Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby The Spire by William Golding Nothing Like the Sun by Anthony Burgess

Atmaprakash by Sunil Gangopadhyay

Genre fictionCharlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick Little Big Man by Thomas Berger
Non-fictionUnderstanding Media by Marshall McLuhan
1965The Magus by John FowlesThe Interpreters by Wole Soyinka Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush by Hunter Davies – the kitchen sink novel mutates into the swinging 1960s novel
Genre fictionThe Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem
PlaysMarat/Sade by Peter Weiss Tango by Sławomir Mrożek
PoetryBriggflatts by Basil Bunting
Non-fiction and Quasi-fictionThe Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby by Tom Wolfe The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley
1966A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe Alfie by Bill Naughton The Comedians by Graham GreeneWide Sargasso Sea by Jean RhysTremor of Intent by Anthony Burgess
Genre fictionPavane by Keith Roberts The Anti-Death League by Kingsley Amis
Non-fiction and Quasi-fictionIn Cold Blood by Truman CapoteHell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs by Hunter S. Thompson Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me by Richard Fariña
1967One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas PynchonThe Vendor of Sweets by R. K. Narayan Poor Cow by Nell Dunn A Grain of Wheat by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Non-fictionIn the First Circle by Aleksandr SolzhenitsynThe Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
1968Cocksure by Mordecai Richler Couples by John Updike The Public Image by Muriel SparkLunar Caustic by Malcolm Lowry – posthumousThe Abyss by Marguerite Yourcenar
Non-fiction and quasi-fictionCancer Ward by Aleksandr SolzhenitsynThe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom WolfeThe Armies of the Night and Miami and the Siege of Chicago by Norman MailerBomb Culture by Jeff Nuttall Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda
1969Portnoy's Complaint by Philip RothThe French Lieutenant's Woman by John FowlesA Void by Georges Perec Passacaille by Robert Pinget Dark as the Grave wherein my Friend is Laid by Malcolm Lowry – posthumous
Genre fictionBarefoot in the Head by Brian AldissThe Final Programme by Michael Moorcock Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut The Godfather by Mario Puzo
Non-fiction and Quasi-fictionPapillon by Henri Charrière The View Over Atlantis by John Michell
1970Play It as It Lays by Joan DidionMr. Sammler's Planet by Saul BellowBeing There by Jerzy KosińskiOctober Ferry to Gabriola by Malcolm Lowry – posthumous

Aranyer Din Ratri by Sunil Gangopadhyay

Genre fictionThe Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake Deliverance by James Dickey
Non-fiction and Quasi-fictionThe Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer Groupie by Jenny Fabian Playpower by Richard Neville Revolt into Style by George Melly Soledad Brother by George Jackson – prison lettersSoul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver
1971In a Free State by V. S. Naipaul M/F by Anthony BurgessOur Gang by Philip RothThe Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins
Genre fictionThe Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
Non-fiction and Quasi-fictionThe Happy Hooker by Xaviera Hollander Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
1972The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman by Angela Carter Invisible Cities by Italo CalvinoG by John Berger The Good for Nothing by Oğuz Atay
Genre fictionThe Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth
PoetryCrossing the Water and Winter Trees by Sylvia Plath
1973Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas PynchonCrash by J. G. Ballard Season of Anomy by Wole Soyinka Life Is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera Sweet Dreams by Michael Frayn Fear of Flying by Erica Jong The Great American Novel by Philip Roth
Genre fictionFrankenstein Unbound by Brian Aldiss
1974If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll

I, the Supreme by Augusto Roa Bastos Napoleon Symphony by Anthony BurgessMyra Breckinridge and Myron by Gore Vidal – first of pair published in 1968

Genre fictionTinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le CarréFletch by Gregory Mcdonald
Genre fictionJaws by Peter Benchley
Non-fiction and Quasi-fictionAll the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
PoetryMr. Cogito by Zbigniew Herbert
1975Humboldt's Gift by Saul BellowThe Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies – first volume published 1970Dead Babies by Martin Amis The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García MárquezThe History Man by Malcolm Bradbury The Periodic Table by Primo Levi – short stories
Genre fictionWatership Down by Richard Adams The Choirboys by Joseph Wambaugh Shōgun by James Clavell 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
1976Ragtime by EL Doctorow
Genre fictionInterview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
Non-fiction and quasi-fictionRoots by Alex Haley

Another Day of Life by Ryszard Kapuściński

PoetryChristmas O Shiter Sanet Guchho by Joy Goswami
DramaDeath and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka
1977The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Škvorecký Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
1978Success by Martin AmisThe Sea, the Sea by Iris MurdochLanark: A Life in Four Books by Alasdair Gray Life A User's Manual by Georges PerecThe Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan KunderaJake's Thing by Kingsley AmisThe World According to Garp by John Irving 1985 by Anthony BurgessHoratio Stubbs by Brian Aldiss – trilogy, first volume published in 1970
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction

The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuściński

Genre fictionRumpole of the Bailey by John Mortimer
1979A Bend in the River by V. S. NaipaulThe Unlimited Dream Company by J. G. BallardSophie's Choice by William Styron
Non-fiction and Quasi-fictionThe White Album by Joan DidionThe Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
1980The Name of the Rose by Umberto EcoPascali's Island by Barry Unsworth Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
1981Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan The White Hotel by D. M. Thomas Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García MárquezWhat We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver – short stories
Genre fictionThe Red Dragon by Thomas Harris Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
Non-fictionConversations with an Executioner by Kazimierz Moczarski
1982Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd The Color Purple by Alice Walker A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
Genre fictionPrizzi's Honor by Richard CondonLimes Inferior by Janusz A. Zajdel
1983Waterland by Graham Swift Shame by Salman RushdieErev by Eli Schechtman
Genre fictionThe Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett – first book of the Discworld series
1984Money by Martin AmisBright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan KunderaFlaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes Nights at the Circus by Angela CarterEnderby by Anthony Burgess – tetralogy, first volume published in 1963The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
Non-fictionEmpire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard
1985

Sei Somoy by Sunil Gangopadhyay White Noise by Don DeLillo Less than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd Illywhacker by Peter Carey The Kingdom of the Wicked by Anthony Burgess

Genre fictionL.A. Quartet by James Ellroy – tetralogy, first volume published 1984The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood –
1986Slaves of New York by Tama Janowitz The Old Devils by Kingsley AmisAn Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
Non-fictionDecolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
1987The Satanic Verses by Salman RushdieThe Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom WolfeAnthills of the Savannah by Chinua AchebeThe Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Genre fictionPresumed Innocent by Scott Turow
1988Mother London by Michael MoorcockLibra by Don DeLilloOscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
Genre fictionSprawl by William Gibson – trilogy, first volume published 1984
1989London Fields by Martin AmisFoucault's Pendulum by Umberto EcoThe Remains of the Day by Kazuo IshiguroTo the Ends of the Earth by William Golding – trilogy, first volume published 1980Ghumiyecho, Jhaupata? by Joy GoswamiThe Book of Evidence by John Banville The Trick of It by Michael Frayn

1990s

1990The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster – first volume published 1985The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk Restoration by Rose Tremain Possession by A. S. Byatt The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi Dirty Weekend by Helen Zahavi
Genre fictionDevil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
1991Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland
1992The Secret History by Donna Tartt
1993A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
1994Blood of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski
1995The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie
1996Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace Prathama Alo by Sunil Gangopadhyay
1997Underworld by Don DeLillo American Pastoral by Philip RothNightmare by Zlatko TopčićInto Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Genre fictionNorthern Lights by Philip Pullman – first in His Dark Materials trilogyHarry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling – first in series
1998About a Boy (novel) by Nick Hornby