Foreign writers of the 21st century and their works. Modern Russian writers (list). "The Fault in Our Stars" John Green
Modern Russian literature has been developing dynamically since 1991, the year of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Four generations of writers of different genres fill its inner essence, creating the best Russian books.
Russian literature received a new round of development during the years of perestroika. Writers and books that graced that period:
- Lyudmila Ulitskaya “Medea and her children”;
- Tatiana Tolstaya “Circle”;
- Olga Slavnikova “Waltz with a Beast”.
These books highlight social and political issues.
Modern Russian prose of the 21st century also does not stand still. A whole creative galaxy of writers has formed, including such famous names as Daria Dontsova, Boris Akunin, Alexandra Marinina, Sergei Lukyanenko, Tatyana Ustinova, Polina Dashkova, Evgeniy Grishkovets. These authors can be proud of their maximum circulation.
Modern literature is created by writers in various genres. As a rule, these are works within such directions as postmodernism and realism. The most popular genres include dystopia, blogger literature, as well as mass literature (this includes horror, fantasy, drama, action films, and detective stories).
The development of modern Russian literature in the style of postmodernism goes in parallel with the development of society. This style is characterized by the opposition of reality and attitude towards it. Writers subtly draw a line between existing reality and, in an ironic form, convey their vision of a change in the social system, changes in society and the predominance of disorder over peace and order.
It is difficult to decide which book is a masterpiece, because each of us has our own ideas about the truth. And therefore, thanks to the fruitful creativity of poets, playwrights, science fiction writers, prose writers, and publicists, the great and powerful Russian literature continues to develop and improve. Only time can put the final point in the history of a work, because true and authentic art is not subject to time.
The best Russian detective stories and adventure books
Fascinating and captivating stories in the detective genre require logic and ingenuity from the authors. You need to think through all the subtleties and aspects so that the intrigue keeps readers in suspense until the last page.
Modern Russian prose: the best books for grateful readers
The top 10 most interesting books of Russian prose include the following works.
Yesterday, April 23, was World Book Day, we invite you to familiarize yourself with the list of reading preferences of 56 experts. We invite you to familiarize yourself with the list of reading preferences of experts from the literary magazine The Millions, which included famous journalists, critics and writers. They selected the most noteworthy books of the century. The rating was prepared by 56 experts of the publication and was presented and compiled by the magazine's readers who voted in a special group on Facebook. Surely, anyone who reads can name their ranking of the best books, but this study by The Millions is worth taking note.
"The Middle Sex" Jeffrey Eugenides
"Middlesex" Jeffrey Eugenides The life story of a hermaphrodite, frankly and frankly told in the first person. The novel, written by Greek-American Jeffrey Eugenides in Berlin, won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize. The novel is the story of several generations of one family through the eyes of a hermaphrodite descendant."The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Waugh" by Junot Diaz
(“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Díaz)
The 2007 semi-autobiographical novel, written by Dominican-American Junot Díaz, tells the story of an overweight and deeply unhappy child growing up in New Jersey and dying untimely in his early youth. The work was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. A notable feature of the book is the mixture of literary English, “Spanglish” (a mixture of English and Spanish) and street slang of Latin Americans who settled in America. "2666" Roberto Bolaño
"2666" Roberto Bolano
Posthumously published novel by Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003). The novel consists of five parts, which the author, for economic reasons, intended to publish as five independent books, in order to thus ensure the life of his children after his death. Nevertheless, after his death, the heirs appreciated the literary value of the work and decided to publish it as one novel. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
"Cloud Atlas" David Mitchell
Cloud Atlas is like a mirror maze in which six voices echo and overlap: a mid-nineteenth-century notary returning to the United States from Australia; a young composer forced to trade body and soul in Europe between the world wars; a journalist in 1970s California uncovering a corporate conspiracy; a small publisher - our contemporary, who managed to break the bank on the gangster autobiography “Knuckle Knuckles” and is fleeing from creditors; a clone servant from a fast food company in Korea - the country of victorious cyberpunk; and the Hawaiian goatherd at the end of civilization. "The Road" Cormac McCarthy
"The Road" Cormac McCarthy
A book by Comrak McCarthy, whose works are distinguished by harsh realism and a healthy view of our human essence, without masks, without hypocrisy, without any romance. A father and his little son wander through a country that has survived a monstrous catastrophe, desperately trying to survive and maintain a human appearance in a post-apocalyptic world. "Atonement" Ian McEwan
"Atonement" Ian McEwan
“Atonement” is a “chronicle of lost time”, striking in its sincerity, written by a teenage girl, overestimating and rethinking the events of her “adult” life in her own whimsical and childishly cruel way. Having witnessed a rape, she interprets it in her own way - and sets in motion a chain of fatal events that will come back to haunt her in the most unexpected way many, many years later. "The Adventures of Cavalier and Clay" Michael Chabon
"The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" Michael Chabon
Two Jewish youths become the kings of comics in America during World War II. With their art they try to fight the forces of evil and those who hold their loved ones in slavery and want to destroy them. "Corrections" Jonathan Franzen
"The Corrections" Jonathan Franzen
This is an ironic and deep understanding of the eternal conflict between fathers and sons in the era of the bravura “end of history,” impenetrable political correctness and the ubiquitous Internet. Following the sad and funny life collisions of the family of former railway engineer Alfred Lambert, who is slowly losing his mind, the author builds a multi-character novel about love, business, cinema, “haute cuisine”, the dizzying luxury of New York and even the lawlessness in the post-Soviet space. The book has been declared "the first great novel of the 21st century." "Gilead" Marilynne Robinson
The novel takes place in 1956 in the town of Gilead, Iowa. The book consists of letters written in diary form by a 76-year-old priest and addressed to his 7-year-old son. Accordingly, the novel is a series of inconsistent scenes, memories, stories, and moral advice. "White Teeth" by Zadie Smith
"White Teeth" by Zadie Smith
One of the brightest and most successful debut novels to appear in British literature in recent years. A brilliant comic tale that tells of friendship, love, war, an earthquake, three cultures, three families over three generations and one very unusual mouse. "Kafka on the Beach" by Haruki Murakami
"Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami
At the center of the work is the fate of a teenager who ran away from home from the gloomy prophecy of his father. The amazing fates of the heroes, residents of Japan in the second half of the 20th century, are influenced by prophecies, messengers from the other world and cats. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
"The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
Amir and Hassan were separated by an abyss. One belonged to the local aristocracy, the other to a despised minority. One's father was handsome and important, the other's was lame and pitiful. One was a voracious reader, the other was illiterate. Everyone could see Hassan's harelip, but Amir's ugly scars were hidden deep inside. But you can't find people closer than these two boys. Their story unfolds against the backdrop of a Kabul idyll, which will soon give way to menacing storms. The boys are like two paper kites that were picked up by this storm and scattered in different directions. Each has their own destiny, their own tragedy, but, as in childhood, they are connected by the strongest ties. "Don't Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro
"Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro
From Japanese-born literary graduate Malcolm Bradbury, winner of the Booker Prize for The Remains of the Day, the most astonishing English novel of 2005. Thirty-year-old Katie recalls her childhood at the exclusive Hailsham school, full of strange omissions, half-hearted revelations and latent threats. This is a parable novel, this is a story of love, friendship and memory, this is the ultimate embodiment of the metaphor “to serve with your whole life.” "Austerlitz" W. G. Sebald
"Austerlitz" W.G. Sebald
Jacques Austerlitz, who devoted his life to studying the structure of fortresses, palaces and castles, suddenly realizes that he knows nothing about his personal history, except that in 1941 he, a five-year-old boy, was taken to England. And now, decades later, he rushes around Europe, sits in archives and libraries, bit by bit building within himself his own “museum of lost things,” “a personal history of disasters.” "Empire Falls" Richard Russo
A novel by Richard Russo, in a comedic vein, it tells the story of the blue-collar life of the small town of Empire Falls, Maine. The main character is Miles Robie, the manager of a grill bar that has been considered the most popular establishment in this place for 20 years. "Runaway" Alice Munro
A collection of short stories by the famous Canadian writer, based on which films are already being made in Hollywood, and in 2004 the book received the Giller Prize. "The Master" Colm Toibin
Irish writer Colm Tóibín's The Master, which chronicles the life of the famous 19th-century novelist and critic Henry James, has won the world's largest literary prize for a work of English-language fiction. "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Ngozi Adichie Chimamanda
"Half a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Full of intense drama, the novel tells the stories of several people - stories that are intertwined in the most amazing way. Readers called Adichie’s novel “the African Kite Runner,” and British critics awarded it the prestigious Orange Prize. "Uncommon Earth" by Jhumpa Lairi
Unaccustomed Earth: Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri
“An Unusual Earth” is a book by Indian-American writer Jhumpa Lairi. In it, she directly continues the theme of Indian emigrants, which she also began in her first book, “Interpreter of Maladies.” Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Suzanne Clarke
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" Susanna Clarke
Magical England of the Napoleonic Wars. England, in which wizards are in the secret service of the government and defend the British Empire in their own ways. But, fighting the “ordinary” enemy and using their Power as another weapon in the “human” war, the wizards forgot about their true, eternal enemy and adversary - the Ancient People, who remember how they once ruled human lands and souls. And now, when magic has begun to weaken and dry up, fairies are returning from the depths of extreme antiquity, led by their New Hope - the changeling Raven King. The list of experts also included the books “The Known World” by Edward P. Jones, “Pastoralia. Devastation in Civil War Park" by George Saunders, "Time to Lead the Horses" by Per Petterson, "Bastion of Solitude" by Jonathan Lethem, a collection of short stories by Kelly Link "It's All Very Strange", as well as the untranslated books "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" Alice Munro, "Twilight of the Superheroes: Stories" Deborah Eisenberg, "Mortals" Norman Rush, "Varieties of Disturbance: Stories" Lydia Davis, "American Genius: A Comedy" Lynne Tillman. At the request of Afisha, Anton Dolin examined what the books of the author of the novel “11/22/63”, the king of horror, the most important fiction writer and the most filmed modern writer in the world, consist of.
Photo: SHOSHANNAH WHITE/PHOTO S.A./CORBIS
Car accident
Many of Stephen King's characters died in accidents, and on June 19, 1999, this almost happened to him: the 51-year-old writer was hit by a car while walking. In addition to a broken femur and multiple fractures of his right leg, he received injuries to his head and right lung. He spent almost a month on an artificial respiration apparatus; his leg was not amputated only by a miracle, but for another year the writer could not sit - and, accordingly, work. However, he gradually returned to his previous activities, reflecting the experience gained over and over again in new books, in particular, in “The History of Lizzie” and “Duma-Key”, and in the seventh volume of “The Dark Tower” the sacred numbers 19 and 99 appeared. Some saw in what happened is a warning from above (the writer flirted too much with the forces of darkness in his books), others are a sign of almost God’s chosenness of the writer, who managed to be reborn as a new person. One way or another, King is someone to whom these things happen for a reason. It’s not for nothing that he wrote so much about disasters and cars with mysterious powers, from “Christina” (1983) to “Almost Like a Buick” (2002).
Bachman
Stephen King came up with Richard Bachman in 1977, when he had already made his mark with Carrie. Why the pseudonym was needed is now not very clear. Either at the beginning of a career to cope with the supposed frustrations of the failure of books signed with one’s own name, or to check whether it will be possible to shoot a second time. One way or another, Bachman survived successfully for seven whole years until King killed him, by which time the hoax had already been exposed, and the cause of death in the press release was listed as “alias cancer.” If we talk about style, then Bachman, unlike the moderate optimist King, looked at the world gloomily, and the punishment of heroes for
karmic sins interested him much more than exquisite
psychologism - and in general it was more about the state of society and less about the otherworldly. The first published under this name was the novel “Fury” about an armed schoolboy who took his class hostage - however, criticism of society there backfired, and later it was not society that was blamed for each such tragedy, but “Fury” itself. The best that appeared under Bachman’s signature was the dystopia “The Running Man,” later turned into a film with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the creepy gothic novel “The Thin Man.” In general, Bachman's stories were noticeably inferior to those that King signed with his own name. In 1996, Bachman briefly resurrected to take part in an unusual experiment: he “created” the novel “The Regulators” with King, who wrote another weighty tome, “Hopeless,” about exactly the same fictional events. The “regulators” were clearly weaker and secondary. Bachman's final fiasco was cemented by another posthumous opus - Blaze (2007), one of the most inconspicuous in the careers of both writers.
Baseball
King is in many ways a typical American. And that's why he's an avid baseball fan. The team he supports is the Boston Red Sox, and they are mentioned throughout most of his novels and short stories. The most passionate declaration of love for baseball was the novel “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon” (1999), divided not into chapters, but into innings: its nine-year-old heroine Trisha got lost in the forest, in which her only friend and assistant was an imaginary black baseball player . In 2007, the book “Fan” was published, entirely dedicated to one season of the Boston Red Sox. King - for the first time in his life - co-created it with writer Stuart O'Nan. And between these two texts, King managed to appear in the Farrelly brothers’ comedy “Baseball Fever” (2005) - in the role of finally not a fan, but a player.
Castle Rock
Founded in 1877, the town in Maine, 79 miles from King's hometown of Bangor, is actually fictional. Today it’s hard to believe: hundreds of the writer’s heroes lived and died there, and then director Rob Reiner named his company Castle Rock Entertainment in his honor. Castle Rock was first mentioned in the story “Night Shift”; every second King text refers to it or its natives in one way or another, and detailed geography, toponymy and social portrait of the city can be extracted from “The Dead Zone”, “Cujo” and “The Dark Half” " In the epic "Needful Things," Satan himself comes to Castle Rock and the town is destroyed forever. An incomparable singer of secluded “little America,” King invented a dozen tiny, colorful towns, most of which are located in Maine. The most famous after Castle Rock is Derry, haunted by the ancient curse, where the actions of It, Insomnia and 11/22/63 take place, but there are others: Haven (Tommyknockers), Chester's Mill ( Under the Dome"), Chamberlain ("Carrie") or Ludlow ("Pet Sematary"). The writer himself admits that he was inspired by Lovecraft's fictional cities - Innsmouth, Dunwich, Arkham and Kingsport.
Criticism and theory
King is famous not only for his prose, poetry and drama, but also for his theoretical works, in which he examines the legacy of the classics, analyzes cinema and offers recipes for creative success. His debut in this area was “Dance of Death” (1981), a book about the horror genre. Partly autobiographical, it offers an interesting typology of nightmares in both books and cinema, from Creature from the Black Lagoon to The Shining. In 2000, a new work, “How to Write Books,” was published, which became a bestseller around the world: its second part, “Advice for Beginning Authors,” was especially popular. In particular, he strongly recommends reading and writing four to six hours a day and reports that he has set a quota for himself - no less than two thousand words per day. In addition, every year King delights his readers with lists - sometimes controversial, but always interesting - of the best books and films of the past year. For example, in 2013, he put Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son at the top of his top ten, adding to it Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, both Hilary Mantel's Booker novels - Wolf Hall and Bring in the Bodies, as well as The Random vacancy" by Joanne Rowling. She, according to King, is one of the most significant writers of recent decades: he even wrote her a special petition between the publication of the sixth and seventh volumes of the epic about the boy wizard calling for Harry Potter to be left alive.
Lovecraft
The founder of modern American horror - and a lifelong role model for King, despite all the differences in style, character and biography. The son of a crazy traveling salesman, Howard Phillips Lovecraft was a child prodigy, a visionary and a misanthrope. The heir to Edgar Allan Poe, in his masterpiece stories and short stories - “The Call of Cthulhu”, “The Ridges of Madness”, “Dagon” and others - he explored the nightmares hidden behind the facade of the everyday life of the carefree inhabitants of the twentieth century. An almost complete lack of a sense of humor, psychological accuracy and imagination in plotting (all these qualities are inherent in King) - Lovecraft was a master in the difficult task of creating unknown worlds. King, who discovered the abyss of Jungian imagery in Lovecraft's short stories, read it at the age of twelve - according to the writer himself, at the ideal age for such literature.
Magic
Ancient Indian witchcraft in “Pet Sematary”, alien infection in “The Tommyknockers”, their bizarre combination in “It”, traditional magic of vampires in “The Lot” and werewolves in “The Werewolf Cycle”, the magic of time itself in “The Langoliers”. Surprisingly, magic is still absent in many books - including the most magical ones (Cujo, Misery, Dolores Claiborne, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil). Others deal with phenomena that many consider natural, albeit inexplicable: “Carrie,” “Dead Zone,” “Ignite with a Look.” However, in the broadest sense of the word, King - and his reader too - believes that the universe around us is imbued with magic, both light and dark. The ability to see, recognize and, let’s say, use it is both a gift and a curse, from which many heroes of King’s books suffer greatly. According to King, through every drunkard who decides to hit his unfortunate wife, cruel school teacher and bully in the world, evil manifests itself, and through every attentive, restless, subtle person - perhaps a child or a myopic wise guy from the library - on the contrary, good. Their conflict (especially clearly conveyed in the early apocalyptic epic, which is called “Confrontation”) is endless. A classic example is the journey of the agent of good, the shooter Roland, to the Dark Tower, occupied by the same dark forces.
Dead men
Talking to the dead - in a dream or in reality - is a common thing for the heroes of King's books; sometimes, however, as in the novella "Will", they are all dead from the very beginning. But there are also special texts that are entirely devoted to relationships with those who have passed away. This is the story “Sometimes They Come Back,” which deserved a very expressive film adaptation, the story “The Body” about four teenagers who found a corpse in the forest (as King himself recalled, such a story actually happened to him - only it was the corpse of a dog, not a person) . After all, who knows whether King would have picked up a ballpoint pen if it weren’t for the death of a friend who was hit by a train in front of Stephen’s eyes when he was only four years old. Of course, Pet Sematary, perhaps the writer’s most terrible and hopeless novel, is related to the same theme. The moral that is easy to take away from the book is quite simple: you will never be able to get rid of longing for departed loved ones - unless you resort to the help of Indian demons, which may not be the best idea. So let the dead remain in their graves. This thesis is confirmed by the later novel “Mobile Phone” - King’s variation on the theme of the zombie apocalypse.
Writers
Favorite Stephen King characters. Sometimes they are just storytellers reminiscing about their childhood (“Body”), or even non-professionals keeping a diary (“Duma-Key”), more often they are people who make a living by writing. In Misery (1987), sentimental bestselling author Paul Sheldon gets into a car accident and ends up in the hands of a professional nurse who, a crazy fan of his books, discovers the manuscript of the latest novel in her favorite series in her idol's briefcase. In The Dark Half (1989), Ted Beaumont tries to break away from his pseudonym, George Stark, a work of unbridled fantasy that has taken on a life of its own. In Secret Window, Secret Garden (1990), Morton Rainey is accused of plagiarism. In Bag of Bones (1998), Mike Noonan loses his inspiration and ends up in a haunted house. And these are just a few of the numerous writers, graphomaniacs or geniuses, alter egos of varying degrees of accuracy, confirming the hackneyed thesis: every truly talented writer always writes about himself.
Shine
A special psychic talent, invisible to others, but noticeable to those who have a similar gift. In the novel “The Shining” (1980), one of King’s seminal books, five-year-old Danny is told about him by the black giant Dick Halloran. To one degree or another, the characters in most of the writer’s novels “shine,” from Carrie moving objects to Charlie’s igniting gaze, from the mind-reading and future-foreseeing Johnny Smith from “The Dead Zone” to the seven outcast teenagers from “It,” who are able to see what is hidden underground evil and those who challenge it. As a rule, the “shining” one is fragile and vulnerable, and therefore the sympathies of the author and the reader are on his side. However, as Doctor Sleep shows, the gift of the “shining ones” can be used in other ways, for example, as food for energy vampires. A kind of absolute “shine” is John Coffey from The Green Mile.
Tabitha
Stephen King's wife, to whom many of his books are dedicated (and there is a special thanks to her in almost every one). They met at university in 1966 and married five years later, today they have three children and four grandchildren. It was she who found the Carrie manuscript in the trash bin, thrown there by King, and insisted that her husband finish the novel and send it to the publishing house. Since then, Tabitha has been the first reader of all King's texts. She has also been writing herself since the early 1980s. None of the eight novels became bestsellers, but almost all received excellent reviews.
Horror
Tradition suggests that Stephen King is considered the king of horror: the surname is conducive, and the writer himself does not mind. But being an unsurpassed virtuoso of scary literature, even unlike the most noble representatives of the genre - from Poe to Lovecraft - King never tries to scare his readers. Moreover, his books often have a psychotherapeutic effect, explaining and analyzing the nature of common phobias and helping to get rid of them. Like a true American, King cannot live without catharsis and the final victory over evil, which marks the vast majority of his novels. There are, however, notable exceptions to this rule (and most are signed with the surname Bachman).
Dark tower
Stephen King's magnum opus currently consists of eight novels written between 1982 and 2012 (the cycle also includes a multi-volume comic book epic and several short stories). Sources of inspiration include Thomas Eliot's poem "The Waste Land" and Robert Browning's "Childe Roland Came to the Dark Tower", as well as the screen image of Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns and Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz". Shooter Roland Deschain, a knight errant from a post-apocalyptic future, in the company of several companions - our contemporaries, inhabitants of twentieth-century America - walks through the Wasteland to the center of the worlds, captured by the forces of Darkness, the Dark Tower. King's series freely mixes fantasy, science fiction, western, horror and fairy tales. Some consider The Dark Tower his masterpiece, others -
the most monumental failure. One way or another, difficult to organize
The mythology of the series directly and indirectly influenced everything King wrote from the mid-1980s to the present day. For example, the children from “It” resort to the help of the ray guardian - the Turtle, in “Insomnia” the demonic Scarlet King appears, and in “Hearts in Atlantis” the central character tries to hide from his servants. And in retrospect, this rule works no worse: in the fifth book of “The Dark Tower” Father Callahan from “The Lot” is included, in the fourth the heroes find themselves in the world described in “Confrontation”. Simply put, the Dark Tower is the center of the entire Stephen King universe.
Film adaptations
More than a hundred films have been made based on King's works - he is one of the most filmed writers in the world, largely thanks to the step taken at the very beginning of his career: any film school graduate can make a film based on any of his stories (but not novels) for a symbolic one dollar. It is impossible to discern a single trend behind the history of its film adaptations. But perhaps it’s worth highlighting from the general series the expressive “Carrie” by Brian De Palma (the debut novel was the first to be filmed), the hated by the author, but the great “The Shining” by Stanley Kubrick, the peculiar “Dead Zone” by David Cronenberg and the chilling “Apt Pupil” by Brian Singer is a film that stubbornly refuses to lose its relevance. At the same time, two other directors are legitimately recognized as the best screenwriters of King’s texts - Rob Reiner (“Stand By Me,” “Misery”) and Frank Darabont (“The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Green Mile,” “The Mist” and several short films): neat and diligent authors, they manage to convey to the viewer the drive of the original sources without spilling. There are a number of films based on King, and those for which he himself wrote the script right away, not based on any book. Among these are the series “Royal Hospital” created together with Lars von Trier, the mystical “Red Rose Mansion” and the terrible fairy tale “Storm of the Century” - probably the best of the three.
1. Gabriel José de la Concordia "Gabo" García Márquez(b. March 6, 1927, Aracataca, Colombia) - famous Colombian prose writer, journalist, publisher and politician; winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1982. Representative of the literary movement of “magical realism”. His novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad, 1967) brought him worldwide fame.
2. Umberto Eco(b. January 5, 1932, Alessandria, Italy) - Italian scientist-philosopher, medievalist historian, semiotics specialist, literary critic, writer. The most famous novels are The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum.
3. Otfried Preusler(b. October 20, 1923) - German children's writer, by nationality - Lusatian (Lusatian Serb). The most famous works: “Little Baba Yaga”, “Little Ghost”, “Little Waterman” and “Krabat, or Legends of the Old Mill”.
4. Boris Lvovich Vasiliev(born May 21, 1924) - Soviet and Russian writer. Author of the story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” (1969), the novel “Not on the Lists” (1974), etc.
5. Ion Druta(b. 09/03/1928) - Moldavian and Russian writer and playwright.
6. Fazil Abdulovich Iskander(03/06/1929, Sukhum, Abkhazia, USSR) - an outstanding Soviet and Russian prose writer and poet of Abkhaz origin.
7. Daniil Alexandrovich Granin(b. January 1, 1919, Volsk, Saratov province, according to other sources - Volyn, Kursk region) - Russian writer and public figure. Knight of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, Hero of Socialist Labor (1989), President of the Society of Friends of the Russian National Library; Chairman of the Board of the International Charitable Foundation. D. S. Likhacheva.
8. Milan Kundera(b. April 1, 1929) is a modern Czech prose writer who has lived in France since 1975. He writes in both Czech and French.
9. Thomas Tranströmer(b. April 15, 1931 in Stockholm) is the largest Swedish poet of the 20th century. Winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the way his brief, translucent images give us a renewed view of reality."
10. Max Gallo(b. January 7, 1932, Nice) - French writer, historian and politician. Member of the French Academy
11. Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa(b. 03/28/1936) - Peruvian-Spanish prose writer and playwright, publicist, politician, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature.
12. Terry Pratchett(b. April 28, 1948) is a popular English writer. The most popular is his satirical fantasy series about the Discworld. The total circulation of his books is about 50 million copies.
13. Yuri Vasilievich Bondarev(b. 03/15/1924) - Russian Soviet writer. Author of the novel “Hot Snow”, the story “Battalions Ask for Fire”, etc.
14. Stephen Edwin King(b. September 21, 1947, Portland, Maine, USA) is an American writer working in a variety of genres, including horror, thriller, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and drama.
15. Victor Olegovich Pelevin(born November 22, 1962, Moscow) - Russian writer. The most famous works: “The Life of Insects”, “Chapaev and Emptiness”, “Generation “P””
16. Joan Rowling(b. July 31, 1965, Yate, Gloucestershire, England) is a British writer, author of the Harry Potter series of novels, translated into more than 65 languages and sold (as of 2008) more than 400 million copies.
Editorial BBC Culture critics conducted a large-scale survey among world literary critics. Renowned book editors and journalists were asked to name the best novels of the 21st century published after January 1, 2000. Critics called 196 best books of our time. Among them, 12 novels were selected for which they received the most votes.
British writer Hillary Mantel's saga about one of the interpretations of 16th-century events from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell (with Henry VIII as a supporting character) won the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, was adapted for the theater and filmed as a mini-series by the BBC. “An extremely fine translation of a story that has been told many times before, illustrated with impeccable examination of the authority due to the rise of Thomas Cromwell,” notes Karen R Long, editor of the Seattle Times. “I have never been so immersed in the thoughts of a character, regardless of time and place,” added Well Read TV editor Mary Ann Gwinn.
Marilane Robinson "Gilead", 2004
Another Pulitzer Prize winner is in the name of Rea John Emzao, a minister from a small town in Iowa. He talks about his life and anti-slavery tradition to his son in very lyrical language. This book is the first of Robinson's trilogy, along with "Home" and "Lila". “I don’t know of a better contemporary novelist who has written more seriously and deeply about religious faith, which has become almost a taboo subject in modern literature,” comments critic Dawn Raffel.
“Robinson is both a writer of ideas and a remarkable stylist of prose, exploring complex issues within the intimate spaces of family and community. She's also a very good storyteller,” adds Karen R. Long, manager of the Anisfield-Wolf book awards. This humble story of several generations inspires desire and makes spiritual life possible in the 21st century as one of the miracles. Critics are convinced that Gilead will still be read in 100 years.
Jonathan Franzen "Amendments", 2001
A multi-generational saga on the brink, winner of the US National Book Award, it was one of the first novels of the millennium to capture the zeitgeist. Alfred and Enid Lambert and their three children try to get together for Christmas in the late 20th century. Dad's Parkinson's disease is progressing, and the United States is on the verge of an economic crisis.
"Franzen's extraordinary third novel is a marvel of voices, characters and storytelling that is both epic and intimate," says New York Times columnist Carmela Chiararu. "Franzen secures his place as America's premier writer," said Laurie Goertzel, editor-in-chief of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. This big, sprawling, comprehensive novel touches on some of the most important themes of the early years of this millennium, particularly the economy, conflict between parents and adult children, and the aging of society in particular.
Michael Chabon "The Adventures of Cavalier and Clay", 2000
1939, Joe Kavalier, a Houdini-type artist, escapes Nazi-occupied Prague and ends up in New York. Together with his Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay, he invents the superhero Escapist and begins the golden era of comics. “Chabon's novels are big, thick, and full of stories, beautifully written, and emotionally rich, as well as historically and morally profound,” says Booklist editor Donna Seaman.
This novel may also be a bridge between the 20th and 21st centuries in the perspective of World War II and the birth of superheroes and comic books, potential mythologized heroes for the mass reader. Chabon's novels have influenced other literary works of the 21st century. But most notable among them is The Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, a timeless exploration of our penchant for war and hatred, our need for stories, and the existence of a magical superpower.
Jennifer Egan "A Visit from the Goon Squad" , 2010
Reflections on Time, Glory, and Music in the Style of Proust won the National Book Critics Circle and a Pulitzer Prize. “Time is a tricky thug, something that you constantly ignore because you're so busy that you don't have time for the thugs that are right in front of you,” says Egan. It builds a narrative around punk rocker producer Benny Salazar, his thieving assistant Sasha and a circle of scoffers, fallen people and parasites. Colette Bancroft, book editor of The Tampa Bay Times, gives Egan first place not only because she is beautifully written in an experimental style, but also because the 21st century is the main theme of the novel. Egan juxtaposes literary plots, the inexorable journey from youth to aging, exploring the ways in which human experience rapidly changes. This novel is prophetic, strange, wise, and just a great read. In Ukraine, the novel was published in translation by Sofia Andrukhovich.
Ben Fountain "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk", 2012
The debut novel, a winner of the National Book Critics Circle award, is distinguished from others by its “wise and sincere fun,” says critic Stephen J. Kelman. Eight American recruits, fresh from a shootout in Iraq that left one of their comrades dead and another disabled, become television heroes on the Fox News Channel. Their two-week tour ends with fireworks after the first half at a Dallas Cowboys game. Fountain touches on themes of Texas excess, college football, business and war, and lets us hear the 19-year-old narrator, Billy Lynn, with a mixture of lust, blindness and PTSD in his head. “It’s very strange,” says a Dallas Cowboys fan, “to be awarded for the worst day of your life.”
Ian McEwan "Redemption", 2001
McEwan's beautifully written novel follows the events that begin one summer day in the 1930s when 13-year-old Briony shows her mother the play she has just written. She was to be staged the following evening with her three cousins. That evening, Briony witnesses her 15-year-old cousin being attacked in a dark forest. She testifies that it was Robbie, her sister's boyfriend from Cambridge, and the maid's son. He goes to jail. In the second part, McEwan describes the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940, and Robbie is among the survivors. Realizing that she has ruined her sister and Robbie's lives, Briony goes to work as a nurse during the bombing of London. The novel was made into a film starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie "Half of a Yellow Sun" , 2006
In her daring and quirky second novel, Adichie draws on her family's past to tell the story of Nigeria's civil war, and how the Igbo people decided to secede from the rest of the country in 1967. Her grandfather died in a refugee camp at that time. The story is told from the perspective of twin sisters Olanna and Kainene, and 13-year-old servant Richard, a British expatriate who is in love with Kainene. Another character is Olanna's pro-secession boyfriend. “Adichie’s novel is a tour de force, creative and intellectual,” says critic Walton Muyumba. “It’s also a serious novel about politics and love during war.”
Zadie Smith "White teeth", 2000
Smith, a 23-year-old prodigy, wowed the literary world with her first novel, which demonstrates the author's wit and range. White Teeth, which won the Whitbread and Guardian Book Awards for its debut book, is about life in London, two friends from the Second World War, Archie Jones and Samal Iqbal, and their families. The book begins with Archie, who has just divorced his second wife. He decides to commit suicide on New Year's Day 1975, in a car parked in front of a butcher shop that sells halal meat. Through vibrant scenes and characters, White Teeth tells the story of post-colonial, multicultural London in the 21st century.
Jeffrey Eugenides "Middlesex"(“The Middle Sex”), 2002
“I was born twice: first, as a girl, in Detroit, in January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August 1974." This is how Eugenides' novel begins. At 14, Calliope Stephanides realized she was suffering from a rare recessive mutation, making her a pseudohermaphrodite. Realizing that she has a “male brain,” she begins to call herself “Kal.” In very vivid language, Eugenides talks about fate and will through the example of Kal's growing up and the story of the successful entrepreneurial growth of his parents, Desdemona and Lefty. They of course also have their own genetic secret. In the end, Kal's unusual condition gives him a mythical gift - "the ability to communicate between the sexes, to see the world from the perspective of both sexes at once, and not just one separately." The Middle Sex was a critical and commercial success, winning a Pulitzer Prize and selling millions of copies worldwide.