A List of Fifty Favorite Living Writers by Country
(Ten or fifteen of these are the names that would leap immediately to mind for most American readers of international fiction, while the rest are a little more idiosyncratic. I’ve arranged the list in alphabetical order by country, with asterisks when it came down to a coin toss between the writer I chose and another. You can find my list of the departed here.)
Argentina: Luis Sagasti *
Australia: Ryan O’Neill *
Austria: Peter Handke
Belgium: Amélie Nothomb *
Bolivia: Liliana Colanzi
Canada: Stephen Marche *
Chile: Alejandro Zambra
China: Yan Ge
Colombia: Tomás González
Congo-Brazzaville: Emmanuel Dongala
Czech Republic: Michal Ajvaz
Denmark: Olga Ravn
Equatorial Guinea: Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel
Finland: Selja Ahava
France: Éric Chevillard
Germany: Andreas Eschbach *
Great Britain: Nick Harkaway *
Greece: Amanda Michalopoulou
Hungary: Attila Veres
India: Vikram Paralkar *
Indonesia: Andrea Hirata
Ireland: Tana French *
Israel: Alex Epstein
Italy: Sandra Petrignani *
Japan: Haruki Murakami *
Kenya: Okwiri Oduor *
Mexico: Chloe Aridjis *
Netherlands: Toon Tellegen
New Zealand: Bernard Beckett *
Nigeria: Ben Okri
Northern Ireland: Robert McLiam Wilson
Norway: Dag Solstad
Peru: Mario Vargas Llosa
Philippines: Kristine Ong Muslim
Poland: Olga Tokarczuk
Portugal: Gonçalo M. Tavares
Redonda: Philip Pullman
Russia: Victor Pelevin
Scotland: Michel Faber
Serbia: Zoran Živković
South Africa: J.M. Coetzee *
South Korea: Jang Eun-Jin *
Spain: Paco Roca *
Sri Lanka: Anuk Arudpragasm
Sudan: Leila Aboulela
Sweden: Karin Tidbeck
Switzerland: Peter Bichsel *
Syria: Osama Alomar
United States: Thomas Glave *
Wales: Carys Davies
— June 16, 2024