A List of Fifty Favorite No-Longer-Living Writers by Country
(A good half of these are at least among 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 living here.)
Algeria: Albert Camus
Alsace-Lorraine: Tomi Ungerer
Argentina: Jorge Luis Borges
Australia: Nevil Shute *
Austria: Ingeborg Bachmann *
Belgium: Georges Simenon
Bohemia: Franz Kafka
Brazil: Clarice Lispector *
Canada: Mavis Gallant *
Chile: Juan Emar
Colombia: Gabriel García Márquez
Czech Republic: Bohumil Hrabal
Denmark: Hans Christian Andersen
Egypt: Albert Cossery
Finland: Tove Jansson
France: Barbara Molinard *
Germany: Stefan Heym
Great Britain: J. G. Ballard *
Greece: Aristophanes [or, if that’s unfair, then Nikos Kazantzakis]
Honduras: Augusto Monterroso
Hungary: Ferenc Karinthy
India: Kamala Markandaya *
Indonesia: Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Iran: Sadegh Hedayat
Ireland: Samuel Beckett *
Italy: Italo Calvino *
Japan: Yasunari Kawabata
Mexico: Juan Rulfo
Netherlands: Maria Dermoût
Nigeria: Chinua Achebe
Northern Ireland: Brian Moore *
Norway: Stig Sæterbakken
Poland: Stanisław Lem *
Portugal: José Saramago
Puerto Rico: Piri Thomas
Redonda: Ray Bradbury
Romania: Eugène Ionesco
Rome: Ovid
Russia: Leo Tolstoy *
Scotland: Muriel Spark
Serbia: Milorad Pavić
Soviet Union: Mikhail Bulgakov
Spain: Javier Marias *
Sweden: Henning Mankell *
Switzerland: Ágota Kristóf
Trinidad and Tobago: Samuel Selvon
United States: William Maxwell *
Uruguay: Mario Levrero
Wales: Richard Hughes
Zimbabwe: Doris Lessing
— October 2, 2022