# Reading > General Literature >  What is your nationality and one of your nations writers??

## Can

I think if everyone describes their nations and writers it can make us have more knowledge about different nations...

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## PeterL

I'm an American, and Mark Twain, H. P. Lovecraft, and other writers were, or are, Americans

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## JuniperWoolf

I'm Canadian and our big one is Margaret Atwood I suppose.

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## Alexander III

Italian, but Gabrielle D'Annunzio is one of my favorite Italian writers who outside of Italy seems entirely unknown.

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## JBI

P. K. Page for me, Canadian. Anne Hebert or perhaps Hubert Aquin for Quebec I suppose, though Emile Nelligan is the archetypal French Canadian bard.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

American. Melville.

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## Seasider

I'm English and I'm going for Virginia Woolf...among others of course.

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## Helga

I am from Iceland and I guess our most famous author is Halldór Laxness and maybe the sagas but they don't really have an author I guess, except one or two.

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## tonywalt

I am Caymanian and we have no known authors originally from here. Hhhmmm, I think I am the only one :Willy Nilly:

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## marcolfo

Mexican.- my favorite mexican writer is Juan Rulfo, there are others like Octavio Paz and Carlos Fuentes

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## Patrick_Bateman

British and my favourite British literary figure is George Orwell

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## Aspirational

Bengal - Rabindranath Tagore

 :Wink:  Technically, Bengal is not a nation. But it has its own language, and Tagore is also my favourite Indian writer. I would add Kalidas in addition if I was discussing the entirety of Indian literature.

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## loe

I am from Austria and Stefan Zweig and Arthur Schnitzler were two great authors.

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## aliengirl

From India and my favorite Indian writers are Arundhati Roy and R.K. Narayan. Among authors writing in languages other than English Ghalib is my favorite.

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## cafolini

Born in Argentina, but lived 3/4 of my life in this United States of America. Macedonio Fernandez, J.L. Borges, Julio Cortazar (terrible as a poet) and Roberto Arlt, some of the best Argentinean writers in my opinion. Arlt died too young, at 42 from Tuberculosis, my project Dostoievski. In the United States, Mark Twain, Faulkner, Thoreau, Thomas Jefferson, etc., etc. and etc.

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## PeterL

> I am from Iceland and I guess our most famous author is Halldór Laxness and maybe the sagas but they don't really have an author I guess, except one or two.


What about Snorri Sturluson?

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## QuentinL

I'm American, proud of it too. We have Stephen King and Orson Scott Card, two of my personal favorites. 
Though, I love reading literature written by authors from different cultures and countries, interesting indeed.

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## JBI

> I'm American, proud of it too. We have Stephen King and Orson Scott Card, two of my personal favorites. 
> Though, I love reading literature written by authors from different cultures and countries, interesting indeed.


I liked Card a little too until I started reading his non-fiction which is jingoist homophobia if I've ever seen it.

I hear the politics make there way into some of his other books (I only read Ender's Game), which I guess is unfortunate, since in terms of craft he has some talent.

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## OrphanPip

> I liked Card a little too until I started reading his non-fiction which is jingoist homophobia if I've ever seen it.
> 
> I hear the politics make there way into some of his other books (I only read Ender's Game), which I guess is unfortunate, since in terms of craft he has some talent.


Card's a devout Mormon and it makes its way into a lot of his work, it is a bit unfortunate at times. Ender's Game is a great work of children's literature though.

Edit: This review is worth a read to see just how far Card's work has fallen,

http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2011summer/card.shtml

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## kiki1982

I'm from Belgium and we don't have to brag too much... but Charles de Coster is one (Uylenspieghel), Willem who wrote _Reynaert_, Maurice Maeterlinck won the Nobel Prize for Lit for us and then there are Hendrik Conscience, Johan Daisne (one of the few magical realists), Willem Elsshot

I think that's about it apart from a few peasants' stories and mass 19th century bourgeois writings everyone has forgotten about...

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## MissBankjc

I'm Australian - perhaps Bryce Courtenay (The Power of One), Thomas Keneally (Schindler's Ark), Peter Carey (Oscar and Lucinda)? I can't really think of any others!

David Malouf is my favourite Australian author, though.

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## Emil Miller

> I'm from Belgium and we don't have to brag too much... but Charles de Coster is one (Uylenspieghel), Willem who wrote _Reynaert_, Maurice Maeterlinck won the Nobel Prize for Lit for us and then there are Hendrik Conscience, Johan Daisne (one of the few magical realists), Willem Elsshot
> 
> I think that's about it apart from a few peasants' stories and mass 19th century bourgeois writings everyone has forgotten about...


You forgot to mention Georges Simenon who wrote getting on for 200 novels and also claimed to have slept with 10,000 women. Where on earth did he get the time for those novels?

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## TheFifthElement

I'm British, so there's a lot of scope. However, Hilary Mantel most excellent writer of Wolf Hall, grew up in my town, and I went to school with Steven Hall who wrote _The Raw Shark Texts_ and sometime writer of Dr. Who. Am I jealous of his success and talent...no of course not!

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## makkesan

Hi. I'm new. I'm Bulgarian. I don't really like Bulgarian novels so much but we have some good poets. Most of them died young. 

Here - the last poem of Nikola Vaptzarov.


The fight is hard and pitiless.
The fight is epic, as they say.
I fell. Another takes my place 
Why single out a name?

After the firing squad  the worms.
Thus does the simple logic go.
But in the storm, well be with you,
My people, for we loved you so.

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## Alexander III

> Hi. I'm new. I'm Bulgarian. I don't really like Bulgarian novels so much but we have some good poets. Most of them died young. 
> 
> Here - the last poem of Nikola Vaptzarov.
> 
> 
> The fight is hard and pitiless.
> The fight is epic, as they say.
> I fell. Another takes my place 
> Why single out a name?
> ...


wow, thats quite a beautifull poem, thanks for introducing me to this poet. What do you think would be the best english translation of his works?

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## Gregory Samsa

I am Swede and the greatest author here is probably August Strindberg, but global maybe Stieg Larsson now days.

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## Gilliatt Gurgle

I'll add three I recently read; Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Faulkner (American)

.

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## makkesan

Unfortunately, most of Bulgarian poets don't have good translations in English -not to mention whole books. Here I can offer another one from Vaptzarov. He was a communist in times when communism was not a dirty word. 

History

History, will you mention us
In your faded scroll?
We worked in factories, offices 
Our names were not well known.
We worked in fields, smelled strongly
Of onion and sour bread.
Through thick moustaches angrily
We cursed the life we led.

Will you at least be grateful
We fattened you with news
And slaked your thirst so richly
With the blood of slaughtered crowds?
Youll lose the human focus
To view the panorama,
And no one will remember
The simple human drama.

The poets will be distracted
With pamphlets, progress rates;
Our unrecorded suffering
Will roam alone in space.

Was it a life worth noting,
A life worth digging up?
Unearthed, it reeks of poison,
Tastes bitter in the cup.

We were born along the hedgerows,
In the shelter of stray thorns
Our mothers lay perspiring,
Their dry lips tightly drawn.

We died like flies in autumn.
The women mourned the dead,
Turned their lament to singing 
But only the wild grass heard.

We who survived our brothers,
Sweated from every pore,
Took any job that offered,
Toiled as the oxen do.

At home our fathers taught us:
So shall it always be.
But we scowled back and spat on
Their fools philosophy.

We quit the table curtly,
Ran out of doors, and there
In the open felt the stirring
Of something bright and fair.

How anxiously we waited
In crowded-out cafés,
And turned in late at night
With the last communiqués!

How we were soothed by hoping! ...
But leaden skies pressed lower,
The scorching wind hissed viciously ...
Till we could stand no more!

Yet in your endless volumes
Beneath each letter and line
Out pain will leer forbiddingly
And raise a bitter cry.

For life, showing no mercy,
With heavy brutish paw
Battered our hungry faces.
Thats why our tongue is raw.

Thats why the poems Im writing
In hours I steal from sleep
Have not the grace of perfume,
But brief and scowling beat.

For the hardship and affliction
We do not seek rewards,
Nor do we want our pictures
In the calendar of years.

Just tell our story simply
To those we shall not see,
Tell those who will replace us 
We fought courageously.

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## Seasider

If I were a Persian/Iranian which I am not, Omar Khayam would be my top poet...and Mathematician, Astronomer and Philosopher too.

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## WICKES

I am English-British. I guess the most obvious choice is Shakespeare. Among the arts this island has only really excelled in literature. In painting and music the continental Europeans have far more to boast about. There is Chaucer, Dickens, Shelley, Byron, Keats, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Virginia Woolf, D H Lawrence, John Milton, H G Wells, Dr Johnson, John Donne, Alexander Pope. 

Two of my personal favourites are Evelyn Waugh and Philip Larkin

But there are plenty of non-English writers who mean a great deal to me: Herman Hesse, Kurt Vonnegut, Voltaire, Montaigne etc.

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## Lulim

I am german. There are quite some authors both contemporary and past. Heinrich Böll, Bertold Brecht, Heinrich Kleist, Günther Grass, Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann, Heinrich Heine, Hermann Hesse, to name a few. Not so good with women  Julia Franck, Christa Wolf, Sibylle Lewitscharoff ...

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## mal4mac

> I am English-British. I guess the most obvious choice is Shakespeare. Among the arts this island has only really excelled in literature. In painting and music the continental Europeans have far more to boast about.


No can match the Germans in classical music, of course. But Brits surely have several excellent composers - Vaughan Williams, Elgar...; and artists - Turner, Constable... And in modern popular music the Brits are well ahead of continental Europe (Beatles, Stones...)

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## Pensive

Pakistan has produced some really great writers which makes it quite difficult to make a choice. Unfortunately many of them stand quite unknown to the world especially when it come to prose. Writers like Saadat Hassan manto, a short story writer basically and novelists like Altaf Fatima and Khadija Mastoor. And then there are wonderful poets like Faiz Ahmed Faiz (a revolutionary writer) and Sahir Ludhianwi. But since I must narrow down to one writer, I think it will have to be the renowned national hero Allama Iqbal who played an important role as a revolutionary poet as well as an essay-writer, economist and political leader.

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## WICKES

> I am german. There are quite some authors both contemporary and past. Heinrich Böll, Bertold Brecht, Heinrich Kleist, Günther Grass, Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann, Heinrich Heine, Hermann Hesse, to name a few. Not so good with women  Julia Franck, Christa Wolf, Sibylle Lewitscharoff ...


I am English-British, but I love Herman Hesse. I am trying to learn German so that I can read him in the original. I also loved Thomas Mann's Death In Venice.

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## masonblake

I'm Scottish, so take your pick from the world's finest.  :Smile: 

Regards

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## Taliesin

I'm Estonian. Our most noted prose writer is probably Anton Hansen Tammsaare - at least this is the official canon as taught in schools. His pentalogy "Truth and Justice" is rather good, I think. Karl Ristikivi, who emigrated to Sweden and writes about being a stranger (plus some very fine poetry), deserves to be mentioned, as does Jaan Kross, who died a few years ago but was before that considered a living classic. Andrus Kivirähk is very popular nowadays and has an excellent sense of humour, which, sadly, relies too much on Estonian tropes that wouldn't be understood outside of the country. As for poetry, there is Juhan Viiding/Jüri Üdi who is somewhat difficult to understand as his poetry is rather decentralized, full of paradox, irony, wordplay and sudden change of perspective. I should probably also mention Uku Masing, a polyglot who knew about 65 languages and translated from 20, for his metaphysical poetry and essays.

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## Darcy88

I'm Canadian and one of my nation's most esteemed authors is Alice Munro. Its kind of neat because she lived for years in my town and some of her short stories are set here.

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## Whifflingpin

I'm English and (today) I think the most English book is "Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grahame.

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## Kyriakos

Greek  :Smile:  The ancients are very known, as is Constantine Cavafy. But you could have a look at the penguin classics edition of Alexander Papadiamantis's "The murderess", which arguably is the best novel written in Greek ever.

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## WICKES

> Greek  The ancients are very known, as is Constantine Cavafy. But you could have a look at the penguin classics edition of Alexander Papadiamantis's "The murderess", which arguably is the best novel written in Greek ever.


Are you, as a modern Greek person, able to read Plato and Homer? As a modern Englishman Shakespeare's English can occasionally be difficult (400 years ago), Chaucer more so (600 years ago) and a poem like the battle of Maldon (roughly 1000 years ago)... incomprehensible. I have often wondered how a modern Greek finds The Odyssey, which is nearly 3000 years old. Is the language strange to you? Or can you read The Illiad and Odyssey with relative ease?

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## Kyriakos

Good question  :Smile:  We were taught elementary ancient greek in highschool, for two years, but the answer is definitely that now i cannot read the Odyssey from the original. In fact i cannot read anything older than Koine Greek. The rather basic Koine of the New Testament is easy to read for anyone who knows (modern) Greek, but most of the ancient texts are not.

But they are still part of Greek literature, in fact most of it that is great belongs still to that era  :Smile:

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## qimissung

I'm American, and we also have some great poets, including Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Sylvia Plath, T. S. Eliot, and one of my favorites, Edna St. Vincent Millay

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## WICKES

> I'm American, and we also have some great poets, including Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Sylvia Plath, T. S. Eliot, and one of my favorites, Edna St. Vincent Millay


Hey, T S Eliot became a British citizen and died here. Sylvia Plath also died here (but you can have her). Then again, W H Auden moved to the USA and became an American citizen. Tell you what...you can have Auden if we can have Eliot. Deal?  :Wink5:

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## Gretchenplay

I'm from New Zealand. My absolute favourite author from home is Maurice Gee. I also think Kathrine Mansfield is superb, and Janet Frame is wonderful.

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## qimissung

> Hey, T S Eliot became a British citizen and died here. Sylvia Plath also died here (but you can have her). Then again, W H Auden moved to the USA and became an American citizen. Tell you what...you can have Auden if we can have Eliot. Deal?


Deal.  :Wink5:  I knew Eliot lived for most of his adult life in England, but he was born in the states, so I decided to include him. I didn't know that about Auden (whom I do like), but Kipling also lived for a number of years here, and I wondered that about him-do the British get to claim him, or do we?

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## TurquoiseSunset

'Classics'
Herman Charles Bosman (Short Stories)
J.M. Coetzee
Athol Fugard (Plays mostly)
Nadine Gordimer 
Alan Paton
Olive Schreiner

and then...
Deon Meyer - on the Crime/Thirller fiction scene and, most recently, won a Barry Award for Best Thriller (USA) in 2011.
Wilbur Smith - born in Zambia, but lived in South Africa for most of his life. His novels are mostly based in Southern Africa.
Bryce Courtenay - now a naturalized Australian.

and lastly...
JRR Tolkien - he was born here and that's about it.

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## WICKES

> Deal.  I knew Eliot lived for most of his adult life in England, but he was born in the states, so I decided to include him. I didn't know that about Auden (whom I do like), but Kipling also lived for a number of years here, and I wondered that about him-do the British get to claim him, or do we?


Actually, I'd say T.S Eliot was an anglo-American. Auden wasn't, he was just an Englishman who emigrated to America. Plath wasn't. She was an American living in Britain. But I'd say Winston Churchill was an 'anglo-American'. Christopher Hitchens identified himself as an 'anglo- American' as well. He seemed to mean that there is such a thing as an anglo-American personality type or temprement- someone torn between both cultures and not quite at home in either; people who belong in the middle of the Atlantic perhaps!

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## WICKES

> 'Classics'
> Herman Charles Bosman (Short Stories)
> J.M. Coetzee
> Athol Fugard (Plays mostly)
> Nadine Gordimer 
> Alan Paton
> Olive Schreiner
> 
> and then...
> ...


You forgot Laurens Van Der Post.

I think it would be a stretch to claim Tolkein as a South African writer. His parents were English and were temporarily living in South Africa while his father worked for a British bank there. Tolkein left when he was just 3 and spent the rest of his life in England, where he died. The Lord of the Rings are deeply English: the shire is an idealized vision of a rural English village and the hobbits are based on the young English boys from the English countryside who Tolkein commanded as a British officer during WW1.

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## hampusforev

Strindberg

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## TurquoiseSunset

> You forgot Laurens Van Der Post.


Oh, and last, but not least, Laurens van der Post, who is hardly ever mentioned in South Africa, I find. 




> I think it would be a stretch to claim Tolkein as a South African writer.


Exactly, and that's why I added the "and that's about it" part. He was really only born here, although he does feature on some lists of South African writers; I personally don't see him as one.

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## AjaxAscendant

Hmmm...

Rabindranath Tagore--one of the greatest Eastern poets ever.

Sarat Chandra Chatterjee--a brilliant author who deserves a wider audience

and in the moderns:

Vikram Seth--A fine writer; too bad we lost him to the US.

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## WICKES

> Hmmm...
> 
> Rabindranath Tagore--one of the greatest Eastern poets ever.
> 
> Sarat Chandra Chatterjee--a brilliant author who deserves a wider audience
> 
> and in the moderns:
> 
> Vikram Seth--A fine writer; too bad we lost him to the US.


Isn't Salman Rushdie Indian as well?

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## Tellem Chaho

I am Algerian, A very multicultural nation, unfortunately all the world knows about it is that it had a long history with violence. Now I feel Like Papa Monzano in Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. Algerian Literature is written in three languages, French, Arabic and Amazigh. My username, Tellem Chaho is an Amazigh word which means Once Upon a Time. I cannot speak this language but I am trying to learn it. In case you're wondering where this country is situatiod, it is the lagre part which never bares a name in tourist maps between Tunisia and Morocco. Of our literary men I would mention AHlem Mosteghanemi for Arabic literature and Mohamed Dib and Malek Haddad for French litreature. These men have already been postmodernist back in the early 60s although they barely had the right for schooling. I guess colonialism has one good side, is that it gives incentive to the victim to bring more. This country today is no longer related to violence as it used to 12 years ago.

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## Tellem Chaho

Salman Rushdie is Half Indian Half Pakistani and kind of British

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## ilovelordbyron

i'm Italian. Many people think that The itlain literature is great and complex. I don't agree at all. I never thought that it was brilliant because i don't think there are such good, brilliant and extremely fascinating works as abroad . You know, Italiaans have Dante, Pirandello maybe Alfieri but here, no writer has a complicated way of writing as the Anglo-amenicans. There are my favourites, even if i love also the French and german ones. I'd like knowing th russian ones much better. i'm not interested in the italian literature above all because i never found what i was looking for in a very good book . Please, if you don't agree with me, explain me why, so i can grow  :Smile: ) love  :Smile:

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## Alexander III

> i'm Italian. Many people think that The itlain literature is great and complex. I don't agree at all. I never thought that it was brilliant because i don't think there are such good, brilliant and extremely fascinating works as abroad . You know, Italiaans have Dante, Pirandello maybe Alfieri but here, no writer has a complicated way of writing as the Anglo-amenicans. There are my favourites, even if i love also the French and german ones. I'd like knowing th russian ones much better. i'm not interested in the italian literature above all because i never found what i was looking for in a very good book . Please, if you don't agree with me, explain me why, so i can grow ) love


Scusa, ma ti dimentici D'Annunzio, Calvino, Leopardi, Foscolo e Manzini

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## conartist

> Scusa, ma ti dimentici D'Annunzio, Calvino, Leopardi, Foscolo e Manzini


I saw you mention how little read D'Annunzio is outside of Italy earlier in the thread. I read half a dozen of his novels last year, as well as some short stories and poetry, and thought they were all remarkable, if a little unsettling and at times seemingly lacking in humanity. His characters are rarely sympathetic. Do you think that this is why he's little read outside of Italy, or is it more his place in history overshadowing his place in literature? Is he widely read in Italy?

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## irinmisfit92

I'm probably the only Indonesian here and the most famous literary author we have is Chairil Anwar. Hís novel "Aku" ("I") is really famous, however most people in our country have no sense of literature these days. I think the arts used to be so great, but now the people are generally ignorant of these kinds of things.

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## ilovelordbyron

In Italy, people don't use to read D' Annunzio because they don't appreciate him as a man. i want to be clearer. He wasn't a common man. He always tried to be a part from society, he wanted to be a symbol for everyone,he wanted to be a "Superuomo" (Nietsche's Über Men). Unfortunately, italians sometimes judge a writer knowing just his personal life, forgetting that art is a part from everything. As Wilde sayd "it's not a moral or immoral book. it's well or badly written. That's all". So they should be concentrated only on his works.

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## JBI

I would think Manzoni would still be the Italian novelist. I mean, there seem to be only two acknowledged books by the general readership, Comedia, and I Promessi Sposi

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## the facade

I'm a mix-breed - born in Sweden, of polish descent, and have been residing in Israel for the second half of my life.

Lagerkvist for Sweden, Szymborska for Poland, Grossman for Israel.

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## intoxicatedsoul

i'm a Filipino

these are just few of the best writers in the Philippines: jose rizal, nick joaquin, lualhati bautista and f.sionil jose

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## Can

I am from Turkey. My favorite Turkish writer is Farabi and Ibn-i Sina .They are both philosophers especially İbn-i Sina who is the leader of the medicine.He has lot's of invents about medicine. He make the first surgeries of eye and brain.




> I am from Turkey. My favorite Turkish writer is Farabi and Ibn-i Sina .They are both philosophers especially İbn-i Sina who is the leader of the medicine.He has lot's of invents about medicine. He make the first surgeries of eye and brain.


Europan literal and philosophical studies are inspired by some Turkish philosophers.

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## hallaig

I think of myself as Scottish rather than British so that rules out Philip Larkin, I'm afraid.
My favourite Scottish writer would be Iain Crichton Smith who wrote in English and Gaelic so beautifully. Cannae resist giving you an example:

TWO GIRLS SINGING 


It neither was the words nor yet the tune
Any tune would have done and any words.
Any listener at all.

As nightingales in rocks or a child crooning
in its own world of strange awakening
or larks for no reason but themselves.

So on the bus through late November running
by yellow lights tormented, darkness falling,
the two girls sang for miles and miles together

and it wasn't the words or the tune. It was the singing.
It was the human sweetness in that yellow,
the unpredicted voices of our kind.

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## Can

> I think of myself as Scottish rather than British so that rules out Philip Larkin, I'm afraid.
> My favourite Scottish writer would be Iain Crichton Smith who wrote in English and Gaelic so beautifully. Cannae resist giving you an example:
> 
> TWO GIRLS SINGING 
> 
> 
> It neither was the words nor yet the tune
> Any tune would have done and any words.
> Any listener at all.
> ...


coool

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## PMLondonderry

Nationality: American
Good writers from America: Thoreau, Emerson, Poe, Hawthorne, Irving. I really only know of the classic American authors since that's the majority of what I read for school purposes. Being in school for English doesn't leave any time for reading anything else. There's a lot of wonderful authors from America.




> I think of myself as Scottish rather than British so that rules out Philip Larkin, I'm afraid.
> My favourite Scottish writer would be Iain Crichton Smith who wrote in English and Gaelic so beautifully. Cannae resist giving you an example:
> 
> TWO GIRLS SINGING 
> 
> 
> It neither was the words nor yet the tune
> Any tune would have done and any words.
> Any listener at all.
> ...


That's great to know and I will definitely be checking out this author. I'm Scottish and Irish by heritage only (not nationality) so it would be nice to read some works from authors from my "motherlands". 

I know it's cliche but don't forget about Robbie Burns!  :Smile:  Everyone thinks of him when they think of Scottish writers  :Wink: 




> Pakistan has produced some really great writers which makes it quite difficult to make a choice. Unfortunately many of them stand quite unknown to the world especially when it come to prose. Writers like Saadat Hassan manto, a short story writer basically and novelists like Altaf Fatima and Khadija Mastoor. And then there are wonderful poets like Faiz Ahmed Faiz (a revolutionary writer) and Sahir Ludhianwi. But since I must narrow down to one writer, I think it will have to be the renowned national hero Allama Iqbal who played an important role as a revolutionary poet as well as an essay-writer, economist and political leader.


My fiance is from Lahore and adores Iqbal. When my Urdu skills become advanced enough, I would love to read some of his work.

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## OrphanPip

> That's great to know and I will definitely be checking out this author. I'm Scottish and Irish by heritage only (not nationality) so it would be nice to read some works from authors from my "motherlands". 
> 
> I know it's cliche but don't forget about Robbie Burns!  Everyone thinks of him when they think of Scottish writers


Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson are popular too.

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## Cailin

I'm Irish and there are the writers you all know - Yeats, Heaney, Joyce, Beckett, Stoker. There are more that I enjoy - John Montague, Patrick Kavanagh (poets), Colm Toibin, Sheridan Le Fanu, John Banville, Edna O'Brien, William Trevor (novelists), Brian Friel (playwright).

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## Pensive

> My fiance is from Lahore and adores Iqbal. When my Urdu skills become advanced enough, I would love to read some of his work.


Lahore is my favorite place in the entire world!  :Smile:  (but then again I haven't been to many places  :Tongue: ). BTW wish you all the best with learning Urdu!  :Smile:  I would personally suggest you to start with Iqbal's _Baang-e-dara_ which even though originally meant as a collection of children literature, explores deeper themes within and is very entertaining!  :Smile:

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## PMLondonderry

> Lahore is my favorite place in the entire world!  (but then again I haven't been to many places ). BTW wish you all the best with learning Urdu!  I would personally suggest you to start with Iqbal's _Baang-e-dara_ which even though originally meant as a collection of children literature, explores deeper themes within and is very entertaining!


That's not a bad idea to start with books for children. Luckily, my university offers Urdu so I've been taking it as my second language for awhile now. 

The funny part was last semester when I tried to get my fiance to practice with me and I would set up a scenario (like asking about families) and I would tell him to ask me simple questions along the lines of "how many brothers do you have?", "What is your brothers name?", "Do you have a sister?" and he would go on tangents like "And what does your brother do for a living? Where did he grow up and where did he go to school?" We'd get about 2 questions in and I'd have to stop him and yell "we didn't learn that yet! Stick to the script!"  :FRlol:

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## Pensive

> That's not a bad idea to start with books for children. Luckily, my university offers Urdu so I've been taking it as my second language for awhile now. 
> 
> The funny part was last semester when I tried to get my fiance to practice with me and I would set up a scenario (like asking about families) and I would tell him to ask me simple questions along the lines of "how many brothers do you have?", "What is your brothers name?", "Do you have a sister?" and he would go on tangents like "And what does your brother do for a living? Where did he grow up and where did he go to school?" We'd get about 2 questions in and I'd have to stop him and yell "we didn't learn that yet! Stick to the script!"


 :Biggrin: 

Well language-learning always takes some time, especially a language like Urdu which is quite different from English (I am assuming English is your first language?) Especially the writing part which uses Arabic script (which is really complex) and is pretty hard to master for even the native speakers.

_lekin mujhe umeed hai aap zaroor kaamyaab hongi!_  :Smile:

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## PMLondonderry

> Well language-learning always takes some time, especially a language like Urdu which is quite different from English (I am assuming English is your first language?) Especially the writing part which uses Arabic script (which is really complex) and is pretty hard to master for even the native speakers.
> 
> _lekin mujhe umeed hai aap zaroor kaamyaab hongi!_


I havent had an issue with the reading since I have been around Arabic for a long time. Being Muslim, I had to learn the Arabic script to read Qur'an. Plus, I lived with Saudis for a year so that helped a bit. 

And yeah, sometimes Urdu can be hard to remember since it isn't Latin or Germanic based the way English is. However, being around Urdu speakers and Arabic speakers really made it a lot easier on me, alhamdulillah. 

You want a hard language to learn, try learning Gaelic. That's the language of my "motherlands" so I really wanted to learn it in high school and it was probably the hardest language I've ever attempted. It comes from the Celtic language family and not the Germanic (English) so the words and spellings are way off from English spellings. There are insane letter combinations that make sounds that you would never think they would make. For examble, "mh" and "bh" both make a V sound, "th" can be silent, "es" can be silent....so then you get words like "Ciamhes" (a name) which is pronounced "keeva"... lol. It's just a big huge mess. Or words like Oichdhe (night) which is pronounced oi-kh-uh. lol.

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## hallaig

> Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson are popular too.


Love Stevenson, Scott great story teller but not very fashionable today.
Modern poets- Crichton Smith, Norman MacCaig:



Praise of a collie - Norman MacCaig

She was a small dog, neat and fluid 
Even her conversation was tiny:
She greeted you with bow, never bow-wow.

Her sons stood monumentally over her
But did what she told them. Each grew grizzled
Till he seemed he was his own mothers grandfather.

Once, gathering sheep on a showery day,
I remarked how dry she was. Pollóchan said Ah,
It would take a very accurate drop to hit Lassie. 

She sailed in the dinghy like a proper sea-dog.
Wheres a burn?  shes first on the other side.
She flowed through fences like a piece of black wind.

But suddenly she was old and sick and crippled . . .
I grieved for Pollóchan when he took her a stroll
And put his gun to the back of her head.

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## Dorian Doyle

Uruguay, and I like many tales of Horacio Quiroga. His _Cuentos de amor de locura y de muerte_ are very recommendable.

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## Mutie

netherlands ancestry..anne frank..that nils kid who is tiny and rides on geese...i havent really looked into it. I grew up in france and UK.

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## Can

> I think of myself as Scottish rather than British so that rules out Philip Larkin, I'm afraid.
> My favourite Scottish writer would be Iain Crichton Smith who wrote in English and Gaelic so beautifully. Cannae resist giving you an example:
> 
> TWO GIRLS SINGING 
> 
> 
> It neither was the words nor yet the tune
> Any tune would have done and any words.
> Any listener at all.
> ...


ı like it

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## RicMisc

I'm Dutch and probably the most respected Dutch authors are:
- Harry Mulisch
- W.F. Hermans
- Gerard 't Reve
- Hella S. Haasse

Though I am not a big fan of Dutch literature these are the authors known as 'The Great Four' in The Netherlands. Some of their books are definitely worth a read though.

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## AlysonofBathe

Another Canuck here - I'll throw Alice Munro and Michael Ondaatje into the mix.  :Smile:

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## Saladin

Norwegian. Henrik Ibsen - the One and Only!  :Thumbs Up:

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## crusoe

German. E.T.A. Hoffmann...Gespenster-Hoffmann

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## revi

I am an Indian, and as you know, India is a Babel! I am from the southern state of Kerala and here we speak Malayalam, of the Dravidian family. Thunchath Ezhuthachan, Kumaran Asan and O V Vijayan are some of the important writers.

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## hannah_arendt

> I am german. There are quite some authors both contemporary and past. Heinrich Böll, Bertold Brecht, Heinrich Kleist, Günther Grass, Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann, Heinrich Heine, Hermann Hesse, to name a few. Not so good with women – Julia Franck, Christa Wolf, Sibylle Lewitscharoff ...


My favourite ones have always been: Heinrich Böll, Thomas Mann and Herta Muller.

I was born in Poland but I my grandpa was British. If it comes to polish literature: Szymborska, Miłosz, Schulz, Gombrowicz.

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