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Asian, African, and world novelists: Surnames Ll to Y

468 articles

Usha Priyamvada

Usha Priyamvada, pen name of Usha Nilsson, is an Indian-born American Hindi novelist of the Nayi Kahani movement, best known for her first novel, Pachpan Khambe Laal Deewarein (1961).

V. K. N.

V. K. N., born Vadakke Koottala Narayanankutty Nair, was a Malayalam writer known for highbrow satire, and won the Sahitya Akademi Award before dying in 2004.

Valeria Luiselli

Valeria Luiselli, born in Mexico City in 1983, is a Mexican writer whose novels and essays on migration and borders include Tell Me How It Ends and Lost Children Archive.

Vannadasan

Vannadasan (வண்ணதாசன்), pen name of S. Kalyanasundaram, is a Tamil short story writer and poet, born in 1946 in Tirunelveli, who won the 2016 Sahitya Akademi Award for Oru Siru Isai.

Vicente Riva Palacio

Vicente Riva Palacio (1832–1896) was a Mexican writer, historian, and general known for his colonial-era historical novels and for directing México a través de los siglos.

Víctor Manuel Rendón

Víctor Manuel Rendón (1859–1940) was an Ecuadorian doctor, diplomat, and writer known for the French-language novel Lorenzo Cilda; he was nominated for the 1935 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Vikas Swarup

Vikas Swarup is a retired Indian diplomat and novelist, best known for Q & A (2005), the novel adapted into the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire.

Vikram Seth

Vikram Seth (विक्रम सेठ), Indian poet and novelist born 1952 in Calcutta, author of the sonnet-novel The Golden Gate and the 1,349-page epic A Suitable Boy; also wrote An Equal Music, From Heaven Lake, and Two Lives.

Virgilio Rodríguez Macal

Virgilio Rodríguez Macal (1916–1964) was a Guatemalan writer, journalist, and diplomat known for criollista novels set in the Petén jungle, including La mansión del pájaro serpiente.

Vishnu Prabhakar

Vishnu Prabhakar (विष्णु प्रभाकर, 1912 to 2009) was a Hindi writer of novels, plays, and biographies, best known for Aawara Masiha and the award-winning Ardhanarisvara.

Vũ Trọng Phụng

Vũ Trọng Phụng (1912–1939) was a Vietnamese writer and journalist, a leading realist figure best known for the satirical novels Số đỏ (Dumb Luck) and Trúng số độc đắc.

Vyankatesh Madgulkar

Vyankatesh Madgulkar (व्यंकटेश माडगूळकर; 1927–2001) was a Marathi writer and screenwriter from Maharashtra, known for rural fiction, the novel Bangarwadi, and the 1983 Sahitya Akademi award for Sattantar.

W. A. Silva

W. A. Silva, full name Wellawattearachchige Abraham Silva (1890–1957), was a Sinhala novelist and journalist from Colombo whose romances and historical novels made him a first best-selling popularizer of the Sinhala novel.

Wang Shuo

Wang Shuo (王朔, born 1958) is a Chinese novelist and screenwriter whose comic, colloquial fiction about disaffected Beijing youth, labeled "hooligan literature," made him famous and controversial.

Wang Wen-hsing

Wang Wen-hsing (王文興; 1939–2023) was a Taiwanese modernist novelist who co-founded Modern Literature, taught at National Taiwan University for four decades, and became known for writing only 20 to 30 characters a day.

Waryam Singh Sandhu

Waryam Singh Sandhu (ਵਰਿਆਮ ਸਿੰਘ ਸੰਧੂ; born 1945) is an Indian author of Punjabi short stories, known for Chauthi Koot, which won the 2000 Sahitya Akademi Award.

Williams Sassine

Williams Sassine (1944–1997) was a Guinean novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and satirical journalist writing in French; after 26 years of exile he became a columnist at the satirical weekly Le Lynx.

Wu Ming-yi

Wu Ming-yi (吳明益, born 1971) is a Taiwanese novelist, essayist, and professor at National Dong Hwa University, known for The Man with the Compound Eyes and The Stolen Bicycle.

Xi Xi

Xi Xi (西西), pen name of Cheung Yin, was a Hong Kong writer of fiction, poetry, and essays whose 1975 novel My City is widely treated as a classic of Hong Kong literature.

Xiao Sa

Xiao Sa (萧飒), born in 1953, is the pen name of Taiwanese novelist Hsiao Ching-yu, a leading figure of 1980s women's literature known for realist fiction about urban women and marriage.

Xu Xiaobin

Xu Xiaobin (徐小斌) is a Chinese novelist and screenwriter best known for her 1998 novel Yushe, Feathered Serpent, which follows five generations of women from the late Qing onward.

Y. B. Mangunwijaya

Y. B. Mangunwijaya (1929–1999), widely known as Romo Mangun, was an Indonesian Catholic priest, architect, and writer, author of the novel Burung-Burung Manyar and winner of the 1992 Aga Khan Award.

Yambo Ouologuem

Yambo Ouologuem (1940–2017) was a Malian writer whose first novel, Le Devoir de violence, won the 1968 Prix Renaudot, the first awarded to an African writer.

Yang Mo

Yang Mo (杨沫), born Yang Chengye, was a Chinese novelist and screenwriter whose 1958 novel Song of Youth became one of China's most widely read red classics.

Yang Shuang-zi (杨若慈)

Yang Shuang-zi (楊双子), pen name of Yang Jo-tzu (楊若慈, born 1984), Taiwanese writer of historical yuri fiction; twin sister Yang Jo-hui died 2015. Known for Taiwan Travelogue (臺灣漫遊錄), winner of the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature and 2026 International Booker Prize with translator Lin King.

Yashpal

Yashpal (यशपाल, 1903–1976) was an Indian Hindi writer and revolutionary who bombed the Viceroy's train in 1929 and later wrote the acclaimed Partition novel Jhootha Sach.

Ye Shitao

Ye Shitao (葉石濤, 1925–2008) was a Taiwanese novelist, literary critic, and historian who wrote the first complete history of Taiwanese literature by a Taiwanese author.

Yi Mun-yol

Yi Mun-yol (이문열, born 1948) is a South Korean novelist whose work examines political power, ideology, and human existence; his best-known works include Our Twisted Hero and The Poet, translated into over 20 countries.

Yi Mun-yong

Yi Mun-yong (이무영, 1908–1960) was a South Korean novelist regarded as a forerunner of farmer literature, known for "Slave to Soil" (1940) and the novel Farmers (1950).

Yi Ok

Yi Ok (이옥, 李鈺; 1760–1815) was a Joseon-dynasty writer of hanmun, Chinese-language prose and verse, who lived in Hanyang (Seoul) and is known for 23 tales and a style King Chŏngjo prohibited.