249 articles
Bernhard Schlink
Bernhard Schlink (born 1944, Bielefeld) is a German novelist and retired professor of public law, formerly a judge on the NRW Constitutional Court. Known for the Selb crime trilogy and Der Vorleser (The Reader, 1995), the first German number-one New York Times bestseller, filmed in 2008.
Birgitta Trotzig
Birgitta Trotzig (1929–2011) was a Swedish author and literary critic, regarded as a leading twentieth-century Swedish writer and a member of the Swedish Academy from 1993.
Bohumil Hrabal
Bohumil Hrabal (1914–1997) was a Czech writer, one of the most important of the twentieth century, whose comic, vernacular novels include Closely Watched Trains and Too Loud a Solitude.
Burhan Sönmez
Burhan Sönmez (born 1965) is a Kurdish novelist from Turkey, president of PEN International since 2021, and author of seven novels including Istanbul Istanbul, which won the 2018 EBRD Literature Prize.
Camilo José Cela
Camilo José Cela (1916–2002) was a Spanish novelist who won the 1989 Nobel Prize in Literature, known for La familia de Pascual Duarte and La colmena.
Carlo Cassola
Carlo Cassola (1917–1987) was an Italian novelist and essayist of the postwar decades, best known for La ragazza di Bube, which won the 1960 Strega Prize and was filmed in 1963.
Carlo Emilio Gadda
Carlo Emilio Gadda (1893-1973), Italian novelist and engineer from Milan, author of La cognizione del dolore and Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana, known for baroque, dialect-laden macaronic prose.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Carlos Ruiz Zafón (1964–2020), Barcelona-born Spanish novelist, author of La sombra del viento and the Cementerio de los Libros Olvidados tetralogy; most-read Spanish writer after Cervantes, 50 million copies, died in Los Angeles.
Carmen Laforet
Carmen Laforet, full name Carmen Laforet Díaz, was a Spanish novelist whose debut Nada won the first Premio Nadal in 1945 and became a landmark of postwar fiction.
Carmen Martín Gaite
Carmen Martín Gaite (1925–2000) was a Spanish novelist and essayist of the Generación del 55 whose El cuarto de atrás won the Premio Nacional de Literatura.
Caroline Wahl
Caroline Wahl (born 1995, Mainz) is a German novelist and author of the bestsellers 22 Bahnen (2023), Windstärke 17 (2024), Die Assistentin (2025), and 1999 Meter über dem Meer (2026).
Cees Nooteboom
Cees Nooteboom (Cornelis Johannes Jacobus Maria Nooteboom) was a Dutch novelist, poet, and travel writer, born in 1933 and regarded as a major postwar Dutch author.
Charlotte Mutsaers
Charlotte Mutsaers, born 1942 in Utrecht, is a Dutch writer and visual artist who received the Constantijn Huygens-prijs in 2000 and the P.C. Hooftprijs in 2010.
Christa Wolf
Christa Wolf, née Ihlenfeld, was a German novelist and essayist, one of the most important authors of East Germany, known for Divided Heaven, Christa T., and Cassandra.
Christer Kihlman
Christer Kihlman (1930–2021) was a Finland-Swedish author and cultural writer who drew wide attention in the 1960s and 1970s with novels treating alcoholism, bisexuality, and family breakdown.
Christoph Hein
Christoph Hein, born 1944 in Silesia, is a German novelist, playwright, and essayist known for the novella Der fremde Freund (1982) and as a chronicler of German-German relations.
Claude Simon
Claude Simon (1913–2005) was a French novelist who won the 1985 Nobel Prize in Literature, associated with the Nouveau Roman and known for La Route des Flandres.
Connie Palmen
Connie Palmen, born 1955 in Sint Odilienberg, is a Dutch writer and philosopher whose 1991 debut De wetten sold more than 400,000 copies within a year.
Dacia Maraini
Dacia Maraini, born in Fiesole in 1936, is an Italian novelist, playwright, and poet whose work centers on women's condition, winning the Premio Strega in 1999.
Dag Solstad
Dag Solstad (1941–2025) was a Norwegian novelist, essayist, and playwright, born in Sandefjord, a central figure of postwar Norwegian literature whose eighteen novels tracked Norwegian society from the 1960s onward.
Daniele Del Giudice
Daniele Del Giudice (1949–2021) was an Italian writer and literary critic whose fiction explores perception, memory, and flight. Discovered by Italo Calvino, he debuted in 1983.
Demir Özlü
Demir Özlü (1935–2021) was a Turkish short story writer, novelist, and lawyer of the 1950 generation, whose work was shaped by exile in Sweden after the 1980 coup.
Doeschka Meijsing
Doeschka Meijsing, full name Maria Johanna Meijsing, was a Dutch novelist and critic (1947–2012), known for the prize-winning bestseller Over de liefde (2008) and her work around De Revisor.
Dorrit Willumsen
Dorrit Willumsen, born in 1940 in Copenhagen, is a Danish author whose modernist novels center on women's experience; she won the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 1997 for Bang.
Dubravka Ugrešić
Dubravka Ugrešić (1949–2023), Croatian novelist, essayist, and scholar of the Russian avant-garde; postmodern patchwork fiction, exile after 1993, Neustadt Prize 2016, died in Amsterdam.
Eduardo Mendoza
Eduardo Mendoza (Eduardo Mendoza Garriga) is a Spanish novelist born in Barcelona in 1943 whose satirical novels set in the city earned him the 2016 Cervantes Prize.
Edvard Hoem
Edvard Hoem, full name Edvard Arnt Hoem, is a Norwegian novelist, poet, dramatist, and hymn writer who writes in Nynorsk. His four-volume family saga sold more than 300,000 copies.
Einar Kárason
Einar Kárason is an Icelandic novelist and screenwriter, born in Reykjavík in 1955, one of the most popular authors of his generation, known for the Devils' Isle trilogy about post-war Reykjavík.
Einar Már Guðmundsson
Einar Már Guðmundsson, born 1954 in Reykjavík, is an Icelandic novelist and poet whose novel Angels of the Universe won the 1995 Nordic Council Literature Prize.
Elena Ferrante
Elena Ferrante is the pseudonym of an anonymous Italian novelist, author of Troubling Love (1992) and the Neapolitan Quartet (2011–2014), translated into 50 languages; her identity remains unconfirmed despite Claudio Gatti's 2016 claim naming translator Anita Raja.