Continental European literary novelists

Ib Michael

Ib Michael is a Danish writer born in 1945 in Roskilde whose novels and travel books blend reality and fantasy, with his breakthrough coming in Kilroy, Kilroy (1989).

Icchokas Meras

Icchokas Meras (1934–2014) was a Lithuanian novelist and screenwriter of Jewish origin whose work centers on the Holocaust; he emigrated to Israel in 1972 and wrote only in Lithuanian.

Ignacio Aldecoa

Ignacio Aldecoa Isasi (1925–1969) was a Spanish writer of the postwar generación del 50, best known for his short stories and novels of social realism.

Ignas Šeinius

Ignas Šeinius, real surname Jurkūnas, was a Lithuanian and Swedish writer and diplomat, regarded as the leading impressionist in Lithuanian prose; his novel Kuprelis appeared in 1913.

Ignazio Silone

Ignazio Silone, pen name of Secondino Tranquilli (1900-1978), Italian novelist and politician; PCI founder 1921, Swiss exile author of Fontamara and Pane e vino; subject of the informer controversy.

Ilf and Petrov

Ilf and Petrov (Ильф и Петров), Soviet satirical duo Ilya Ilf (Fainzilberg, 1897–1937) and Evgeny Petrov (Kataev, 1903–1942), authors of The Twelve Chairs and The Golden Calf featuring Ostap Bender.

Imre Kertész

Imre Kertész is a Hungarian novelist who survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald as a teen, becoming the first Hungarian writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2002.

Ina Seidel

Ina Seidel (1885–1974) was a German writer and poet whose bestselling family novel Das Wunschkind (1930) made her one of Germany's most widely read authors.

Ioan Slavici

Ioan Slavici (1848–1925) was a Transylvanian Romanian novelist, short-story writer, and journalist, regarded as the first great prose writer from Transylvania and a founder of modern Romanian prose.

Ion Creangă (1837/1839–1889), Romanian classical writer, deacon, and schoolteacher from Humulești, author of Amintiri din copilărie and tales such as Povestea lui Harap-Alb, published in Convorbiri literare through Junimea and friend of Eminescu.

Irmgard Keun

Irmgard Keun (1905–1982) was a German novelist of the Weimar era, best known for Gilgi and The Artificial Silk Girl and her exile novels against Nazi Germany.

Ismail Kadare

Ismail Kadare (1936-2024), Albania's most celebrated novelist, wrote The General of the Dead Army and The Palace of Dreams under Hoxha's dictatorship, fled to Paris in 1990, and won the inaugural Man Booker International Prize.

Israel Joshua Singer

Israel Joshua Singer (1893–1944) was a Yiddish novelist and journalist born in Poland, best known for Yoshe Kalb and The Brothers Ashkenazi, and elder brother of Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino (1923-1985), Italian novelist and short-story writer of Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno, Il barone rampante, Invisible Cities, and If on a winter's night a traveller; Einaudi editor, ex-PCI partisan, regarded as a postmodernist master.

Ivan Cankar

Ivan Cankar (1876–1918) was a Slovene writer, playwright, essayist, and political activist regarded as the greatest writer in the Slovene language and founder of Slovene modernism.

Ivan Goncharov

Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov (1812–1891) was a Russian realist novelist whose three novels include Oblomov (1859), which coined the term Oblomovism; he also wrote the travel book Frigate Pallada.

Ivan Klíma

Ivan Klíma, born Ivan Kauders, was a Czech novelist and playwright banned from publishing after the 1968 Soviet invasion who later won the 2002 Franz Kafka Prize.

Ivan Melezh

Ivan Melezh (Іван Мележ, 1921–1976) was a Belarusian Soviet prose writer best known for the trilogy Polesie Chronicle, which depicts collectivization in the Polesie marshlands and earned him the Lenin Prize in 1972.

Ivan Navumenka

Ivan Navumenka (Іван Якаўлевіч Навуменка, 1925–2006) was a Belarusian prose writer and literary scholar known for his partisan war trilogy, and chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR from 1985 to 1990.

Ivan Nechuy-Levytsky

Ivan Nechuy-Levytsky (Іван Нечуй-Левицький; born Ivan Semenovych Levytsky) was a Ukrainian prose writer and playwright, a founder of Ukrainian realist narrative, best known for Kaidash's Family.

Ivan Ptashnikau

Ivan Ptashnikau (Іван Пташнікаў) was a Belarusian prose writer, 1932 to 2016, a leading figure of Belarusian village prose whose novella Tartak opened the Khatyn theme.

Ivan Shamiakin

Ivan Shamiakin (Іван Пятровіч Шамякін; 1921–2004) was a Belarusian Soviet writer and screenwriter whose books sold more than 25 million copies; he was named People's Writer of the Byelorussian SSR in 1972.

Ivan Shmelyov

Ivan Shmelyov (Иван Сергеевич Шмелёв) was a Russian writer who emigrated to Paris after his son's execution, writing The Sun of the Dead and The Summer of the Lord.

Ivan Turgenev (Иван Сергеевич Тургенев)

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (Иван Сергеевич Тургенев, 1818-1883), Russian novelist, author of A Sportsman's Sketches and Fathers and Sons; born in Oryol, died in Bougival near Paris, longtime associate of singer Pauline Viardot.

Ivo Andrić

Ivo Andrić (Иво Андриć), 1892–1975, Yugoslav novelist and diplomat, 1961 Nobel laureate; wrote The Bridge on the Drina, Bosnian Chronicle, and The Woman from Sarajevo, published 1945.

J. J. Voskuil

J. J. Voskuil, also known as Han Voskuil, was a Dutch novelist and folklorist whose seven-volume, 5,500-page novel cycle Het Bureau sold nearly half a million copies.

J. M. G. Le Clézio

J. M. G. Le Clézio (Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio), French novelist born 1940 in Nice, 2008 Nobel Literature laureate; author of Le Procès-verbal, Désert, and Mauritius-rooted fiction.

J.-H. Rosny aîné

J.-H. Rosny aîné was the principal pseudonym of Joseph-Henri Boëx (1856–1940), a Belgian-born French novelist, pioneer of prehistoric fiction and science fiction, and president of the Académie Goncourt.

Jaan Kross

Jaan Kross (1920–2007) was an Estonian prose writer, poet, and translator best known for The Czar's Madman (1978); his books were translated into twenty-two languages and sold over one million copies.