edgepedia

Prose works by nation and language

321 articles

The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years

The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years (Russian: И дольше века длится день) is a 1980 novel by Chingiz Aitmatov that blends Kazakh steppe life, folklore, and science fiction.

The Devil All the Time

The Devil All the Time is Donald Ray Pollock's 2011 debut novel (Doubleday), an Appalachian gothic set in rural southern Ohio and West Virginia from World War II through the 1960s, following Arvin Russell, serial-killing couple Carl and Sandy Henderson, and corrupt preachers and lawmen; adapted as a 2020 Netflix film by Antonio Campos starring Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson.

The Devil Wears Prada (novel)

The Devil Wears Prada is Lauren Weisberger's 2003 Doubleday debut novel, a roman à clef about assistant Andy Sachs and Runway editor Miranda Priestly, inspired by Weisberger's year working for Vogue's Anna Wintour; it spent a year on the NYT bestseller list and spawned a 2006 film and a musical.

The Doloriad

The Doloriad is Missouri Williams's 2022 debut novel (MCD/FSG US, Dead Ink UK), a post-apocalyptic story of an incestuous family ruled by the Matriarch near ruined Prague; winner of the 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize.

The God of Small Things

The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy's 1997 debut novel about twins Estha and Rahel in Ayemenem, Kerala, won the Booker Prize 1997, making Roy the first Indian winner; translated into over 40 languages.

The Guest (novel)

The Guest is Emma Cline's 2023 Random House novel about Alex, a 22-year-old escort drifting through the Hamptons after being dismissed by Simon; a bestseller, PEN/Faulkner-longlisted, with an A24 film adaptation in talks.

The Guide

The Guide (1958) by R. K. Narayan, also known as the Malgudi novel Railway Raju, about a tourist guide mistaken for a holy man; first novel in English to win the Sahitya Akademi Award and basis of the 1965 film Guide.

The Gulag Archipelago (Архипелаг ГУЛАГ)

The Gulag Archipelago (Архипелаг ГУЛАГ) is Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's three-volume documentary work on the Soviet forced labor camp system from 1918 to 1956, first published in Paris in 1973.

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling is Henry Fielding's comic novel, first published 28 February 1749, following the foundling Tom Jones through Squire Allworthy's household to marriage with Sophia Western.

The House of the Spirits

The House of the Spirits (La casa de los espíritus) is Isabel Allende's 1982 debut novel, a magical-realist saga of the Trueba family across four generations of Chilean history, censored under Pinochet, filmed in 1993, adapted by Prime Video in 2026, and continued in the Premio Planeta 2026 sequel La hora antes del alba.

The House on Mango Street

The House on Mango Street (La casa en Mango Street), Sandra Cisneros's 1984 Chicana coming-of-age novel of linked vignettes narrated by twelve-year-old Esperanza Cordero in a Chicago Latino neighborhood; over 7 million copies sold.

The Human Stain

The Human Stain is Philip Roth's 2000 novel, third of his trilogy with American Pastoral and I Married a Communist, about Coleman Silk, a classics professor undone by the word "spooks" who has passed as a white Jew while being African American; Robert Benton's 2003 film adaptation starred Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman.

The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner is Khaled Hosseini's 2003 debut novel (Riverhead Books) about Amir and Hassan in Kabul, spanning the 1973 coup, Soviet invasion, and Taliban rule; a bestseller adapted into Marc Forster's 2007 Dari-language film.

The Land in Winter

The Land in Winter is Andrew Miller's tenth novel, published 2024, set in England's West Country during the 1962-63 Big Freeze, following two marriages; it was shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize and won the Walter Scott Prize.

The Magician (Tóibín novel)

The Magician (2021) is Colm Tóibín's fictionalized biography of Thomas Mann, spanning 1880–1950, his family, exile, and sexuality; it won the 2022 Rathbones Folio Prize and was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize.

The Man Without Qualities

The Man Without Qualities (Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften) is an unfinished novel by the Austrian writer Robert Musil, published in parts from 1930 and a major work of modernism.

The Master and Margarita (Мастер и Маргарита)

The Master and Margarita (Мастер и Маргарита) is Mikhail Bulgakov's unfinished 1928–1940 novel about Woland's visit to Soviet Moscow and the Master's Pilate story, first published censored in Moskva 1966–1967 and famous for its many English translations and adaptations.

The Name of the Rose

The Name of the Rose (Il nome della rosa) is a 1980 historical murder mystery by Umberto Eco, set in a Benedictine abbey in 1327.

The Names (Knapp novel)

The Names is Florence Knapp's 2025 debut novel, a sliding-doors literary fiction work in which Cora's 1987 choice among the names Gordon, Bear, or Julian produces three parallel 35-year timelines examining domestic abuse.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North (novel)

The Narrow Road to the Deep North is Richard Flanagan's 2013 sixth novel, winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize, about Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans, his affair with Amy Mulvaney, and POW labor on the Thai-Burma Death Railway; adapted as a 2025 miniseries.

The Nickel Boys

The Nickel Boys is Colson Whitehead's 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about Elwood Curtis and Turner at the abusive Nickel Academy, based on the real Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, which operated from 1900 to 2011.

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge) is a 1910 prose work by Rainer Maria Rilke, his only novel, following a young Danish poet in Paris.

The Other Bennet Sister (novel)

The Other Bennet Sister is Janice Hadlow's 2020 debut novel reimagining Mary Bennet, the overlooked middle sister of Pride and Prejudice, later adapted into a 2026 BBC/BritBox miniseries starring Ella Bruccoleri.

The Overstory

The Overstory, Richard Powers's twelfth novel (W.W. Norton, April 3, 2018), follows nine tree-touched Americans into the Pacific Northwest timber wars; structured Roots, Trunk, Crown, Seeds, it won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the 2018 Booker Prize.

The Passenger (McCarthy novel)

The Passenger is Cormac McCarthy's 2022 Knopf novel about salvage diver Bobby Western, a sunken jet with a missing passenger, and his dead sister Alicia; companion to Stella Maris.

The People in the Trees

The People in the Trees is Hanya Yanagihara's 2013 debut novel, a faux memoir of Norton Perina, a Nobel-winning doctor who discovers longevity on the Micronesian island Ivu'ivu and is later convicted of child abuse, loosely based on Daniel Carleton Gajdusek.

The Place of the Skull

The Place of the Skull (Plakha) is a 1986 novel by the Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov, first published in Novyi mir and seen as a landmark work of the glasnost era.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (novel)

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is Muriel Spark's 1961 novel about a charismatic, fascist-sympathizing teacher at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in 1930s Edinburgh, her six-pupil Brodie set, Sandy Stranger's betrayal, and its flashforward narrative; adapted into the 1969 Oscar-winning film with Maggie Smith.

The Radiance of the King

The Radiance of the King (Le Regard du roi) is a 1954 French-language novel by Guinean writer Camara Laye, following a destitute European seeking a king.

The Remains of the Day

The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's 1989 third novel, winner of the Booker Prize, narrated by Stevens, an unreliable butler at Darlington Hall recalling his service to a Nazi-sympathizing lord and his repressed feelings for housekeeper Miss Kenton.