Foreign literature

[Pilyk]

Hi !
Recently I realized that more than half my favorite books were only french literature, despite I like to read novels from all around the world.
I think it's really interesting not to read only books from your country to discover new cultures etc.
And you :)?

Do you like to read books written in foreign language or by foreign writers ?
Do you include such foreign books in your favorites books ?

My favorite non-French writer are Orwell, Swarup, Fitzgerald, Süskind and Eco I think. But I also appreciate a lot E.Poe, R.Lewis, F.Kafka, B.Stoker T.Pratchett and even W.Shakespeare...
Mostly anglo-saxons writers though... Ah, is that ethnocentrism :/ ?...

[NikosamA98]

Hi !
Recently I realized that more than half my favorite books were only french literature, despite I like to read novels from all around the world.
I think it's really interesting not to read only books from your country to discover new cultures etc.
And you :)?

Do you like to read books written in foreign language or by foreign writers ?
Do you include such foreign books in your favorites books ?

My favorite non-French writer are Orwell, Swarup, Fitzgerald, Süskind and Eco I think. But I also appreciate a lot E.Poe, R.Lewis, F.Kafka, B.Stoker T.Pratchett and even W.Shakespeare...
Mostly anglo-saxons writers though... Ah, is that ethnocentrism :/ ?...

Well, I don't really have a favorite writter, but I like a Sci-Fi a lot. I loved the Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card and I have some books waitin gin line to be read like 1984, Blade Runner, To Kill A Mockingbird, Halo Cryptum, Oliver Twist, among many others. But I like reading philosophy and clasic literature like Aristotle, Thomas More, Francis Bacon, Rousseau, Voltaire, Plato, Marx, Adam Smith, etc. (I like politics, economy and philosophy and sociology...things that will allow me to change my country) And of course latin american literature. Could you tell me about french literature? I only know of Rousseau and such, but I'd like to know some actual literature.

[Pilyk]

And if you like philosophy and classic literature, don't forget Vercors (Les animaux dénaturés) and French classical literature (Flaubert, Zola, Hugo...).
Depends what you like :)

[Pilyk]

Well, I don't really have a favorite writter, but I like a Sci-Fi a lot. I loved the Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card and I have some books waitin gin line to be read like 1984, Blade Runner, To Kill A Mockingbird, Halo Cryptum, Oliver Twist, among many others. But I like reading philosophy and clasic literature like Aristotle, Thomas More, Francis Bacon, Rousseau, Voltaire, Plato, Marx, Adam Smith, etc. (I like politics, economy and philosophy and sociology...things that will allow me to change my country) And of course latin american literature. Could you tell me about french literature? I only know of Rousseau and such, but I'd like to know some actual literature.

Oh, a friend to Candid, Zadig and Disourse on the origins and basis of the inequality among men :o !
Err, for sure, it depends what you like to read. I think there is some masterpieces in French XXth centuty's literature, such as L'écume des jours (Froth on the daydream) from B.Vian, Rhinoceros by Ionesco, Les Faux-Monnayeurs (The couterfeiters) by A. Gide, and Voyage au bout de la nuit (Travel to the end of the night) by Céline.
In actually current litterature, I just know E-E. Schmitt and A.Nothomb, quite good writters anyway ... I also heard some good things about M. Kundera but nether read anything from him ...
If you like science fiction I think that the most famous french novelist in this kind must be Barjavel (La nuit des temps, Le grand secret...), Boulle (Planet of Apes), and all Jules Verne's works, that's very good but perhaps quite old ^^"
I don't know much Latin-American authors myself (apart Garcia Marquez) - in fact I don't really know a lot of Spanish or Portuguese literature ... If you can give me some clue, that will be very kind !

[TheLoneWolf]

I do not like reading Dutch books at all, unless they're originally Dutch.
I only read Dutch or English books. Sometimes we have to read a German book for class, but that's about the closets I get to reading German literature.

One of my favorite Dutch literature books is called 'De man zonder ziekte' by Arnon Grunberg.
But I do not know if that's considered 'foreign'.

[Babiole]

Technically, a lot of my favorite books, such as the Oz books, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, Pinocchio, Gulliver's Travels, and Gone with the Wind, are all foreign literature to me since I'm French and the books I listed were all originally written in English (except Pinocchio, which was originally written in Italian).

I still like a lot of French literature, though, and we have an extensive collection from all different time periods. As for more knowledge on French literature...we have an extensive collection of literary fairy tales. (Literary means that they were created by the writers - as opposed to collected like the Brothers Grimm's stories, which are considered oral fairy tales.) Charles Perrault is probably the best-known - he wrote Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Little Red Riding Hood, and Bluebeard, among other stories. (Although you probably know Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hood better through the Grimm versions.) The second most famous is Madame d'Aulnoy, who created the term fairy tale. Her best-known stories are The Blue Bird and The White Cat. These are probably her tamest ones - she's got a lot of much more violent stories like The Yellow Dwarf (which includes a tragic ending), Princess Belle-Etoile, and The Bee and the Orange Tree. There were many others. Believe it or not, these stories were originally intended for adults, not children. There's quite a bit of violence and some even contain sexual content.