Name five (or as many as you can up to five) authors (SF or other is fine with me) that write (or wrote) in the following languages:
1. Spanish
2. French
3. German
4. Portuguese
5. Polish
6. Russian
7. Serbian
8. Italian
9. Chinese
10. Japanese
11. Quechua
12. Hindi or various Sanskrit-derived languages
13. Persian
14. Arabic
15. Any other language that I might have forgotten
I wasn't kidding about it being challenging, no? Consider this a response to various people I've read over the past few months who've complained about a lack of things to read.
The Empirical Approach to Learning
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I'll post my answers in full later, but I'll note that José María Arguedas' Los ríos profundos contains large passages written in Quechua and since I read that in parallel to the Spanish translations that appeared in the book, I'll count it.
Reading works in translation counts, by the way.
I don't have a blog, so I'll post my list right here, with as much sf/fantasy as I can remember:
1. Spanish: Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Juan Rulfo, Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar
2. French: Boris Vian, Jean Ray, Jonathan Littell (he did write a crappy cyberpunk novel before the Goncourt), Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Louis-Ferdinand Céline
3. German: Franz Kafka, Patrick Suskind, ETA Hoffmann, Michael Ende, Thomas Mann
4. Portuguese: Mário-Henrique Leiria, José Gomes Ferreira, João Barreiros, Luís Filipe Silva, Mário de Sá-Carneiro
5. Polish: Stanislaw Lem (of course), Bruno Schultz, Jan Potocki, Stefan Grabinski, Andrzej Sapkowski
6. Russian: Mikhail Bulgakov, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (two for the price of one), Yevgeny Zamyatin, Victor Pelevin, Nikolai Gogol
7. Serbian: Ivo Andric, Milorad Pavic, Zoran Zivkovic, Boban Knezevic, Aleksandar Gatalica
8. Italian: Dino Buzzati, Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, Valerio Evangelisti, Luigi Pirandello
9. Chinese: You got me there!
10. Japanese: Haruki Murakami, Yasutaka Tsutsui, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Kenji Siratori (*groan*)
11. Quechua: Nothing!
12. Hindi or various Sanskrit-derived languages: See above!
13. Persian: Omar Khayyam . . . and that's it.
14. Arabic: I was going to say Amin Maalouf, but he writes in French.
15. Any other language that I might have forgotten: Orhan Pamuk (Turkish), Ana Blandiana (Romanian), Panos Karnezis (Greek), Selma Lagerlof (Swedish), István Orkény (Hungarian)
Do I write it hear or on my blog, Larry?
1. Spanish: Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Cervantes, Jose Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, Roberto Bolano
2. French: Alexandre Dumas, Maurixe Dantec,
3. German: Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Andreas Eschbach
4. Portuguese: Jose Saramago, Jose Eduardo Agualusa
5. Polish: Andrzej Sapkowski
6. Russian: Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Bulgakov
7. Serbian: Zoran Zivkovic, Milorad Pavic
8. Italian: Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, Nicolo Machiavelli
9. Chinese: Ma Jian, Mo Yan, Gao Xingjian, Jiang Rong, Wang Anyi
10. Japanese: Haruki Murakami, Ryu Murakami
11. Quechua
12. Hindi or various Sanskrit-derived languages
13. Persian: Ferdowsi, Hafez, Rumi, Omar Khayyam, Sa‘id
14. Arabic: Naguib Mahfouz, Yahya Hakki, Mahmoud Darwish, Ibn Tufail, Bensalem Himmich
15. Any other language that I might have forgotten
Hebrew: Shmuel Yosef Agnon
Turkish: Orhan Pamuk
Malay: A Samad Said
Wherever I read more than 5 authors which applies to all European languages except Portuguese, and to Japanese, I will list my favorite 5 in no particular order
1. R. Bolano, JL Borges, CR Zafon, GG Marquez, AB Casares
2. A. Dumas, H Balzac, F. Mauriac, J. Verne, H. Troyat - I have to second Les Bienveillantes as one of the best novels of this century but it's just one novel so to speak
3. EM Remarque, ET Hoffmann, Grimm Brothers, T. Mann, G. VonRezzori
4. J. Saramago, P. Coelho
5. H. Sienkiwicz, B. Prus, W. Gombrowicz, J. Potocki, C. Milosz
6. A. Solzhenitsyn, V. Nabokov, LN Tolstoy, F. Dostoevsky, J. Brodsky , A. Ahkmatova - here 5 will not do, even 20 is probably not enough.
7. M. Pavic, Z. Zivkovic, I. Andric, D. Kis, D. Albahari
8. Dante, Boccaccio, I. Calvino, U. Eco, P. Levi
9. C'hin Ping Mei - that's the title of the famous novel that only now when finally sexual hangups are going away from English literature - was getting fully translated by DT. Roy - sadly he died after 3 of the planned 4 volumes but hopefully someone will finish the definitive translation, Confucius, Sun Tzu
Here I want to add two authors that though write in French and English respectively, bring Chinese sensibilities to their works that I've enjoyed a lot till now.
Shan Sa - The Girl Who Played Golf
Tan Twan Eng - The Gift of Rain
10. J. Tanizaki, Y. Mishima, Y. Kawabata, K Abe, E. Yoshikawa - (of Taiko, Musashi fame)
11. not read yet
12. here is tricky since so many recent Indian authors write in English - I read V. Seth, K. Desai VS Naipaul, S. Rushdie, S Basu but I have no clue if they wrote only English
14. same as above regarding language but these are authors writing about the Arab culture - N. Mahfouz, A. Maalouf, R. Alamedinne
Of Course nothing beats Arabian Nights which in the unsurpassed R. Burton translation is one of my favorites of all time
15. Czech - Kundera, Capek, Hasek, J. Svorevcky, Havel
Romanian - too many to list, sadly few available in English but for example Eliade and M. Sebastian have been translated
Hungarian - Jokoy Mor has been one of my all time fav writers in my childhood - then S. Marai, I. Kertesz, M. Banffy of the Transylvanian Trilogy - one of the reference Hungarian views of the contentious issue between "us" and "them"
Scandinavian - a lot to mention and got tired :)
1. Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Arturo Perez-Reverte, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Miguel de Cervantes
2. Alexandre Dumas, Jules Verne, Serge Brussolo, Gerard Klein, Eugene Sue
3. Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Goethe, Hermann Hesse, Gunter Grass
4. Rui Zink, Paulo Coelho, Luis Camoes, Jose Saramago, Jose Cardoso Pires
5. Henryk Sienkiewicz, Andrzej Sapkowski, Jacek Dukaj, Janusz Zajdel
6. F.M. Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Bulgakov, Boris Akunin
7. Zoran Zivkovic, Ivo Andric, Zlata Filipovic (I read a non-fiction novel, "Zlata's Diary")
8. Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino, Dino Buzzati, Valerio Massimo Manfredi, Luigi Pirandello
9. Sun Tzu
10. Kaoru Kurimoto, Koji Suzuki, Eiji Yoshikawa, Haruki Murakami, Yasunari Kawabata
11. -
12. Salman Rushdie
13. -
14. Naguib Mahfouz
15. Mircea Eliade (Romanian), Milan Kundera (Czech), Orhan Pamuk (Turkish), Hans Christian Andersen (Danish), Knu Hamsun (Norwegian), Selma Lagerlof (Swedish), Amos Oz (Hebrew), Yrsa Sigurdardottir (Icelandic) just for example.
I had lots of fun with the list.I included much crime fiction (which is more international than f/sf) and privileged contemporary and less-known authors when possible (though I didn't have the heart to exclude names like Borges or Saramago).
Marco
1 Spanish: Jorge Luis Borges, Juan Rulfo,Juan Goytisolo,Javier Marìas,Arturo Pérez-Reverte
2 French: Jean-Claude Izzo,Jean-Patrick Manchette,Boris Vian,Daniel Pennac,Jean Giono
3 German: Friedrich Dürrenmatt,Max Fritsch, Andreas Eschbach,Gustav Meyrink,Paul Scheerbart
4 Portuguese: Jose Saramago, Jose Eduardo Agualusa,António Lobo Antunes,Clarice Lispector,Fernando Pessoa
5 Polish: Henryk Sienkiewicz,Bruno Schulz,Ryszard Kapuszcinski,Witold Gombrowicz,Czeszlaw Milosz
6:Russian: Mikhail Bulgakov,Boris Akunin,Victor Pelevin,Sergei Dovlatov,Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
7:Serbian (or rather Serbo-Croat): Ivo Andric, Danilo Kis, Zoran Zivkovic,Predrag Matvejevic,Slavenka Drakulic
8:Italian: Massimo Carlotto,Antonio Tabucchi,Stefano Benni,Carlo Lucarelli,Andrea Camilleri
9:Chinese: Qiu Xiaolong,Gao Xingjian,Mo Yan,Yu Hua,Zhou Weihui (barely scraped through this one)
10:Japanese: Haruki Murakami,Ryu Murakami,Banana Yoshimoto,Yukio Mishima,Ryunosuke Akutagawa
11: Quechua: Rigoberta Menchú
12. Hindi or various Sanskrit-derived languages I suppose all the major Indian novelists write in English.
I'm sure that there was someone who wrote exclusively in Hindi (or Urdu) but I can't remember his name.
13. Persian: Rumi,Ferdowsi,Zoroaster and sadly that's all
14 Arabic: Ibrahim Al-Koni,Yasmina Khadra,Mahmoud Darwish,Assia Djebar,Abd al-Rahman Munif
.....
15 Dutch/Flemish: Janwillem van de Wetering,Harry Mulisch,Maarten t'Hart,Hugo Claus,Gerard Reve
16 Hungarian: Imre Kertesz,Ferenc Molnár,Péter Esterházy,Péter Nádas,Sándor Petofi
17 Czech: Bohumil Hrabal,Milan Kundera,Jaroslav Seifert,Jan Weiss,Jana Cerna
18 Swedish: Sjöwall and Wahlöö,Hakan Nesser,Henning Mankell,Stieg Larsson,Liza Marklund
19 Norwegian: Karin Fossum,Jo Nesbo,Knut Hamsun,Henrik Ibsen,Jonas Lie
20 Danish: Karen Blixen,Hans Christian Andersen,Herman Bang,Jens Peter Jacobsen,Soeren Kierkegaard
21 Finnish: Arto Paasilinna,Mika Waltari,Elias Lönnrot,Matti Joensuu
22 Icelandic: Yrsa Sigurdardóttir,Arnaldur Indridason
23 Greek: Alexandros Panagoulis,Iannis Ritsos,Petros Markaris,Nikos Kazantzakis,Konstantinos Kavafis
24 Albanian: Ismail Kadaré,Gezim Haidari
25 Turkish: Orhan Pamuk,Elif Safak,Nazim Hikmet,Mehmet Murat Somer,Yashar Kemal
26 Hebrew: Amos Oz,Abraham Yehoshua,Nourit Zarchi,Uri Tzaig,Sayvon Liebrecht
Oh,and
27: Estonian:Tõnu Õnnepalu
It's great returning from a few busy days and reading the answers here. The authors I've read on all your lists, I've enjoyed, plus there are many I see I need to discover. Win/win for us all, right? :D
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