The 100 Books of the Century

# Title Author Year Language Country

The Stranger
1 Albert Camus 1942 French French Algeria, France
The Outsider
In Search of Lost Time
1913–
2 Remembrance of Things Marcel Proust French France
1927
Past
Austria-Hungary,
3 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 German
Czechoslovakia
Antoine de Saint-
4 The Little Prince 1943 French France
Exupéry
5 Man's Fate André Malraux 1933 French France
Journey to the End of the
6 Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French France
Night
7 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 English USA
8 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 English USA
9 Le Grand Meaulnes Alain-Fournier 1913 French France
10 Froth on the Daydream Boris Vian 1947 French France
11 The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir 1949 French France
French,
12 Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett 1952 Ireland, France
English
13 Being and Nothingness Jean-Paul Sartre 1943 French France
14 The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco 1980 Italian Italy
15 The Gulag Archipelago Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1973 Russian Soviet Union
16 Paroles Jacques Prévert 1946 French France
17 Alcools Guillaume Apollinaire 1913 French France
18 The Blue Lotus Hergé 1936 French Belgium
19 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 1947 Dutch Germany, Netherlands
20 Tristes Tropiques Claude Lévi-Strauss 1955 French France
21 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 English UK
22 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell 1949 English UK
René Goscinny and
23 Asterix the Gaul 1959 French France
Albert Uderzo
French,
24 The Bald Soprano Eugène Ionesco 1952 Romania, France
Romanian
Three Essays on the Theory
25 Sigmund Freud 1905 German Austria
of Sexuality
The Abyss
26 Marguerite Yourcenar 1968 French France, Belgium
Zeno of Bruges
English,
27 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 Russia, USA
Russian
28 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 English Ireland
# Title Author Year Language Country
29 The Tartar Steppe Dino Buzzati 1940 Italian Italy
30 The Counterfeiters André Gide 1925 French France
31 The Horseman on the Roof Jean Giono 1951 French France
32 Belle du Seigneur Albert Cohen 1968 French Greece, Switzerland
One Hundred Years of
33 Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Spanish Colombia
Solitude
34 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 English USA
35 Thérèse Desqueyroux François Mauriac 1927 French France
36 Zazie in the Metro Raymond Queneau 1959 French France
37 Confusion of Feelings Stefan Zweig 1927 German Austria
38 Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 English USA
39 Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence 1928 English UK
40 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German Germany
41 Bonjour Tristesse Françoise Sagan 1954 French France
42 Le Silence de la mer Vercors 1942 French France
43 Life: A User's Manual Georges Perec 1978 French France
The Hound of the 1901–
44 Arthur Conan Doyle English UK
Baskervilles 1902
45 Under the Sun of Satan Georges Bernanos 1926 French France
46 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 English USA
47 The Joke Milan Kundera 1967 Czech Czechoslovakia, France
A Ghost at Noon
48 Alberto Moravia 1954 Italian Italy
Contempt
The Murder of Roger
49 Agatha Christie 1926 English UK
Ackroyd
50 Nadja André Breton 1928 French France
51 Aurelien Louis Aragon 1944 French France
52 The Satin Slipper Paul Claudel 1929 French France
Six Characters in Search of
53 Luigi Pirandello 1921 Italian Italy
an Author
The Resistible Rise of
54 Bertolt Brecht 1959 German Germany
Arturo Ui
55 Friday Michel Tournier 1967 French France
56 The War of the Worlds H. G. Wells 1898 English UK
If This Is a Man
57 Primo Levi 1947 Italian Italy
Survival in Auschwitz
1954–
58 The Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien English Orange Free State, UK
1955
59 Les Vrilles de la vigne Colette 1908 French France
(French)
[Never translated: The Tendrils of
# Title Author Year Language Country
[2]
the Vine]
60 Capital of Pain Paul Éluard 1926 French France
61 Martin Eden Jack London 1909 English USA
62 Ballad of the Salt Sea Hugo Pratt 1967 Italian Italy
63 Writing Degree Zero Roland Barthes 1953 French France
The Lost Honour of
64 Heinrich Böll 1974 German Germany
Katharina Blum
65 The Opposing Shore Julien Gracq 1951 French France
66 The Order of Things Michel Foucault 1966 French France
67 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 English USA
The Wonderful Adventures 1906–
68 Selma Lagerlöf Swedish Sweden
of Nils 1907
69 A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf 1929 English UK
70 The Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury 1950 English USA
71 The Ravishing of Lol Stein Marguerite Duras 1964 French France
72 The Interrogation J. M. G. Le Clézio 1963 French France
73 Tropisms Nathalie Sarraute 1939 French Russia, France
74 Journal, 1887–1910 Jules Renard 1925 French France
75 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad 1900 English Russian Empire, UK
76 Écrits Jacques Lacan 1966 French France
77 The Theatre and its Double Antonin Artaud 1938 French France
78 Manhattan Transfer John Dos Passos 1925 English USA
79 Ficciones Jorge Luis Borges 1944 Spanish Argentina
80 Moravagine Blaise Cendrars 1926 French France, Switzerland
The General of the Dead Albanian,
81 Ismail Kadare 1963 Albania
Army French
82 Sophie's Choice William Styron 1979 English USA
83 Gypsy Ballads Federico García Lorca 1928 Spanish Spain
The Strange Case of Peter
84 Georges Simenon 1931 French Belgium
the Lett
85 Our Lady of the Flowers Jean Genet 1944 French France
1930–
86 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil German Austria
1932
87 Furor and Mystery René Char 1948 French France
88 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 English USA
No Orchids For Miss
89 James Hadley Chase 1939 English UK
Blandish
90 Blake and Mortimer Edgar P. Jacobs 1950 French Belgium
The Notebooks of Malte Austria-Hungary,
91 Rainer Maria Rilke 1910 German
Laurids Brigge Switzerland
# Title Author Year Language Country
92 Second Thoughts Michel Butor 1957 French France
The Burden of Our Time
English,
93 The Origins of Hannah Arendt 1951 Germany, USA
German
Totalitarianism
94 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Soviet Union
1949–
95 The Rosy Crucifixion Henry Miller English USA
1960
96 The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler 1939 English USA
97 Amers Saint-John Perse 1957 French France
Gaston
98 André Franquin 1957 French Belgium
Gomer Goof
99 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 English UK
100 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 English India, UK