Shusaku Endo (1923-96): A better Japanese writer than Yasunari Kawabata, and a more interesting Catholic novelist than Graham Greene. Silence is a terrific book; Volcano is also excellent - both motivated by the alienation felt by a Christian writer in his pagan homeland.
Originally posted by Teinosuke One more deserving omission:
Shusaku Endo (1923-96): A better Japanese writer than Yasunari Kawabata, and a more interesting Catholic novelist than Graham Greene. Silence is a terrific book; Volcano is also excellent - both motivated by the alienation felt by a Christian writer in his pagan homeland.
Originally posted by rwingett Now that we've acquainted ourselves a little with the list previous winners, who among them would you be tempted to read next?
I'm leaning toward Orhan Pamuk or V. S. Naipaul.
I second Laxness.
Out of interest in the history of Eastern Europe, I'm also quite keen to read Ivo Andric. I've heard that he's now a rather controversial figure, since he was of Croatian heritage, but wrote about Bosnian experience in the standard Serbian dialect - thus, he's both claimed and, alternatively, repudiated, by citizens in all three of those successor states to Yugoslavia.
Since I'm a film scholar by profession, I'm interested in a number of the novelists on the list who have had famous films adapted from their work - Lagerlof and Sienkiewicz fall into this category.