The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction

by M.A. Orthofer

For more than a decade, the "Complete Review "has been an essential site for readers interested in learning about new books in translation and developments in global literature. Expanding upon the site's content, this wide-ranging yet user-friendly resource is the perfect guide for English-language readers eager to explore fiction from around the world. Profiling hundreds of titles and authors from 1945 to today, with an emphasis on fiction published in the past two decades, this reference provides a fascinating portal into the styles, trends, and genres of the world's literatures, from Scandinavian crime thrillers and cutting-edge works in China to Latin American narco-fiction and award-winning French novels.

What sets this guide apart is its critical selection of titles that define the arc of a nation's literary development, paired with lively summaries that convey both the enjoyment and significance of each work. Arranged by region, country, and language, entries illuminate the fiction of individual nations, cultures, and peoples, while concise biographies sketch the careers of noteworthy authors. Compiled by M. A. Orthofer, an avid book reviewer and founder of the "Complete Review," this reference will benefit from an actively maintained companion site featuring additional links and resources and new reviews as contemporary works are published. "The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction" is perfect for readers who wish to expand their reading choices and knowledge of contemporary world fiction.

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference, Books About Books, Literature, Writing, Literary Criticism

496 pages, Paperback

First published April 19, 2016

Reviews

[Adina ( catching up..very slowly) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book does pretty much what the title says. It is a guide to contemporary world literature, for books translated into English. It is by no means complete, but it does offer examples of titles and authors from most countries. There are a few paragraphs about each author and their main works. Genre fiction is also present, for some destinations. It took me a few years to go through all entries and I managed to add many titles to my ever-growing TBR. A good reference book to explore.

[Antonomasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclosures at the end. This is a long review that continues into the comments.
This is a reference book; one excellently timed to meet the Anglosphere's current expanding interest in translated fiction. And as it's a reference work, much of its audience won't be reading it cover to cover. Before Goodreads prompted the compulsion to put every book into a discrete category such as "read" or "unfinished" - and especially as a kid, I used to read lots of reference books. But unless they were short, The Usborne Guide to the Weather or something, I wouldn't read a whole one at once, rather chapters and bits over months and years as I felt like it. At some unrecorded point it became fair to consider a single-volume encyclopaedia, for example, "read".
Reading The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction has been a nostalgic experience, taking me back to those relaxed days when at least half my book-reading was not in pure narrative, but about browsing snippets of information, lists and short articles I could always return to later. (It was an internet-like experience before most households had the internet, and without the hypnotic backlight, the hum, and the nagging feeling that I ought to reduce those 93 open tabs; the spines remained in line of sight, and in mind, whilst the books were tidily closed.)

At time of writing this post (3rd April), I hadn't read every single chapter of The Complete Review Guide: this piece isn't really finished, over and above the tweaks I make to reviews in the days after first posting. Yet I regret not having reviewed it much sooner after I got the ARC. I'm not sure if Netgalley feedback has any influence on final versions of books, but there are points below that I think someone should have been made before it went to press, pertinent to current online discussions of literary and translated fiction.

I've been aware of The Complete Review website and Literary Saloon weblog since the early 2000s. (The latter has remained a weblog in the original sense, a regular source of links and often brief and neutrally presented information - a type of content I always liked and which, after almost disappearing from the internet for maybe ten years, has made a recent and welcome comeback in regular "links" posts on some blogs.) But for a long time that awareness of the site meant a handful of visits a year, and without a feel for how the place worked.
In the mid 2000s, exasperation with Zadie Smith's On Beauty, and its sameyness relative to so much other English language fiction, made me decide to read mostly translated fiction; then a couple of years later, having not acted much on that, there was a repeat of the epiphany when reading some now-unremembered book in a station. Not long afterwards, I took a different diversionary route and read mostly non-fiction for a couple of years. Around 2010-11, I became interested - as a lot of British people did - in Nordic books. Rather than looking to The Complete Review, I dug up university Scandinavian Studies reading lists online - and hummed and hawed over the type of specialist reference books that Orthofer refers to in his introduction. (i.e. There are plenty of academic texts in English about the literature of particular regions or countries, but there has been no comprehensive overview of fiction translated to English.) Volumes from the Histories of Scandinavian Literature series have been sitting in my Amazon 'saved for later' for most of the current decade, because in both cost and format, they're a bit much. So I think Orthofer's book is an excellent idea. Even more so because the paperback edition is reasonably priced where sold online, not far off the price point of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, as it should be, to be useful to a similar audience.

It was only circa 2012-13 that I finally gathered up various blogs, including the Complete Review, into an RSS feed, and they became a regular part of my life. These days, unrelated links to pdfs often smilingly evoke Orthofer's regular phrase "warning: dreaded pdf format!" Though the purchase most directly related to his recommendation, and his alone, wasn't a book at all, but a re-subscription to Eurosport. (Something had prompted me to look at his Twitter feed in December; it turned out that he also likes watching skiing, and seeing the tweets about it made me miss it so much, that despite scrimping, I gave in and renewed my subscription as a treat for a month over Christmas.)
I've reflected more than once that The Complete Review's inception was well timed. (And given the publication of this guide, just when popular sites like BookRiot are opening up to translation coverage - a field which used to be of interest mostly to broadsheets and lit journals - I think Orthofer may have a knack for cultural timing.) It's a niche site, and its founder has a Twitter following currently just under 5000, but the fact that it's Orthofer who's writing this book, and not one of a hundred others with similar interests and reading speed, reminds me of the observation in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers that, on a far larger and wealthier scale, the founders of IT and internet companies which have become institutions, the plutocrats of the Gilded Age, or key pop bands whose best albums appeared just when the landscape was ripe for a new scene, were who they were not because they were more talented than absolutely everyone else in their field, but because they were in exactly the right place at the right time, and made some significant choice. Starting a few years later, the same guy would have been one among many bloggers, and maybe the normality of posting book reviews in one's own space online would have meant he used a different format that didn't give the detached, authoritative air which prompted the then-youthful writer of this New Yorker piece to assume it was a journal similar to the NYRB - and so would it have been someone else writing this book instead? On the other hand, blogger John Self's move into reviews for the British broadsheets suggests that it's not entirely about being the first: expertise and style are what they are whenever they come along.
I don't read as fast as Orthofer, nor can I read serious fiction in three languages. Knowing people on here who read in more languages nevertheless grants perspective, and this post is less reverent than other reviews and comments I've seen so far. To me, his lit-news posting on the Saloon is invaluable and unparalleled. I love the little eccentricities of the site, and its quiet web 1.0 design; I'm delighted that the site has kept its original look, and I hope it never changes. (Incidentally, I've been waiting years for web 1.o style to come back into fashion, and for there to be lots of layout options that use it.) However, I consider the reviews as the work of one good book blogger among many, albeit one remarkable in consistency and duration. The Guide is not perfect - none could be all things to everyone - but it's very useful as is, and was much needed to fill a gap in the market.

I'm glad of my familiarity with the website in writing this review (of this review), but on the other hand I haven't ever spent much time with a copy of 1001 Books, whose popularity may make it a gold standard among reading guides for approachability and readability of its own content. Its use of multiple contributors advocating for their favourites, and from the little I've seen, its slightly longer entries about each book (there are rather more than 1001 books mentioned in this one) means that it has a liveliness and passion that one individual can't transmit when aiming to be fairly objective about some titles, whilst also including some personal opinion. Although certainly, the author's favourites do stand out, receiving more space and praise. Neither have I read Steven Moore's histories of the novel, a favourite with several Goodreads friends inclined towards the more experimental and highbrow end of literature. (Actually, I'd love to see a review of this volume from Jonathan, who contributed to the 1001 and has read Moore.) In discussing genre fiction as well as modern classics and critically acclaimed contemporary lit, Orthofer aims to cover a wide spectrum similar to the 1001 -not only the complex stuff a la Moore, although as readers of the website would assume, there is no shortage of that.

The bulk of the genre fiction discussed is crime, thriller and mystery. I've noticed that, for some reason, this is the favourite popular genre for literary / experimental readers who want a break from the heavy stuff, among those who even take such breaks in the first place. The author clearly enjoys these books, and they give scope for a few amusing phrases – I liked the bit about a Spanish thriller writer taking advantage of a trend for conspiracy themes and regrettably “going full Da Vinci”. The Guide features considerably less SFF and romance, genres with histories of being taken less seriously. SFF has been making inroads into literary respectability over the last decade, its standing probably on a par with crime fiction among readers up to early middle age (meaning I expected to see a little more of it here if genre fiction was to be included). Romance readers (including those for whom it’s their favourite break from heavier reading, and those who’ve studied it academically) have been speaking out online in recent years, advocating for the equality of the genre. The handful of SFF titles are scattered throughout the Guide and the countries it covers, and some of them are, I was pleased to see, less well known than Cixin Liu and Cornelia Funke. The few popular romance titles mentioned are mostly from Asian countries: Saudi, India, Indonesia. Comics, meanwhile, as with poetry, are beyond the remit of this book about prose fiction. Given the Guide’s explicit intention to include genres, the shortage of SFF and romance is among the features that can make it sound unfortunately a little out of touch with some contemporary online and media conversations about literature, especially considering it’s a book by a blogger and website curator. I like what the New Yorker article called “the site’s endearing, Robert-Christgau-like fustiness”, but don’t think that’s necessarily incompatible with addressing a few contemporary concerns; perhaps the Guide could have benefited from a collaborator, or a few guest essays on sectors with which Orthofer is less familiar, even whilst he still wrote the bulk of the book. On the other hand, popular fiction forms like West African market literature and Japanese cellphone novels get a mention, which they may not have if the whole book was organised along Anglo genre conventions.

There's a heck of a lot of information here. The general essay at the beginning is good; for someone who, like me, already has a feed stuffed with blogs and journals related to translated fiction, not many of the points will be new: still, it's nice to see them set out in one place. In the sections on foreign countries whose fiction I know quite a bit about, e.g. the Nordic region and parts of Eastern Europe, I agree that the big names were covered, and there were a few of authors I hadn't previously heard of. Although there were others I'd have liked to see included; as this book is the work of one enthusiast, it's inevitably somewhat idiosyncratic. It aims to be comprehensive, but at the same time it can't help be reflective of its own author's personal taste.

It is not a guide to choosing between translations. The Guide covers mostly newer works with only one translation. (If you're looking for a guide to different translations, this may be what you need - thanks to Warwick for the random link - but that handbook is already seven years old, and at a time when retranslations of classics are appearing thick and fast.) Even where there are multiple translations of post-Second World War texts, these don't appear to be considered in the Guide. I recalled online discussions, source unknown, of two recent translations of Witold Gombrowicz's Trans-Atlantyk, one supposedly terrible, the other better - although some considered the book essentially untranslatable. I'd hope this book would offer an opinion on a matter like this, but the specific title is not mentioned at all.

As part of the point of The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction is discovering new books to read, I was on the lookout for three things:
1) Information about books I had read - would I have been encouraged to read them (especially those I enjoyed) if this had been the first time I'd heard of them?
2) How often did it pique my theoretical interest (theoretical because I'm not sure I have the time) in unread books, either those completely new to me, or titles I knew of and had ignored or previously decided against?
3) Were there any unread books that it put me off, and why?

1) Some examples, mostly books I've rated 5 stars:
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson was mentioned, as "less grim"; there was more said about his other books, summaries of which never appealed to me as much as the back-cover blurb of Horses. I would not have looked for the book on the basis of what I saw here. Likewise The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson sounded less interesting than I found it to be.
I was glad to see a decent amount of space and praise for Oksana Zabuzhko, enough to interest some readers, even if it wasn't my own 6-star level of enthusiasm.
Tram 83 sounded instantly intriguing via use of the word 'raucous' and mention of a bar, two features not seen a lot of in the worthy literary fiction from African countries typically found on Man Booker lists.
I learnt that Amos Tutuola's work is, in Nigeria, considered “a pale imitation of [D.O.] Fagunwa's” (wording?) - which definitely makes Fagunwa worth looking out for. Orthofer still makes Tutola sound interesting in his own right, and easier to find in the US/UK.
Hassan Blasim, an Iraqi now resident in Finland, whose Independent Foreign Fiction Prize-winning short stories I liked, is not mentioned in the Guide.
I hadn't previously thought of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers as reflexive: a novel about a character learning a language and the author's first book written in a second language, but it's a great way to look at it, and one that would have interested me in Xiaolu Guo if I'd missed the press attention she had here.
Big name Austrian authors were characterised as bitter (as Orthofer is of Austrian background himself, it's an informed opinion, even more than most in this book). This wouldn't be the first time I've found myself wanting to defend the work of Elfriede Jelinek, even though I've only read two of her books – a novel and a playlet – and I also enjoyed the one Thomas Bernhard I've read, it was most cathartic. Nevertheless, the criticism of these criticism-filled novels is pleasingly reflexive, and it's exactly the sort of opinion that gives commentary a welcome sense of personality whether one agrees or not. And both writers do, frankly, provoke love -em-or-hate-'em reactions everywhere.
Andrzej Stasiuk is mentioned, but simply as a chronicler of post-Communist life, not for the breathtaking writing about landscapes that's made him one of my new favourites.
There are a few literary translated authors whose work I've not been so fond of in the last few years, but I know I'm in a minority with regard to most of these. It's only fair that newbies hear about their merits, so I can't expect the Guide to indicate that I wouldn't get on with books by, for instance, Javier Marías, Dubravka Ugrešić or Stig Dagerman.
An author I haven't read, but whose presence I couldn't resist checking as a test: Yuri Rytkheu, from an indigenous Siberian people, the Chukchi... Mentioned, although only for location rather than his own background and the mythical content, which are what got me interested.

2) Describing a literary style needs more space than some authors get here, so when I was interested in an unfamiliar book, it was usually because of appealing plot or character elements. I highlighted an awful lot of these books I may never get round to, so am taking a few examples from the beginning to show what did grab my attention.
I can't be the only person who abandoned one of Julia Kristeva's convoluted theory tomes at university; it was a surprise to hear that she has also written “cerebral thrillers”. Consider me intrigued.
Characterisation of Jean Echenoz as 'mischievous' made me slightly keener to get round to reading him than I was before.
Lydie Salvare is a name I'd heard, but with no associations; I tended to visualise pics of Lydia Davis when Salvare was mentioned. A “satire of contemporary industrial management” - The Award - could interest me.
I'd love to read material longer than news articles about immigrant experiences in other European countries, but almost nothing is translated. (Book-form commentary on race is dominated by US works, and “immigrant novels” by both the US and Britain.) I'd hardly heard of anything except Marie Ndiaye (it didn't click until a few weeks ago that she would be in this category - doh) and also a Swedish novel, Montecore. Neither of those are mentioned in the Guide, but Orthofer does include another example: Faïza Guène's Just Like Tomorrow.
Some places are intriguing in themselves: "The Azores, further from Lisbon than London, are small worlds of their own in the Atlantic, and Azorean-born João de Melo's My World is Not of This Kingdom is about these isolated specks of land."
I enjoyed Jáchym Topol's dark comedy The Devil's Workshop; Orthofer raves about his earlier book City Sister Silver and made me want to take a look.
The Lt. Boruvka stories and novels by Josef Skvorecky are "among the few describing actual criminal police work in a Communist country".
(I am, incidentally, puzzled by comments about low uptake of fiction from the former Eastern Bloc; people are still reading a fair bit that I notice. Perhaps interest was much higher in the years when I was only reading children's books, meaning I don't see the contrast Orthofer sees.
The term "Eastern Europe" is used in the Guide; having grown up hearing that designation, I still find it comfortable - but plenty of people currently living in the region are among those who now consider it outmoded, and sometimes "othering" and exoticising. What counts for them is that they're west of Russia and mostly in the EU: the term "Central Europe" or being undifferentiated within Europe are variously preferred. There is, though, a different literary culture, and especially a difference in the numbers and types of books translated to English, which it's reasonable to reflect in the Guide. "Central and Eastern Europe" (CEE) is a decent compromise term and one in academic & bureaucratic use.)

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great resource to learn about new books in translation.
It takes time to read...but for those who enjoy learning about new authors and books you've never read about from all over the world,
"The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction", is a great treat to have at your finger tips.

I can't imagine the number of hours that went into writing this guide...
But the author has saved us 'hours' of time...
yet...I've been reading this for over a month... and I'm still not done.

It wouldn't have to take as long as it is to read....but I keep looking up authors and books they've written on the Internet -- TO READ MORE--!

Once you begin to get curious about an author - more in depth - and a book they wrote (from reviews in here)...it's only natural to search out more.

One example: I knew nothing about author, Peter Handke. ( German Born, is an
Austrian novelist) . He's written a great variety, having won numerous prizes. A political activist and playwright.
One of his books that interests me is called "A Sorrow Beyond Dreams". It's a story he wrote after his mother died. From what I learned about Peter Handkle- the stages of his own life - the books he's written..I've become intrigued.

There are others too...
Elfriede Jelinek...wrote a book called "The Piano Teacher"...( another Austrian author)...
I was already somewhat 'smart'...(haha)...
I had recently purchased this book - with interest to read soon. ( a $1.99 Kindle special).

Lots and lots and lots others. It's like digging through a Halloween bag, sorting out the candy into little piles with some type of order...looking forward to the sweets ...
a little at a time. ( momma says you can't eat the entire bag in one night)...
Well, you can't expect to read this collection in a night - or even a week...
By owning it... You can treat yourself to a yummy dessert every night ... And still have
many saved for other nights!

Thank You for this book, ( it's really a gift to me), Columbia University Press, Netgalley, and M.A. Orthofer.....( a very interesting man/avid book reviewer...whom was a pleasure to learn about). Thank You!

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rarely do I review a book before finishing it, but I have seen enough to know that not only is this the book i've been looking for, it surpasses my expectations.

One of the things I promised myself for 2016 was to try to expand my book choices beyond my comfort zone. I knew that Goodreads would be a good tool for that, but I needed something more. I'm an ex-Waterstones bookseller so I know how to find books, yet even armed with that experience, it is difficult to find authors you don't even know you're looking for.

So when I saw this book, I knew I had to have it. I assumed that it would give me a bit of background to various countries around the world and then some lists of authors and titles. Instead, it presents a comprehensive discussion of literary styles, periods, and influences. It includes sections on different genres, the history of certain authors, why or how they have or haven't been translated, and more. Even in the section on French writing, where I thought i'd recognise the most names because I read in French and English, I was amazed to find that I only knew a tiny proportion of the authors listed. Flicking forward to other chapters, I found this to be the case every time. It is very clear that, even having worked in a university bookstore, I have seen only a limited selection of the available world fiction.

For that reason, this is going to be an incredible and exciting resource. Within the first chapter, there are enough references to keep me reading for the better part of next year. I'm also immediately signing up for the Complete Review blog run by the author, a much quicker fix for new fiction. For the moment, I'm more than happy to place my trust in Orthofer to direct my reading experience, and I know that once I have worked through this book, I'll be in a much better place to find my own way in world fiction.

Many thanks to M.A. Orthofer, Columbia University Press, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Too short by a mile. But you get an entire website, almost two decades deep, to supplement ::
http://www.complete-review.com/main/m...

So, I'd say one thing I noticed here to contrast with one other recent Massive Survey Work. I missed the unbridled enthusiasm which Steven Moore put into his two volume History of the Novel. I mean that Pantagruelism, that reine Begeisterung ; those lines where it's just, like, "I love this guy" (re: Jean-Paul). With Orthofer you get more the cool informational tone (much like with Frederick R. Karl's tone in his massive two volume thing on (north) American Fiction (another autobiographical comment of mine)). But again, that's just cuz the book is so damn short! And like with Moore, there is the personality of the Reader evident on the page ;; the massively prolific kind of reader both these guys are. Both possessing that kind of literary authority which can only be earned by years and years of woodshedding.

But, like I said, absolutely Required Reference Work for any and all interested in either half of its title ; both the Contemporary and the World.



____________
Are you still waiting for Steven Moore's Volume IV of The Novel? Well, there's this book. Or you could just spend hours upon hours at The Complete Review ::
http://www.complete-review.com/main/m...

[Bên Phía Nhà Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 * vì rất nhiều thông tin, tuy đọc lướt =)) đây là cuốn sách tổng hợp các tác phẩm đương đại ở các khu vực và rất có ích cho những ai muốn tìm hiểu sơ qua về văn chương ở vùng miền nào đó trên thế giới. dĩ nhiên là phải thông qua bản dịch.
ở phần Việt Nam trong khu Đông Nam Á thì có nhắc tới Dương Thu Hương là nổi bật nhất, rồi có nhắc Hồ Anh Thái etc cũng là điều dễ hiểu, cho nên từ đó nên lưu ý rằng những gì được dịch không phải là hay nhất mà đơn giản là nó được dịch.

biết thế để dè chừng :D

[Kazen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Orthorfer has read the world so you don't have to.

No, wait, that's not true. He's read the world so he can guide you through each region and country, pointing out the most important and interesting literary landmarks. He's a master at it, making The Complete Review Guide readable both in chunks as mood dictates or straight through, as I devoured it.

However you decide to read be sure to start with the introduction. It lays out why there is so little translated literature in the US, the state of world literature today, and what to look out for when picking up a translation. I knew to be wary of a book that doesn't have the translator's name featured on the cover but Orthofer adds,

"A red flag to look out for is the translation copyright in the name of the publisher, rather than that of the translator, which indicates that the translation was a work for hire, thus giving the translator no rights regarding the presentation of the text."

That's scary, especially as he goes on to talk about how translations are edited and sections, or even half the text, may be cut. Good to know.

Once you've read the intro dip in to whatever region or country captures your fancy. Each starts with an overview of the literary scene, both domestic and translated, and how events have shaped it over time. I found it fascinating that globalization can lead to originally English language books entering a country, stifling the native language writers already there.

The most important authors get several paragraphs outlining their life and their titles available in English. Other authors get a few sentences each about their most influential or representative works. Orthofer comes across as a wise guide, pointing you towards the best while not being afraid to warn about a clunker. And he has a way of making a book irresistible in a single sentence:

"Jang Eun-Lin's (b.1976) No One Writes Back (2009, English 2013) is a well-crafted and moving road novel that slowly reveals itself to be more than it initially seems."

Sold!

I especially appreciate the effort he makes to include writers outside of the mainstream. If a country has a lot of expat authors writing in English he makes sure to include some that have been translated from native languages. Women are woefully underrepresented in translations in general but he points out many, both those concentrating on the female experience and not. Most of the books are literary fiction but crime, mystery, science fiction, and other genres get some well-deserved love.

Orthofer hints at novels that aren't translated yet but may be in the future, combining hope and a plea to the universe to make the translation of such worthy fiction happen. And the reference section is a gold mine of websites and books about literature in translation. My feed reader became more interesting overnight.

The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction is an easy recommendation to anyone that's trying to diversify their reading. But I'd also recommend to people that are in a reading rut, have an interest in a particular part of the world, or simply want to try something different. Going on a trip to Spain? Want to read something from Brazil in time for the Olympics? Orthofer has you covered. This book instantly earned a spot on my reference shelf and I look forward to revisiting it in the years ahead.

Thanks to Columbia University Press and NetGalley for providing a review copy.

[Declan · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are few enough of us who could name a novelist from Djibouti or from The Faroe Islands or Mongolia, and very few who could name writers from all three, but M.A. Orthofer can, and does in this very useful book, along with mentioning many - though by no means all - of the best writers, from every area of the world, who have had their work translated into English. As such it is a great resource and anyone who peruses the book will find out about writers of whom they were hitherto unaware and, one hopes, will result in many of the novels mentioned being sought out and read. But the book, to be an essential guide to the literature of the world, should be at least twice its length. Too much of the book consists of rushed appearances by writers who deserve much greater consideration. The brevity of some entries means that at times we learn nothing: "The novels of Jabra I. Jabra are noteworthy."; Ludmila Ulitiskaya's fiction is worth a look." Of course there are longer entries too, but even here there is too often the feeling of dashing around a particularly well stocked library with someone quickly pulling out books, saying a few words about them and rushing on to the next stack. We're left too with the feeling that we've passed by some very important writers without a mention of their books. So, not a word about John Barth, Eimear McBride or Bogdan Suceavă, although, in fairness, it is remarkably comprehensive in the authors it does mention. The problem is that too often it seems to only be a mention. And of course we can read this book with M.A. Orthofer's invaluable website http://www.complete-review.com open beside us to read full-length reviews of many of the books mentioned. But I dislike this approach. I want to read a book as something integral within itself. If, as should be the case, new editions of this guide are published every two years, then I hope the next one will be much longer and include full reviews of, say, the 100 books the author considers to be the best and most important novels translated in the past 100 years, or some such arbitrary cut-off point.

This is a book that anyone with an interest in literature should have because there should be no boundaries in our reading and one of the most pleasing aspects of fiction is the way it eludes easy categorization, whether in stylistic, linguistic or geographical terms which is why Mr. Orthofer has to explain his methodology in deciding where an author such as Nabakov should be placed, given that "he wrote first in Russian while living in exile in Berlin and the in English after moving first to the United States and then to Switzerland." The result is that he is mentioned, by name only, in the section devoted to writers from Russia and again in the US section, under "Foreign-Born Writers" where only 'Lolita' is mentioned as "one of America's greatest novels."

The assessments of the books vary in quality and could have done with a little more vigour and wit. His judgement of Knausgaard's endless typing effort as being comparable to Proust is both a cliché and a nonsense. Proust wrote some of the best crafted sentences in all of literature. Can anyone find me such a really well written sentence in all of Knausgaard?

I may have been spoiled by the astounding comprehensiveness of The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings which used to be published every two years, but I think the subject of world fiction deserves the kind of detailed analysis Brian Morton and the much missed Richard Cook gave to their subject. The ninth edition, which came out just after Mr. Cook's death was 1,600 pages long!

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm sure lots of people have seen news stories etc about only 3% of books published in the US being in translation - as a relatively globally minded person I just assumed that I was better at reading global literature. So I was slightly horrified that of the ~1300 books I've 'read' on goodreads, as of the beginning of this year only ~65 were books in translation! I decided to fix that, and this World Fiction Review is an incredibly useful aid in my goal.

The short introduction gives a very good overview of the importance of reading globally, and some of the associated issues and problems. Then comes the guide, arranged by country & / or region. It's very concise, only two of three sentences per author, but still manages to weave together a narrative of an area's literature as a whole. It is, however, very dangerous for my to-read shelf, and my inner control freak who used to stop my to read list from growing above 50 is crying...

Many thanks to netgalley for the chance to read this.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I followed The Complete Review website, both the reviews and the daily Literary Saloon blog, for a considerable period before it dawned on me that it was the work of just one person. In part I was thrown off the scent by the use of the royal we (now mostly dropped), but mainly it just didn't occur to me that the most comprehensive coverage of translated fiction available on the web could be anything other than the work of a large dedicated team.

Albeit the idiosyncratic style and recurring obsessions ought to have been a clue. An announcement of another literary prize usually reads:

"The winner of the OldsponsorNewSponsor award has been announced (warning: dreaded PDF) but not yet at the official site as far as I can tell."

followed by perennial moans about
A) that they didn't list all of the eligible books
B) how prize money in the English speaking world are dwarfed by that for Spanish awards
C) that although the prize is for a book the press, and sometimes even official, coverage refers to the author as the winner.

Now, that one person, Michael Orthofer, has published this book. The Complete Review website gives its mission as a " selectively comprehensive, objectively opinionated survey of books old and new" and that would equally serve as a description for this book, which provides such a survey of world literature, grouped by country, albeit focused on contemporary literature, which he defines as post 1945.

Certainly the "opinionated" Orthofer doesn't pull his punches. Within the first two pages of the first section, much of French literature is dismissed as "wilfully experimental, passive and stolid" featuring "intellectual pretension", albeit these are mostly given as 2nd hand opinions of why US readers had lost interest in French literature, and Orthofer also notes that current French fiction in translation "now has a far greater range, much of it exciting and innovative, that these generalisations suggest."

And the coverage of the book indeed manages to be both impressively "comprehensive", and yet "selectively" so. For example, the history of 20th Japanese literature omits even a mention of Soseki Natsume and the Korean literature section omits the MBI winning Han Kang, or indeed any of her current peers, the two main contemporary authors mentioned Kim Young-ha and Shin Kyung-Sook being at the more popular end of the literary spectrum. (The 2016 BTBA winner Yuri Herrera is absent from the section on Mexico, albeit one may counterargue that his and Han Kang's work has yet to prove it can stand the test of time.)

Orthofer's personal tastes also mean a slightly out of place digression into crime fiction in most chapters.

The sections on UK and US literature are so brief (rightly) and so selective that one has as to question why they were even included, except perhaps to demonstrate how narrow and insular US literature is in particular when considered on a world scale, although oddly Orthofer insists the opposite. The US literary fiction sections is also unfortunately focused on male writers (85%) with Marilynne Robinson and Lydia Davis being obvious omissions.

But ultimately this is just nitpicking. Even a 483 page book has only finite space and even where I thought I was very familiar with the literature, e.g. Korean novels, I still came away with new insights and recommendations.

Orthofer sensibly focuses on works available to the English speaking reader - either in translation, or written in English and failing that books written by non-natives set in the country. Unfortunately, a fact he himself acknowledges and regrets, space and practical constraints prevent him from naming the translator.

But the weight Orthofer gives to each country is, correctly, not always proportional to the amount available to the English reader, meaning the reader is likely to gain far more added insight into say Ukrainian than into say Dutch literature.


And the reach is massive. Reading the European section I was feeling pleased that I had at least read one book from each of the different countries and languages concerned, even languages such as Estonian, that is until I got to the sections on Macedonian and Belarusan novels. And then came the incredible detail on different African literature.

Indeed the main practical issue with the book from the reader's perspective is that it is almost too comprehensive: one won't come away with a must-read list of 10 authors/books but rather a ought-to-read-one-day list of 100+. I suspect the author would regard this as dumbing down, but I could have done with ratings such as those used on his website (only a handful of books have ever attained the coveted A+) or a summary box with a "if you're going to read one book from this county" recommendation, whereas Orthofer instead uses his summary boxes to gives us even more "Keep in mind" authors to consider.

Overall, while not flawless, a magnificent achievement and the one must-buy recommendation I can pass on to anyone interest in world literature is "Buy this book!"

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Orthofer lives in New York currently and was founder in 1999 of the complete review, a website dedicated to reviews of recent literature from around the world. In 2002 Orthofer included a blog, The Literary Saloon, which carries news from interviews, reviews, and notes on awards, publication, items of interest from around the internet. Orthofer has been updating it nearly every day.

The reach of Orthofer’s interests is nothing short of astounding. In this compendium of contemporary world literature he tries to include short mention of the work of leading litterateurs around the world and includes dates of publication and translation when a work is mentioned. This is an indispensable guide for those interested in world literature for it introduces readers to new authors and commonalities among authors either in genre or style that allow us to find what suits our own voracious reading habits.

This work can be read for itself, but it is more likely to be used as a reference text for readers interested in contemporary world literature. It can be downloaded as an ebook or referenced from the hardcopy. Continents are broken into constituent parts and each countries’ authors are mentioned with reference to their major works. While I have always thought myself interested in “world literature,” the range of this work makes me realize how parochial my reading has been, mostly limited to the overseas imaginings of writers of English. I note a recent entry in The Literary Saloon claims there has been a huge outpouring of translations of contemporary Arabic literature, a trend surely long awaited.

North American literature is not included in this work because the author is pointing to the need for American readers to vary their diet and expand their horizons:

”Because American authors provide an enormous amount and variety of work, American readers are arguably spoiled for choice even without resorting to fiction from abroad…In almost every other country, foreign literature occupies a central and prominent position, but in the United States it seems to sit far more precariously on the fringes…foreign literature can offer entirely new dimension and perspectives…great literature knows no borders.

When I founded the Complete Review (complete-review.com) in 1999, one of my goals to to take advantage of the Internet’s tremendous reach and connectivity…Ironically, though, one of the shortcomings of this and most other Internet resources is its tremendous scope…[This book] provides an entry point and more general overview various nations’ literatures, as well as a foundation to help readers navigate what is available on the Internet.”
—from the Introduction

Orthofer has attempted something most of us might consider impossible, and he has done a convincing job of it. If it lacks anything, it is up to us to help straighten it out. I highly recommend everyone have a look at this book to see what you are missing. If it seems overwhelming, I sympathize. Imagine how Orthofer felt when he began.

[Akylina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very comprehensive and informative book which tackles translated fiction from all over the world. I especially enjoyed reading the introduction, in which the author addressed issues such as differences between translations of the same book, the place and importance of world literature nowadays, the domination of English-language fiction and people's attitudes towards translated fiction.

Coming from a country where translated fiction is much more dominant both in bookshops and in readers' preferences, I am more than used to being around and reading translated fiction. Of course, the book is written from an American's perspective, and since America produces so much fiction as a country it is rather logical for translated works of fiction to come second.

The book is divided among sections for each continent and their subsequent countries and the author refers to the most prominent authors and their works that have been translated into English. I really enjoyed taking notes of authors or books I would love to search and check out, though this practice has made my to-read list grow to even more insane lengths!

All in all, this was a great book about non-American fiction from all over the world. However, it is not a book one can read in a sitting or two, since it contains too much information to be absorbed in such a short period of time.

A copy was very kindly provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Paromjit · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent reference book that is meticulously researched. It provides an erudite and comprehensive guide to world literature. In my opinion, it should be a 'must have' requirement for all serious readers.

I have long had an interest in literature from around the globe but my approach has been ad hoc, helped by friends, my own efforts, browsing bookstores and libraries etc.. I can now point to a knowledgeable tool which can help all of us in a more systematic and well organised way. It is highly informative and hugely impressive. I cannot praise it enough. Many thanks to Columbia University, the publishers for a copy via netgalley.

[Caterina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Foreign fiction is gradually gaining more attention, especially among English speaking readers, which actually means that people is now more interested in getting to know other cultures and broaden their horizons. I happen to live in a country with a small local publishing market, so translated fiction has always been easy to find and in good translations most of the times. Many of the authors listed here were familiar to me, especially Europeans and Latin Americans. I then realized that I know nothing about African or Asian literature!

So, this volume is a great starting point if you want to explore new territories and familiarize yourself with new tendencies in world literature. It is a well-written reference book, where chapters are divided according to geographical regions/continents and there is always an introductory part for each country with references to political situations and also the most significant authors in the history of the said country, which is actually very helpful. The research is very thorough as it covers literally every nation. It even mentions books written in indigenous languages or dialects.

Many thanks to Columbia University Press and Netgalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I decided a couple of years ago it was time to broaden my reading horizons and seek out more authors outside my usual zone of UK and USA, I didn’t realise how tough it would be to find writers from certain countries. Many blog challenges that seemed promising initially turned out to simply list books set in the country not written by a native. Many websites didn’t distinguish between fiction and non fiction or just gave the author’s name but no indication of their style or genre. If it were not for one website – Complete Review – and a small number of bloggers who are passionate about reading books in translation, I would have struggled.

If only, I mused, there was a comprehensive reference guide to authors from different parts of the world. My life would be much easier.

A fairy godmother has now granted my wish in the form of The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction by Michael Orthofer. Orthofer is the founder, managing editor, and lead contributor to the Complete Review which operates as an aggregator site for reviews and book news. It pays particular attention to contemporary work in translation and original language from around the world.

Orthofer has now expanded that content to bring us in book format The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction, a superb resource for English language readers interested in fiction from around the world. The guide is divided into profiles by region and country each of which contains a commentary on literature from that part of the world and a multitude of author names to explore from 1945 to the present day. The Guide could easily just be page after page of lists but Orthofer avoids this with his short but insightful summaries about trends in each country.

How well does he have his finger on the pulse in each of these countries? I used the section on my home country of Wales as a test. Actually I was impressed to find there was a section on literature from Wales – we’re such a small nation that we usually get overlooked or lumped in with our big neighbour England. Orthofer accurately comments that government support for the Welsh language has led to a resurgence in Welsh language writing. He gives examples of both 20th century and contemporary Welsh language writers and those writing in English (Robin Llewelyn, John Williams for example) but it was odd not to find even a mention of people who I consider to be big names from the past like Jack Jones and Gwyn Thomas. Perhaps I’m setting the bar too high but I’d love to know what people from some of the countries he includes, think of his selection.

While the country profiles are a useful gateway into each location, the part of this book I enjoyed reading most was Orthofer’s introduction in which he analyses the current state of literature in translation and why so little of it exists. American and British publishers continue to show reluctance to invest in translated works, he notes. Even the university presses concentrate on very narrow slices of international literature. Despite the presence in the United States of so many foreign authors, most of them are unknown to American readers. When the American houses do go for a work in translation “… too often it is the second-rate works – the earnest prizewinning novels and imitative local thrillers – that make the cut and disappoint both readers (with their mediocre quality) and publishers (with their low sales).”

In Europe, Germany’s support for translated works has led to greater exposure for Scandinavian and eastern European countries while readers in France benefit from the more generous support given to translation in that country. Orthofer sees two glimmers of brightness however. One is that other countries, most notably India and southern Africa, have made a concerted effort to translate more works from their regional languages. The second is via the determined efforts of some small and nimble publishers determined to raise the profile of great writers from all parts of the world. As Orthofer says early on in his book: “Great literature and great books know no borders.”

[Shelleyrae at Book'd Out · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like to think I am an eclectic reader, I read widely across genres, a mix of fiction and non fiction, but the truth is I read very little other than English speaking writers from Australia, UK and America. It’s the primary reason I participate in at least one challenge each year that requires I read world fiction.

In an effort to expand my reading horizons, I was interested in browsing through this reference book.

A short introduction speaks to the traditional challenges that affect the publication of translated fiction. These include political, cultural and economic forces, however the phenomenon globalisation, the ubiquitous influence of the internet, and the resulting digital book market, is contributing to its accessibility.

Organised geographically, the Guide then identifies fiction from the mid 1950’s or so, providing brief descriptions about each regions noteworthy authors and their works that are available in English translation. A few titles might be familiar, but likely most will not.

For the curious reader looking to broaden their fiction experience The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction is an excellent resource, which can be supplemented and expanded upon by the authors website complete-review.com.

[Aloke]

Tyler Cowen recently interviewed Michael Orthofer. I enjoyed reading the transcript which you can read at this link as well as hearing the original conversation: https://medium.com/conversations-with...

I liked this quote for predictable reasons.

ORTHOFER: Underrated, I would absolutely think the regional language and literature of India. I think surprisingly, even though, perhaps, English is the main literary language of India and a great deal is locally translated, even there much of the vernacular literature still isn’t available in English.
What one can see of it and also in part hear about it — we’re missing an awful lot. There is a literary culture there, especially, for example, in Bengali, but we’ve had that since Tagore. One of the remarkable things is Tagore won his Nobel prize over a hundred years ago, and there are still novels by him which haven’t been translated into English. He is really a very good novelist.
It’s truly worthwhile, and this goes for many regions. The southern region of Kerala where they write in Malayalam — there’s remarkable literary production there, and we just see so little of it. Also, what is available, because a fair amount is — it tends to be underappreciated, especially in America and the United Kingdom. It hasn’t really reached these shores.

I will have to dig up some of the underrated (by me) books that I bought when I traveled to Kerala in 2002.

[Jackson Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael A. Orthofer is one of the most interesting voices in modern literary criticism. I have followed his website "the complete review" for many years, and through it I have been exposed to a wealth of quality literary fiction. One thing differentiating Orthofer from his peers, outside of his internet presence and meticulous cataloging, is his focus on international work in translation—and when I say international I truly mean international. The wealth of translated fiction comes from western Europe, and Orthofer is certainly no slouch in his analysis of literature from these regions, but I have seen few who are so willing to branch out and read authors from those languages that slip through the cracks, works from Africa, south Asia, and nations as small as the Faroe Islands.

This book serves as a compliment to the website and the website serves as a compliment to this book. The website is a continuously updated catalog of snapshots into the literary imagination that has ballooned into the thousands. It is something to sift through, looking for bits of gold. This book, on the other hand, is more of a direct survey by country of post-ww2 literature. It paints a more comprehensive picture, but a less detailed one. It's hard for me to imagine someone with an interest in the subject not coming away from this book with a few names to add to their list or a further appreciation for the creative potential of all the world's peoples.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent guide, and within five minutes of flipping through it, I started making a list of the ones I absolutely have to read now. The descriptions are brief and to the point, avoiding unnecessary waffle. They're grouped by ideas and schools of thought within geographic regions, rather than the arbitrariness of alphabetical ordering - it gives a much clearer picture of how the writers influenced each other. It also gives a really sound sense of how history from 1945 to present has affected fiction.

I received this from the author as an eARC, but as the format doesn't translate very well to kindle, and it's better suited to browsing/flipping through than reading from cover to cover, I would definitely buy this in hard copy and keep it handy. Boxall's 1001 books to read before you die is all well and good, but it doesn't come close to the depth and insight of the Complete Review guide.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

An introduction to… would be a better title.

[Pia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an amazing reference book. But even if I know it can't encompass each and every author, I found that some of my favorite authors were missing. I know this is subjective, but here I go, as I do want to mention some issues I found:

The galley needs serious editing as complete lines/paragraphs are missing or maybe the formatting went awry?

France: As far as I know, and I looked everywhere for information on this subject, Simone de Beauvoir was not married to JP Sartre. They did have an "open relationship", but the books states they were married.

Spain: Carmen Laforet does not appear and she is contemporary to Cela. Though she did write and publish very few books, she won the Nadal Prize in 1944 and is a very important author.

The Netherlands: Herman Koch merits only a few lines?

Iceland: I would have liked to see Audur Ava Olafsdottir mentioned.

Middle East: Rabih Alameddine not mentioned

India: I don't agree with the review that says that Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger: "The picture Adiga offers is often too muddled, and his epistolary approach seems pointless". Really? The book is based on the epistolary approach!

Japan: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami: "The very satisfying Norwegian Wood is a relatively conventional realist novel". Conventional? Anything but, IMHO.

Mexico: The novels of Jorge ibargüengoitia are worth reading? Understatement of the century. They are must reads!

And where is Octavio Paz? Mexico's Nobel prize for literature? I can't believe he's not included. Paz was not a fiction writer, but he merits being mentioned as an important poet.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not know that I could love a reference book as much as I love this one. I have spent hours in this book. For anyone who loves literature this is a treasure to have. It introduces English readers to works of Literature from all over the world that have been translated into English. Many women writers are included during times when they were not deemed important. Many different types of genres of included. This book is not a snob. In fact, this book is so inclusive making it somewhat overwhelming for a reviewer!

The book begins by dividing into geographical sections. Then those larger geographical sections are further divided into smaller regions. There you will find discussions of the region's works organized by the authors who are from there organized roughly in a chronological manner.

The book mentions the translations that stand out for certain reasons such as award winners, representations of a certain genre, or the beginning of a literary movement.

Because my copy is clearly not finished, I have to withhold the perfect 5. It is pricey, but there is a lot of great material here and information on diverse books that someone would otherwise never find out about! What a treasure!

A copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher and NetGalley and in no way affected my review.

[Lucy Pollard-Gott · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those of us attempting to cast a wider net in contemporary world fiction, The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction is no less than a godsend. I could not imagine designing a more useful reference tool for readers, bloggers, and reviewers wishing to discover authors of distinction from around the world. This book grew out of the Complete Review website, founded by M. A. Orthofer in 1999 to provide timely information on book reviews of international fiction, along with publishing and translation information for readers. This website is phenomenal, but I am delighted to have a guide in book form that digs deep into the literary scene for nearly all the countries of the world and offers a rich treasure trove of contemporary fiction to consider.

What is considered "contemporary"? The Guide focuses on fiction after 1945, but rest assurred, earlier fiction is discussed to provide context for the relevant country or national literature. A fascinating Introduction describes the selection process and some of the issues involved in classifying the works. The author has done internet detective work ever since founding the Complete Review website, trawling newspapers worldwide, online reviews and forums, and a host of professional websites, including publishers' foreign rights pages, international literary agencies, and national organizations that promote the exchange of book information and news about contemporary fiction. An extensive appendix of Supplemental Resources shares many of the available sources with the reader. The very scope of information available online, as the author notes, creates the need for an overview, country by country, as a helpful "entry point" for readers seeking to delve into a nation's literature.

Here are some of the considerations that went into making the Guide:

How to classify an author who has written in more than one language? Nabokov, for one, wrote in Russian and then in English, and this is not an uncommon situation because authors tend to move around both geographically and linguistically. Today, for example, Indian-American novelist Jhumpa Lahiri, has just relocated to Rome and made the transition from writing in English to writing exclusively in Italian, and one can anticipate future works of fiction in her new chosen language.
How to classify authors geographically when their country itself has undergone transitions? This comes into play in Europe in the comparatively recent reunification of Germany, and in the breakup of the Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia. The Guide gives separate consideration to contemporary fiction originating in the Federal Republic of Germany (West), the German Democratic Republic (East), and then a reunified Germany. In Central Africa, fiction produced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (known formerly as Belgian Congo and then Zaïre), in which the difficult political situation has largely inhibited any flourishing of book culture (with exceptions that are noted), is contrasted with that from Congo-Brazzaville (Republic of the Congo), which has produced several well-known writers. Although the guide is organized by continent and then by region, you will find detailed treatment down to individual countries, as they are currently constituted.
How to classify writers who have relocated in adulthood? This issue overlaps to some extent with the issue of language but also depends on the writer's predominant subject matter. Chinua Achebe moved between Nigeria and the United States, finally settling in the U.S. after 1990 to teach at Bard College. His novels are revelatory of Nigerian traditional life under the twin impacts of colonial rule and modernity, so they are classified in his native country.

Orthofer summarizes the guiding criteria for classification:

"In The Complete Review Guide, authors are assigned to specific locales according to--in order of significance--the language in which they write, their domicile (previous or original as well as current), the subject matter of their fiction, and their reputation." (p. 4)

Regardless of classification decisions, cross-cultural connections are carefully treated wherever an author and that author's works are discussed.

The problem for those of us who want to read international fiction (as Ann Morgan will attest from her year of reading the world) is finding good translations into the language one reads (English, in this case). Realistically, this is the only way most of us have access to some level of appreciation of an author's achievement and fictional worldview. This guide is "emphatically a reader's guide for an English-speaking audience." American publishers have been slower to introduce translated works, and the translation market has been dominated by fiction translated from French or Spanish, enjoying sustained interest in America, and a selection of Nobel laureates. This is changing gradually. The translation boom in European crime fiction, especially from Scandinavia, has meant that crime fiction has gotten special attention from translators across many languages, and this is reflected in the Guide, which often devotes a special section to crime fiction in a given country. Orthofer traces the recent history of globalization in literature and how it is affecting the translation and dissemination of fiction.

As a reader, I am most excited to ask, what's out there? And, how will I know where to begin? Fortunately, each country's entry includes a mini-overview of its most prominent authors, summary and evaluation of major works, and boxes of other notable writers to "keep in mind." Every title mentioned (always in English) has an original publication date and the translation date (if different). I will share a few random discoveries that caught my eye:

The greatest modern writer in Catalan is considered to be Mercè Rodoreda (1908-1983); her most important works are The Pigeon Girl (1962, English 1967) and A Broken Mirror (1974, English 2006). This is very typical of this guide--"Spanish" writers in Basque, Catalan, and Galician receive separate notice, in addition to Castilian writers.

Manuel Rivas (b. 1957) is the leading Galician writer (The Carpenter's Pencil, 1999; English 2001).

Heðin Brú (1901-1987) published an important novel in Faroese, the language of the Faroë Islands, in 1940. The English translation, The Old Man and His Sons, was published in 1970 and is readily available. Although most of the authors discussed in the chapter on Scandinavia were familiar to me, Heðin Brú was new; I already have my copy, ready to read on Kindle and include on my Northern Lights Reading Project.

Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872) wrote a Finnish classic, still important today, called Seven Brothers (1870, English 1929, 1991). This is a good example of the way the Guide anchors the overview for each country with key works that pre-date the main corpus of post-war fiction being catalogued.

Nervous Conditions (1988) by Tsitsi Dangarembga (b. 1959) is an autobiographical novel, and the first novel by a Zimbabwean woman.

The first novel from Malawi is No Easy Task (1966) by Aubrey Kachingwe (b. 1926).

Wizard of the Crow (2004-2006, English 2006) by Kenyan Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (b. 1938; also known as James Ngugi) is a satire set in a fictional African republic. This epic work has won numerous literary prizes.

Evening Is the Whole Day (2008) by Preeta Samarasan (b. 1976) is a popular family saga about Indians living in Malaysia.

Goh Poh Seng (1936-2010) wrote If We Dream Too Long (1972), deemed the first true Singaporean novel.

I invite you to explore The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction for yourself. It manages to include just the right amount of information about authors and their works to engage one's interest and lead to further exploration. One can only be grateful to the translators who undertook to share these works of international fiction with English-speaking readers, and I am surely grateful to M. A. Orthofer, for the dedication that it took to offer this comprehensive guide. Be sure to visit the Complete Review website as well to find links to full-length reviews of many titles. You are sure to find something amazing.

Note: I received an advance electronic copy of this book from NetGalley. Find the full review at The Fictional 100.

[David Gross · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm glad the Complete Review is doing its thing, but I didn't find this summary of its findings to be all that helpful. By attempting to have encyclopedic breadth but reasonable length, depth was sacrificed. I wanted to go to this book in order to find what other books to read next, but what am I supposed to do with descriptions like "Connie Palmen's (b. 1944) novels of relationships are worth reading" or "Elechi Amadi's (b. 1934) novels describe village life"? There's just not enough to go on in the descriptions of the works to know whether they're especially promising to me.

[Sasha]

lol who are we kidding I don't read books anymore

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Given the enormous amount of dedication and passion that clearly went into the making of this book, it feels churlish to point out that its coverage is a bit uneven, clearly dictated by Orthofer's own interests, but that is to be expected in any single-authored volume covering world literature.

I was surprised and pleased to find Orthofer does include not just capital-L Literary fiction but also much popular fiction, both mysteries/crime and romances. That is an area that I have not seen similar guides to world literature deign to notice. Orthofer does seem to cover the latter with a bit of disapproval—certainly he feels that there is more artistic quality and intellectual heft in mysteries.

Geographically, Europe and Africa are covered in much greater depth than the rest of the world, with certain nations in Asia receiving similar attention, but the continent as a whole coming in well behind, with Oceania and Latin America quite a bit further back, and the Caribbean and North America almost afterthoughts. (Latin America receives a chunk of pages, but they seem out of proportion to the vastness of literary production in the region.)

Orthofer also tends to recognize but hold experimental fiction at a slight distance—in fact, his treatment of it is quite parallel to his attitude toward proletarian or explicitly political fiction: he seems to find the tendentiousness or programmatic quality tedious. That is not an unusual opinion, but given the abundance of both modes of fiction, it does tend to make this guide more of a subjective canvass than an objective survey. Orthofer's preferred genre seems to be family sagas, something that builds off the nineteenth century bourgeois novel, with some more modernist creativity enlivening the stereotypical 19c traditions of a purely linear plot and third-person narration.

All in all, this is a marvelous education and a useful guide to rewarding reading. I am extremely grateful for it.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tyler Cowen said it best as always: " If you measure book quality by the actual marginal product of the text, this is one of the best books written, ever. Reading the manuscript in draft form induced me to order about forty items through Amazon... a comprehensive guide to what is valuable and interesting in recently translated world literature, a meta-book so to speak, with extensive coverage of most of the countries you might want." The interview with Orthofer remains one of the very best Conversations with Tyler.

Vastly superior to most current Twitter threads recommending books, with a vast number of much more interesting recommendations. Much of interest from Japan, India, France and more. Surprising to learn how many films of world cinema are based on books (A Royal Affair, Rashomon, City of God, etc). Of course there's no reason they shouldn't be.

Many excellent book recommendations here, a very enjoyable and opinionated read with excellent taste.

[Karen Carlson]

check out the website first.

[Juli Rahel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've got another interesting Columbia University Press read for you! One of the main reasons I started this blog was because I wanted to read more world fiction, open myself up to more translated works. But it can be quite hard to get a good look at international lit and especially to understand how literature has developed in different countries and in different languages. So when I saw Orthofer's The Complete Review Guide of Contemporary World Fiction up on Netgalley I knew that it might give me the answers I needed. I was also impressed with how long its title was. Thanks to Columbia University Press and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Complete Review Guide started as a website, which tries to bring the reader all the info and objective opinion they might need in regard to books both old and new. I'll solely be reviewing the book though, so hop by the website if you want to have a look.

As Orthofer says in his introduction, 'great literature and great books know no borders'. Or at least, it shouldn't. At the heart of The Complete Review Guide is international and translated fiction, the hundreds and thousands of books written and published all over the world. The main purpose of The Complete Review Guide is as a reference book, which means it's not exactly a cover-to-cover read. Rather, it is incredibly useful to dip into when either looking for information on a specific author or want a general idea of the development of literature in a specific region or country. One of the let downs of The Complete Review Guide, however, is that it focuses mainly on thrillers and mysteries, considerably neglecting genres such as Fantasy and Romance. Although it is understandable that you can't discuss every genre in a single book, it would have been good to see a bit more variation. I would say it is very important to read the Introduction, just to get a sense of what it is this book is trying to achieve. It also explains how The Complete Review Guide is split geographically, first into continents and then into smaller sections dedicated either to general areas or specific countries. Although Orthofer accepts it is difficult to tie a novel down to a specific region sometimes, but the categorisation he ends up with works for the reader.

At danger of sounding even nerdier than usual, the supplements to The Complete Review Guide were very useful, especially the second focusing on Supplemental Resources for those wanting to explore more translated and international fiction. If the book's purpose was to get readers interested in translated fiction, then I can say that The Complete Review Guide is a very successful book! It has taken up a solid spot on my bookshelf and I'm sure it will be frequently used in the near and far future.

The Complete Review Guide is an incredibly useful reference book for those who want to read internationally. The lay-out is clear, the writing is lucid and the book genuinely does cover the world.

For full review: http://universeinwords.blogspot.co.uk...

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent guide, and within five minutes of flipping through it, I started making a list of the ones I absolutely have to read now. The descriptions are brief and to the point, avoiding unnecessary waffle. They're grouped by ideas and schools of thought within geographic regions, rather than the arbitrariness of alphabetical ordering - it gives a much clearer picture of how the writers influenced each other. It also gives a really sound sense of how history from 1945 to present has affected fiction.

I received this from the author as an eARC, but as the format doesn't translate very well to kindle, and it's better suited to browsing/flipping through than reading from cover to cover, I would definitely buy this in hard copy and keep it handy. 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die is all well and good, but it doesn't come close to the depth and insight of the Complete Review guide.