BBC Culture apparently polled "several dozen book critics" in trying to determine "the greatest novels of the opening years of this tumultuous century"; alas the critics, notable though they might be in the English-speaking world, prove shockingly monoglot in their reading and opinions: not a one of what they rank as The 21st Century's 12 greatest novels was written in a foreign language -- which seems a rather unlikely conclusion to reach.
Apparently a few titles in translation (god forbid they'd even consider anything not yet translated into the be-all language that is English ...) did crack the top twenty: W.G.Sebald's Austerlitz at number 14, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante at 15, 2666 by Roberto Bolaño at 19 -- but on the whole this is a disappointingly provincial list.
Nevertheless, several of the top dozen are under review at the complete review:
Apparently a few titles in translation (god forbid they'd even consider anything not yet translated into the be-all language that is English ...) did crack the top twenty: W.G.Sebald's Austerlitz at number 14, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante at 15, 2666 by Roberto Bolaño at 19 -- but on the whole this is a disappointingly provincial list.
Nevertheless, several of the top dozen are under review at the complete review:
- 12. Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
- 9. Atonement, by Ian McEwan
- 5. The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen