The best novels of the 21st century. Century

The television series was the Genre of the 21st century. Century, one hears again and again, to help you solve the novel as a storytelling medium. If that's true, might show the future. While it is true that great TV-plenty of dividers to draw intellectually-oriented people in its spell, so reading time to eat. It is also true that books in large numbers bought to be discussed, read,. And that their quality has not decreased.

Therefore plenty of choice, who will select the best 20 of the still young century. To say restrictions is that the following selection is the first by a single reader (even if a lot of readers) that she is of course subjective and influenced by its location in Central Europe. A try it is well worth it. He also shows the way: The concept of Literature as a contemporary, open-minded reader is more open than in the past, he also includes All-Age literature, when it is good, and boundary phenomena to the field of journalism. Here are the Highlights of, chronologically, by year:

2001: "The corrections"
By Jonathan Franzen, USA – A Christmas dinner in the Mid-West to the all over the country and dispersed Lambert family is back together, but it reveals, instead, what are the centrifugal forces, they – and society – are drifting apart. At least the family of the novel is indestructible.

2002: atonement
By Ian McEwan, England – A little youth error with disastrous consequences, a debt which is not to atone with a life, with the literature as a fictional processing and last consolation. The best book of this prolific author.

2004: "On a slope"
By Markus Werner, Switzerland – A easy, and love live divorce lawyer and a hard-blooded, to the world of suffering and damning classicist deliver a duel. It's about the right to life and to a woman. Maybe it's the same? Markus Werner's last book. The obituary on Markus Werner.

may Be the last book and you should read twice: Markus Werner. Photo: Keystone

2005: "All we had to give"
By Kazuo Ishiguro, England – Nobel prize winner of the 2017 designs a radically inhumane world in which human clones raised for their organs, and to "donate" to the death. And the agree, because you can't imagine any other existence at all.
The portrait on the occasion of the Nobel prize.

2006: "The successor"
By Ismail Kadaré, Albania – There is, in spite of a South American dictator novels, a better book about the Paranoia, which creates absolute Power – in the case of the subjects, makes the Close, the commander-in-chief himself. Kadaré had with the Albanian dictator and his Entourage is the best illustrative material in front of eyes.

2006: "Everyone"
By Philip Roth, USA – "The age is a massacre" is the key phrase of the book. Roth's Hero to Everyone fights his last fight, not with death, but with his ability to bear it. A novel about the last things, the glossed over nothing. The obituary on the author.

2006: "The cloud Atlas"
By David Mitchell, England – Six novels in one, six stories over several centuries, from the voyage of discovery to the Science-Fiction Story, all linked to each other and with the pessimistic conclusion of the history of civilization: "The Weak are the meat the Strong is a good guess." In a conversation with the writer.

2007 (since 1998): "Harry Potter"
By J. K. Rowling, England – made The seven-volume Saga about the magic of students with the jagged scar has millions of children are readers. Educational vultures will get their money; the author recycled myths and motifs of world literature. The world she has created, is an indispensable part of our.

The first volume of its world-famous magic Saga, you wrote in the Café: Joanne K. Rowling. Photo: Dan Hallman / Invision / AP

2007: "Pandora in the Congo"
By Albert Sánchez Piñol, Spain – A great brazen pastry piece, a cake with the layers of adventure, Popular fiction, historical novel about colonialism and slavery, a philosophical meditation on the banality of Evil, to Fantasy and post-modern. Also from small regions, like here in Catalonia, comes from the world of literature.

2008: "The tower"
By Uwe Tellkamp, Germany – 1000 pages over the last twitches of the GDR, seen from one of Dresdens most beautiful quarters, in the formation of citizens ' chamber play music, to displace the sadness of the dying system. Tellkamp is a chronicler, Summoner and enchanter. A Poet on the long-haul. To The Meeting.

2009: "A woman flees from a message"
By David Grossman, Israel – your son is called to a dangerous military operation, the mother makes a trek through the North of Israel, and through the past. The novel conjures up all the forces that can create the destruction. This literature is one of them. In a conversation with the author.

2010: "Tschick"
By Wolfgang Herrndorf, Germany – A Huckleberry Finn for our time: Two half-grown burning with an old Lada and drive due East German landscapes, as it is the Wild West. The outlier history, Film, school, favorite book, classic.
To discuss the film adaptation.

2010: "Museum of forgotten secrets"
Oksana Sabuschko, Ukraine – The collapse of the Eastern bloc and its repressive regime led to a special flowering of literature that is still. Authors such as Sabuschko fill the blank of the historiography. Their anger and Pathos run Hand – and the desire to finally be able to Express everything. For Criticism.

2013: "Thrift-time"
By Svetlana Alexievich, Belarus – your life's work is the "homo sovieticus" and its through the System, and deformed personality. In all kinds of specimens, it appears, told, and the author writes. This is journalism and literature at the same time, awarded the Nobel prize in 2015.
To the Essay by the author.

The Chronicler of the Soviet Union and its successor States: Svetlana Alexievich. Photo:

2014: "The Circle"
By Dave Eggers, USA – Great literature this is not, this is due to the narrow perspective of the Narrator, which rises in the happiness, for the world digital group-non-controlling interests to be allowed to work. But "The Circle" might be the relevant dystopia of our time: a Voluntary task. To The Meeting.

2015: "Lenin's kisses"
By Yan Lianke, China – Lenin's corpse is to provide a remote province of city's millions of tourists and party bureaucrats, fame, and advancement. A biting Satire on the absurdities of the current capitalist-Communist China and a shudder look back to the atrocities of the past. For Criticism.

In China topped the prices at which, time banned: Yan Lianke. Photo: John Phillips ()

2016-2018: "My brilliant friend"
By Elena Ferrante, Italy – Four volumes long, following the author, which protects your Pseudonym consistently, the Friends Lila and Elena through five decades of Italian history. Psychologically refined, socially broad-based, stylistically brilliant: challenging literature with bestseller qualities.
To the meeting.

2017: "power"
By Jonas Lüscher, Switzerland – the Old sceptical Europe meets optimistic, optimization, addicted America, in the middle of a German Professor in a financial and life crisis. He fails on a philosophical question, but even more to his self-centeredness. A complex book for smart people.
To the meeting.

2018: "the memory of a girl"
By Annie Ernaux, France – #MeToo, a totally different view: The grande dame of French literature displays back to the 18-year-olds, experienced in a holiday camp her "first Time". Almost scary, how she mediates between two Selves and how the way a social history of the last few decades, writes. To The Meeting.

2019: "The Jakob books"
By Olga Tokarczuk, Poland – A strange sacred roams the Judeo-Christian colorful speckled Poland of the 18th century. Century, passes through Istanbul to the Hessian Offenbach. The magnum Opus of the current Nobel prize winner, in historic robe, a plea for diversity and against dogmatism.

Received retroactively for 2018, the Nobel prize for literature: Olga Tokarczuk. Photo: Keystone.

What novels would you have taken on such a list? Below, in the comment column, you can join the discussion.

Here you will find all of our Top 20

Created: 02.12.2019, 13:35 PM