20th century in literature

See also: 20th century in poetry, 19th century in literature, other events of the 20th century, 21st century in literature, list of years in literature.

Literature of the 20th century refers to world literature produced during the 20th century. The range of years is, for the purpose of this article, literature written from (roughly) 1900 through the 1990s.

In terms of the Euro-American tradition, the main periods are captured in the bipartite division, Modernist literature and Postmodern literature, flowering from roughly 1900 to 1940 and 1960 to 1990 respectively, divided, as a rule of thumb, by World War II. The somewhat malleable term of contemporary literature is usually applied with a post-1960  cutoff point.

Although these terms (modern, contemporary and postmodern) are most applicable to Western literary history, the rise of globalization has allowed European literary ideas to spread into non-Western cultures fairly rapidly, so that Asian and African literatures can be included into these divisions with only minor qualifications. And in some ways, such as in Postcolonial literature, writers from non-Western cultures were on the forefront of literary development.

Technological advances during the 20th century allowed cheaper production of books, resulting in a significant rise in production of popular literature and trivial literature, comparable to the development in music. The division of "popular literature" and "high literature" in the 20th century is by no means absolute, and various genres such as detectives or science fiction fluctuate between the two. For the most part of the century mostly ignored by mainstream literary criticism, these genres develop their own establishments and critical awards, such as the Nebula Award (since 1965), the British Fantasy Award (since 1971) or the Mythopoeic Awards (since 1971).

Towards the end of the century, electronic literature develops as a genre due to the development of hypertext and later the world wide web.

The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded annually throughout the century (with the exception of 1914, 1918, 1935 and 1940–1943), the first laureate (1901) being Sully Prudhomme. The New York Times Best Seller list has been published since 1942.

The best-selling works of the 20th century are estimated to be Quotations from Chairman Mao (1966, 900 million copies), Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997, 120 million copies), And Then There Were None (1939, 115 million copies) and The Lord of the Rings (1954/55, 100 million copies). The Lord of the Rings was also voted "book of the century" in various surveys. Perry Rhodan (1961 to present) boasts as being the best-selling book series, with an estimated total of 1 billion copies sold.

1900-1918
The Fin de siècle movement of the Belle Époque persisted into the 20th century, but was brutally cut short with the outbreak of World War I (an effect depicted e.g. in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, published 1924). The Dada movement of 1916-1920 was at least in part a protest against the bourgeois nationalist and colonialist interests which many Dadaists believed were the root cause of the war; the movement heralded the Surrealism movement of the 1920s.

1900 Genre fiction
 * Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (Poland, England)
 * The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (USA)

1901 ''Genre fiction
 * Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann (Germany)
 * The Inheritors by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford (Germany, England)
 * Kim by Rudyard Kipling (India, England)
 * The Purple Cloud by M. P. Shiel (Montserrat, England)
 * The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells (England)

1902 ''Genre fiction ''Plays
 * Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
 * The Immoralist by André Gide (France)
 * The Wings of the Dove by Henry James (USA, England)
 * The Grand Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett (England)
 * The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (Scotland)
 * Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
 * Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw (Ireland)

1903 ''Genre fiction
 * Romance by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford
 * The Ambassadors by Henry James
 * The Pit by Frank Norris (USA)
 * In Wonderland by Knut Hamsun (Norway)
 * The Call of the Wild by Jack London (USA)
 * The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers (England, Ireland)

1904 ''Genre fiction ''Plays
 * The Golden Bowl by Henry James
 * Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
 * The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton (England)
 * The Food of the Gods by H. G. Wells
 * The Sea Wolf by Jack London
 * Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson (Argentina, England)
 * John Bull's Other Island by George Bernard Shaw

1905
 * Hadrian VII by Frederick Rolfe aka Baron Corvo (England, Italy)
 * Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster (England)
 * Kipps by H. G. Wells
 * The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (USA)
 * The Club of Queer Trades by G. K. Chesterton

1906 ''Genre fiction ''Plays
 * The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (USA)
 * The Confusions of Young Torless by Robert Musil (Austria)
 * Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling
 * Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by J. M. Barrie (Scotland)
 * Time and the Gods by Lord Dunsany (Ireland, England)
 * White Fang by Jack London
 * The Aran Islands by John Millington Synge (Ireland)

1907 ''Genre fiction ''Plays ''Poetry
 * The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
 * The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster
 * The Listener and Other Stories by Algernon Blackwood (England) - contains The Willows, one of the first 'cosmic horror' stories
 * The Hill of Dreams by Arthur Machen (England)
 * Playboy of the Western World by John Millington Synge
 * Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc (France, England)

1908 ''Genre fiction ''Poetry
 * The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
 * A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
 * The Iron Heel by Jack London
 * Hell by Henri Barbusse (France, Russia)
 * The Magician by Somerset Maugham (England, France) - based on the author's meeting with Aleister Crowley
 * The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (England)
 * Personae by Ezra Pound (USA, England, Italy) - one of the first examples of 'modernist' poetry

1909 ''Poetry ''Plays
 * Martin Eden by Jack London
 * Tono-Bungay by H. G. Wells
 * Three Lives by Gertrude Stein (USA, France)
 * Exultations by Ezra Pound
 * Poems by William Carlos Williams (USA)
 * The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck (Belgium)

1910
 * Howard's End by E. M. Forster
 * The Card by Arnold Bennett
 * The History of Mr. Polly by H. G. Wells

1911
 * Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm (England)
 * In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield (England) - short stories
 * Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad
 * The White Peacock by D. H. Lawrence (England)
 * Jennie Gerhardt by Theodore Dreiser (USA)

1912 ''Genre fiction ''Plays
 * Petersburg by Andrei Bely (Russia)
 * The Trespasser by D. H. Lawrence
 * Death In Venice by Thomas Mann (Germany)
 * Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey (USA)
 * The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
 * Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs (USA)
 * Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

1913 ''Genre fiction ''Poetry
 * Swann's Way by Marcel Proust (France)
 * Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier (France)
 * Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
 * Chance by Joseph Conrad
 * A Prisoner in Fairyland by Algernon Blackwood - adapted into a play, it later became the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Starlight Express
 * The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu by 'Sax Rohmer' (England)
 * Alcools by Guillaume Apollinaire (Poland, France) - dada poems
 * Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore

1914 ''Poetry
 * Dubliners by James Joyce (Ireland, France, Italy) - short stories
 * The Prussian Officer by D. H. Lawrence - short stories
 * The Vatican Cellars by André Gide
 * Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein
 * The Golem by Gustav Meyrink (Czechoslovakia)
 * Maurice by E. M. Forster - unpublished
 * Sinister Street by Compton MacKenzie (Scotland, Greece)
 * The Flying Inn by G. K. Chesterton
 * North of Boston by Robert Frost (USA)

1915 ''Genre fiction
 * The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
 * The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence
 * The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (Czechoslovakia)
 * Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham
 * Victory by Joseph Conrad
 * The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf (England)
 * Vainglory by Ronald Firbank (England)
 * Rashōmon by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
 * The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (Scotland, Canada)

1916 ''Genre fiction ''Plays ''Poetry
 * A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
 * Women In Love by D. H. Lawrence - initially banned, published in 1920
 * Greenmantle by John Buchan
 * Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
 * Salt-Water Poems and Ballads by John Masefield (England)
 * Mountain Interval by Robert Frost

1917 ''Poetry
 * Under Fire by Henri Barbusse (France, Russia)
 * Walpurgis Night by Gustav Meyrink
 * Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun
 * The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad
 * Caprice by Ronald Firbank
 * Dulce et Decorum Est and Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen (England) - published posthumously
 * Prufrock and Other Observations by T. S. Eliot (USA, England)

1918 ''Poetry ''Non-fiction
 * Tarr by Wyndham Lewis (Canada, England)
 * Man of Straw by Heinrich Mann (Germany)
 * Calligrammes by Guillaume Apollinaire - dada poetry
 * Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey (England)

Interwar period
The 1920s were a period of literary creativity, and works of several notable authors appeared during the period. D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover was a scandal at the time because of its explicit descriptions of sex.

1919 ''Genre fiction
 * Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust
 * Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
 * Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson (USA) - the first 'lost generation' novel
 * Valmouth by Ronald Firbank
 * Bazaar-e-Husn by Premchand (publ. in Hindi as Seva-sadan)
 * Dope by Sax Rohmer - inspired by the true story of Limehouse dope-dealer Brilliant Chang
 * Dope Darling by Leda Burke (David Garnett) (England)

1920 ''Plays
 * We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (Czechoslovakia)
 * Limbo by Aldous Huxley (England) - short stories
 * The Lost Girl by D. H. Lawrence
 * This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (USA)
 * The London Venture by Michael Arlen (Armenia, England)
 * Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger (Germany)
 * Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay (Scotland)
 * Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (USA)
 * The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (USA)
 * Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello (Italy)
 * Beyond the Horizon and Anna Christie by Eugene O'Neill - Pulitzer prize winner

1921 ''Plays
 * The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust
 * Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley
 * England, My England and Other Stories by D. H. Lawrence - short stories
 * The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (England) - pentology, first volume published in 1906
 * My Life and Loves by Frank Harris (England, USA) - four volumes of quasi-factual sex gossip, the fifth completed by Alex Trocchi
 * Back to Methuselah by George Bernard Shaw
 * R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Čapek - from which the term 'robot' was coined

1922 ''Poetry
 * Ulysses by James Joyce
 * Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
 * Sodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust
 * The Enormous Room by E. E. Cummings (USA)
 * Futility by William Gerhardie (Russia, England)
 * The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
 * Mortal Coils by Aldous Huxley - short stories
 * Aaron's Rod by D. H. Lawrence
 * The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield - short stories
 * Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (Germany, Switzerland)
 * Peter Whiffle by Carl Van Vechten (USA)
 * Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
 * Lady into Fox by David Garnett
 * The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot

1923 ''Plays ''Poetry
 * Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo (Italy)
 * The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek (Czechoslovakia)
 * The Captive by Marcel Proust
 * Kangaroo by D. H. Lawrence
 * Antic Hay by Aldous Huxley
 * Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos (USA)
 * The Great American Novel by William Carlos Williams
 * The Devil in the Flesh by Raymond Radiguet (France)
 * Aelita by Alexey Tolstoy (Russia)
 * The Shadow of a Gunman by Sean O'Casey (Ireland)
 * New Hampshire by Robert Frost

1924 ''Genre fiction ''Plays
 * The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (Germany)
 * In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway (USA) - short stories
 * Passage to India by E. M. Forster
 * Little Mexican by Aldous Huxley - short stories
 * The Fox and The Captain's Doll by D. H. Lawrence - short stories
 * The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (England)
 * Juno and the Paycock by Sean O'Casey
 * The Vortex by Noel Coward (England)

1925 ''Genre fiction ''Poetry ''Non-fiction
 * Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
 * The Trial by Franz Kafka (Czechoslovakia) - posthumous, first English translation in 1930
 * The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - often described as the epitome of the "Jazz Age" in American literature
 * The Green Hat by Michael Arlen - perhaps the epitome of the jazz age in British literature
 * Paris Peasant by Louis Aragon (France)
 * Albertine disparue by Marcel Proust
 * Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
 * In the American Grain by William Carlos Williams
 * The Desert of Love by François Mauriac (France)
 * Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos (USA)
 * Those Barren Leaves by Aldous Huxley
 * St Mawr by D. H. Lawrence - short stories
 * The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein
 * Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov (Russia)
 * Beau Geste by P. C. Wren (England)
 * The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot
 * The Old Straight Track by Alfred Watkins (England) - introducing ley lines

1926 ''Genre fiction ''Poetry ''Plays ''Non-fiction
 * The Castle by Franz Kafka - posthumous, first English translation in 1932
 * The Counterfeiters by André Gide
 * The Sun Also Rises aka Fiesta by Ernest Hemingway
 * Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars (France)
 * Nigger Heaven by Carl Van Vechten
 * Two or Three Graces by Aldous Huxley - short stories
 * The Plumed Serpent by D. H. Lawrence
 * Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne (England)
 * A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle by 'Hugh MacDiarmid' (Scotland)
 * The Plough and the Stars by Sean O'Casey
 * The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence (England, Arabia)

1927 ''Plays
 * To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
 * Time Regained by Marcel Proust
 * Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
 * Men Without Women by Ernest Hemingway - short stories
 * Vestal Fire by Compton MacKenzie
 * Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann (England)
 * Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis
 * The Rocking Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence - short stories
 * The Silver Tassie by Sean O'Casey

1928 ''Plays ''Non-fiction
 * Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Doblin (Germany)
 * Nadja by André Breton (France)
 * Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille (France)
 * Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford - war tetralogy, first volume in 1926
 * Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley
 * Lady Chatterly's Lover by D. H. Lawrence - banned until 1963
 * Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh (England)
 * Amerika by Franz Kafka - posthumous, first English translation in 1938
 * Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill (USA) - Pulitzer prize winner
 * All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (Germany) - recounts the horrors of World War I and also the deep detachment from German civilian life felt by many men returning from the front

1929 ''Non-fiction ''Genre fiction
 * Les Enfants Terribles by Jean Cocteau (France)
 * A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
 * Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe
 * Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington (England)
 * The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (USA)
 * Mario and the Magician by Thomas Mann
 * The Escaped Cock by D. H. Lawrence
 * The Defence by Vladimir Nabokov (Russia, France)
 * The Good Companions by J. B. Priestley (England)
 * Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (UK)
 * A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
 * Red Harvest by Dashiel Hammett (USA) - the first hard-boiled American detective novel

1930 ''Genre fiction ''Poetry ''Plays ''Genre fiction ''Non-fiction
 * Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
 * The Apes of God by Wyndham Lewis
 * Brief Candles by Aldous Huxley - short stories
 * As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
 * Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
 * Angel Pavement by J. B. Priestley
 * The Virgin and the Gypsy and Love Among the Haystacks by D. H. Lawrence - short stories
 * Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon (England)
 * Whoroscope by Samuel Beckett (Ireland, France)
 * Private Lives by Noel Coward
 * The Maltese Falcon by Dashiel Hammett (USA)
 * Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon (England) - 2 volumes, 1st in 1929

1931 ''Genre fiction ''Plays ''Non-fiction
 * The Waves by Virginia Woolf
 * Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (France)
 * The Glass Key by Dashiel Hammett
 * Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O'Neill
 * Cavalcade by Noel Coward
 * Axel's Castle by Edmund Wilson (USA)
 * Music at Night by Aldous Huxley

1932 ''Poetry
 * Journey to the End of Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine (France)
 * Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
 * The Memorial by Christopher Isherwood (England)
 * Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov (Russia, France)
 * Light In August by William Faulkner
 * Stamboul Train by Graham Greene (England)
 * Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh
 * Radetzky March by Joseph Roth (Austria)
 * Jew Boy by Simon Blumenfeld (England)
 * The Orators by W. H. Auden (England)

1933 ''Genre fiction ''Non-fiction
 * Man's Fate by André Malraux (France)
 * Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood (England)
 * Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West (USA)
 * The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
 * Lost Horizon by James Hilton (England)
 * Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers (England)
 * Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell (England)
 * Texts and Pretexts by Aldous Huxley
 * In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

1934 ''Genre fiction ''Poetry ''Non-fiction
 * Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (USA) - a groundbreaking obscenity case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1961 allowed its publication there
 * Call It Sleep by Henry Roth (Austria, USA)
 * Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
 * Threepenny Novel by Bertoldt Brecht (Germany)
 * Despair by Vladimir Nabokov
 * It's a Battlefield by Graham Greene
 * A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
 * 20,000 Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton (England)
 * Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys (Dominica, France, England)
 * Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara (USA)
 * A Scots Quair by Lewis Grassic Gibbon (Scotland) - trilogy, first volume published in 1932
 * The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain (USA)
 * Novel with Cocaine aka Cocain Romance by M. Ageyev (Russia)
 * 18 Poems by Dylan Thomas (Wales)
 * Burmese Days by George Orwell
 * Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway

1935 ''Genre fiction ''Poetry ''Plays
 * Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood
 * Eyeless in Gaza by Aldous Huxley
 * Auto da Fe by Elias Canetti (Bulgaria, Germany)
 * A Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell
 * England Made Me by Graham Greene
 * A House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen (Ireland)
 * Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck (USA)
 * Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell (USA) - trilogy, first volume published in 1932
 * Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (USA)
 * Collected Poems by Cecil Day-Lewis (Northern Ireland)
 * Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets (USA)

1936 ''Genre fiction
 * Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
 * Black Spring by Henry Miller
 * U.S.A. by John Dos Passos
 * Mephisto by Klaus Mann (Germany, USA)
 * Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
 * Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
 * Confessions of a Murderer by Joseph Roth
 * Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov
 * The Wessex Novels by John Cowper Powys (England) - tetrology, 1st vol published in 1927
 * Godaan by Premchand
 * Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier (England)
 * Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (USA)
 * A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene

1937 ''Genre fiction ''Non-fiction
 * To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
 * The Years by Virginia Woolf
 * Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
 * Lions and Shadows by Christopher Isherwood
 * The Black Book by Lawrence Durrell (UK, Egypt)
 * Revenge for Love by Wyndham Lewis
 * White Mule by William Carlos Williams
 * Wide Boys Never Work by Robert Westerby (England, USA)
 * Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
 * Night and the City by Gerald Kersh (England, USA)
 * The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor by Cameron McCabe (Ernest Borneman) (Germany, England)
 * The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien (England)
 * The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell
 * How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn (Wales)

1938 ''Genre fiction ''Non-fiction
 * Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre (France)
 * Murphy by Samuel Beckett
 * Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller
 * Man's Hope by André Malraux
 * The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
 * Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
 * Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
 * The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov
 * Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
 * Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
 * Journey to a War by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood
 * Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
 * Enemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly (England)

1939 ''Genre fiction ''Poetry ''Plays
 * The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
 * Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
 * At Swim-Two-Birds by Flan O'Brien (Ireland)
 * Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
 * After Many a Summer by Aldous Huxley
 * Coming Up for Air by George Orwell
 * On the Marble Cliffs by Ernst Junger
 * Good Morning Midnight by Jean Rhys
 * The Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West
 * Legend of the Holy Drinker by Joseph Roth
 * Lotte in Weimar by Thomas Mann
 * The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene
 * Mister Johnson by Joyce Cary (Ireland)
 * Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
 * Pal Joey by John O'Hara
 * The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (USA)
 * Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household (England)
 * The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
 * And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
 * Autumn Journal by Louis MacNeice (N Ireland)
 * The Map of Love by Dylan Thomas
 * This Happy Breed by Noel Coward

World War II
1940 ''Genre fiction ''Plays ''Non-fiction
 * Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler (Hungary, England)
 * The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - published in English 1966
 * For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
 * The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
 * Native Son by Richard Wright (USA, France)
 * The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (USA)
 * Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan Thomas
 * You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe
 * The Quiet Don by Mikhail Sholokhov (Russia) - two volumes, first published in 1934
 * Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler (England)
 * Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
 * The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill
 * To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson

1941 ''Genre fiction Non-fiction
 * Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
 * Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers
 * The Third Policeman by Flan O'Brien
 * Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain
 * Grey Eminence by Aldous Huxley

1942 ''Plays
 * The Stranger by Albert Camus (Algeria, France)
 * Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet (France)
 * Flight to Arras by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
 * The Flies by Jean-Paul Sartre

1943 ''Genre fiction ''Poetry Non-fiction
 * Arrival and Departure by Arthur Koestler
 * The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene
 * The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil (Austria) - trilogy, first volume published 1930
 * Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
 * The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (France)
 * Selected Poems by Keith Douglas (England)
 * Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre
 * The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

1944 Plays
 * The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary
 * Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina) - short stories
 * The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham
 * Time Must Have a Stop by Aldous Huxley
 * The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (USA)

1945 Genre fiction
 * Animal Farm by George Orwell
 * Watt by Samuel Beckett - published in 1953
 * Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
 * Black Boy by Richard Wright
 * Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson (England) - trilogy, first volume in 1939
 * If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes (USA, France)
 * The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis (N Ireland) - first volume published in 1938

1946 Poetry Plays Non-fiction
 * Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (South Africa)
 * The Miracle of the Rose by Jean Genet
 * Froth on the Daydream by Boris Vian (France)
 * The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
 * Deaths and Entrances by Dylan Thomas
 * The Winslow Boy by Terence Rattigan (England)
 * Alamein to Zem Zem by Keith Douglas
 * Memoirs of Hecate County by Edmund Wilson

1947 Plays Non-fiction
 * The Plague by Albert Camus
 * Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry (England, Canada)
 * Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov
 * The Victim by Saul Bellow (Canada, USA)
 * The Conformist by Alberto Moravia (Italy)
 * The Middle of the Journey by Lionel Trilling (USA)
 * Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton
 * Of Love and Hunger by Julian MacLaren-Ross (England)
 * Funeral Rites by Jean Genet
 * Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
 * A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
 * Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (Netherlands)

1948 Genre fiction Plays Non-fiction
 * The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer (USA)
 * Confessions of a Mask by 'Yukio Mishima' (Japan)
 * The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
 * The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal (USA)
 * Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley
 * Querelle of Brest by Jean Genet
 * No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase (England)
 * The Browning Version by Terence Rattigan
 * The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (France — early feminist study

1949 Genre fiction Plays
 * Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
 * Roads to Freedom by Jean-Paul Sartre - trilogy, first volume published 1945
 * The Thief's Journal by Jean Genet
 * The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren (USA)
 * The Train Was on Time by Heinrich Böll (Germany)
 * The Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges
 * The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier (Mexico)
 * The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
 * The Trouble with Harry by Jack Trevor Story (England)
 * The Mating Season by PG Wodehouse
 * Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (USA)

Postwar period
The intermediate postwar period separating "Modernism" from "Postmodernism" (1950s literature) is the floruit of the beat generation and the classical science fiction of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Robert A. Heinlein.

1950 Genre fiction Non-fiction
 * Scenes from Provincial Life by William Cooper (England) - the first of the British 50s 'kitchen sink' novels
 * A Town Called Alice by Nevil Shute (England, Australia)
 * Strangers On a Train by Patricia Highsmith (USA)
 * The Authoritarian Personality by Theodor Adorno (Germany, USA)

1951 Non-fiction
 * The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (USA)
 * The Grass Harp by Truman Capote (USA)
 * Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar (France)
 * The Rebel by Albert Camus

1952 Genre fiction Plays
 * Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (USA)
 * Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor (USA)
 * Go by John Clellon Holmes (USA) - the first Beat novel
 * The Natural by Bernard Malamud (USA)
 * The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
 * The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham (England)
 * The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson (USA)
 * The Chairs by Eugène Ionesco (Romania, France)

1953 Genre fiction Plays
 * Junkie and Queer by William S. Burroughs (USA)
 * Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin (USA, France)
 * The Outsider by Richard Wright
 * The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
 * Hurry on Down by John Wain (England) - the first 'angry young man' novel
 * Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (England, Jamaica) - first James Bond novel
 * The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
 * Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke (England, Sri Lanka)
 * Foundation by Isaac Asimov (USA) - trilogy, first volume published in 1951
 * Prelude to a Certain Midnight by Gerald Kersh
 * Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

1954 Genre fiction Plays Non-fiction
 * Lord of the Flies by William Golding (England)
 * Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (England) - the most famous 'angry young man' novel
 * Under the Net by Iris Murdoch (England)
 * Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan (France)
 * Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (USA)
 * Story of O by Pauline Réage (France)
 * Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas
 * The Quare Fellow by Brendan Behan (Ireland)
 * The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley

1955 Genre fiction Plays Poetry
 * Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
 * One by David Karp (USA)
 * The Quiet American by Graham Greene
 * The Bread of Those Early Years by Heinrich Böll
 * The Tree of Man by Patrick White (Australia)
 * The Inheritors by William Golding
 * The Voyeur by Alain Robbe-Grillet (France)
 * The Genius and the Goddess by Aldous Huxley
 * The Deer Park by Norman Mailer
 * The Recognitions by William Gaddis (USA)
 * Memed, My Hawk by Yaşar Kemal (Turkey)
 * The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, first volume in 1954
 * The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
 * Cat On a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams
 * Bus Stop by William Inge (USA)
 * The Less Deceived by Philip Larkin (England)

1956 ''Genre fiction Plays Poetry Non-fiction
 * The Fall by Albert Camus
 * Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
 * The Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvon (Trinidad, England)
 * A Walk on the Wild Side by Nelson Algren
 * The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (N Ireland) - seven volumes, first in 1950
 * Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
 * Look Back In Anger by John Osborne (England) - the first 'angry young man' play
 * Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg (USA)
 * Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley

1957 Genre fiction Plays Non-fiction
 * On the Road by Jack Kerouac (Canada, USA)
 * Young Adam by Alexander Trocchi (Scotland)
 * Room at the Top by John Braine (England)
 * Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (Russia)
 * Voss by Patrick White
 * The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
 * Second Thoughts by Michel Butor (France)
 * Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
 * Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt)
 * Gimpel the Fool by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Poland, USA) - short stories, originally published in Yiddish years earlier
 * On the Beach by Nevil Shute
 * The Room and The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter (England)
 * Endgame by Samuel Beckett
 * The Entertainer by John Osborne
 * Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams
 * The Visit by Friedrich Dürrenmatt (Switzerland)
 * Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (USA)

1958 Genre fiction Plays Non-fiction
 * If This Is a Man by Primo Levi (Italy)
 * Breakfast At Tiffany's by Truman Capote
 * The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
 * Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe (England)
 * A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney (England)
 * Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
 * The Bell by Iris Murdoch
 * Fowlers End by Gerald Kersh
 * Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
 * Candy by Terry Southern (USA)
 * Exodus by Leon Uris (USA)
 * Zimiamvian Trilogy by E. R. Eddison (England) - first volume in 1935
 * Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans (England) and Ronald Searle (England, France) - tetrology, first book in 1954
 * Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett
 * Suddenly, Last Summer by Tennessee Williams
 * The Theatre and Its Double by Antonin Artaud (France)
 * Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan

1959 ''Genre fiction ''Plays
 * The Tin Drum by Günter Grass (Germany)
 * Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
 * The Last of the Just by André Schwarz-Bart (France)
 * Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth (USA)
 * Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau (France)
 * In the Labyrinth by Alain Robbe-Grillet
 * The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe
 * Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse (England)
 * The Long Day Wanes by Anthony Burgess (England) - trilogy, first volume published in 1956
 * The Magic Christian by Terry Southern
 * The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake (England) - first volume in 1946
 * The Getaway by Jim Thompson
 * The Dumb Waiter and The Caretaker by Harold Pinter
 * Rhinocéros by Eugène Ionesco

Cold War period 1960-1989
1960 ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
 * To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (USA)
 * The London Trilogy by Colin MacInnes (England) - first volume, Absolute Beginners, published in 1957
 * Cain's Book by Alexander Trocchi (UK, France, USA)
 * This Sporting Life by David Storey (UK)
 * A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene
 * Hiroshima Mon Amour by Marguerite Duras (France)
 * The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark (Scotland)
 * The Rosy Crucifixion by Henry Miller (USA) - trilogy, first volume published 1949
 * The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth (USA)
 * The Morning of the Magicians by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier (France) - the 60s obsession with the occult starts here. Published in English 1963

1961 ''Genre fiction
 * Catch 22 by Joseph Heller (USA)
 * A House for Mr Biswas by V. S. Naipaul (Trinidad, England)
 * Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White
 * The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
 * A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch
 * Sword of Honour by Evelyn Waugh - trilogy, first volume published in 1952
 * Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (USA)
 * Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place by Malcolm Lowry - posthumous
 * Solaris by Stanisław Lem (Poland)
 * Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (USA)
 * The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (USA)

1962 ''Genre fiction ''Non-fiction
 * One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Russia)
 * A Clockwork Orange and The Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess
 * Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
 * Island by Aldous Huxley
 * The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (Zimbabwe, England)
 * The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes (Mexico)
 * The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell - first volume published 1957
 * Big Sur by Jack Kerouac - the last of the Lost Generation at the end of the Beat Generation
 * The IPCRESS File by Len Deighton (England) - first of the Harry Palmer novels
 * Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (USA) - the first major popular study on the deterioration of the environment

1963 ''Genre fiction ''Non-fiction
 * V. by Thomas Pynchon (USA)
 * The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (USA, England)
 * The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
 * One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey (USA)
 * The Collector by John Fowles (England)
 * The Lowlife by Alexander Baron (England)
 * Live Now, Pay Later by Jack Trevor Story
 * Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle (France)
 * The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré (England)
 * The Grifters by Jim Thompson
 * The Truce by Primo Levi)

1964 ''Genre fiction ''Non-fiction
 * Herzog by Saul Bellow
 * A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
 * Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby (USA)
 * The Spire by William Golding (England)
 * Nothing Like the Sun by Anthony Burgess
 * The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick (USA)
 * Little Big Man by Thomas Berger (USA)
 * Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan (Canada)

1965 ''Plays ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
 * The Magus by John Fowles
 * The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)
 * Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino (Italy)
 * The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski (Poland, USA)
 * Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush by Hunter Davies (England) - the kitchen sink novel mutates into the swinging sixties novel
 * Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss (Germany, Sweden)
 * The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby by Tom Wolfe (USA)
 * The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley (USA)

1966 ''Genre fiction ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
 * A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
 * Alfie by Bill Naughton (England)
 * The Comedians by Graham Greene
 * Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
 * Tremor of Intent by Anthony Burgess
 * Pavane by Keith Roberts (England)
 * The Anti-Death League by Kingsley Amis
 * In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
 * Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs by Hunter S. Thompson (USA)
 * Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me by Richard Fariña (USA)

1967 ''Non-fiction
 * One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia)
 * The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
 * The Vendor of Sweets by R. K. Narayan (India)
 * Poor Cow by Nell Dunn (England)
 * A Grain of Wheat by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
 * The First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
 * The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore

1968 ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
 * Cocksure by Mordecai Richler (Canada)
 * Couples by John Updike (USA)
 * The Public Image by Muriel Spark
 * Lunar Caustic by Malcolm Lowry - posthumous
 * Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
 * The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
 * The Armies of the Night and Miami and the Siege of Chicago by Norman Mailer
 * Bomb Culture by Jeff Nuttall (England)
 * Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (USA)
 * The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda (USA)

1969 ''Genre fiction ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
 * Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
 * The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
 * A Void by Georges Perec (France)
 * Passacaille by Robert Pinget (France)
 * Dark as the Grave wherein my Friend is Laid by Malcolm Lowry - posthumous
 * Barefoot in the Head by Brian Aldiss
 * The Final Programme by Michael Moorcock (England, USA)
 * Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (USA)
 * The Godfather by Mario Puzo (Italy)
 * Papillon by Henri Charrière (France)
 * The View Over Atlantis by John Michell (England)

1970 ''Genre fiction ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
 * Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion
 * Mr Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow
 * October Ferry to Gabriola by Malcolm Lowry - posthumous
 * The Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake (USA)
 * Deliverance by James Dickey (USA)
 * The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (Australia, England)
 * Groupie by Jenny Fabian (England)
 * Playpower by Richard Neville (Australia, England)
 * Revolt into Style by George Melly (England)
 * Soledad Brother by George Jackson (USA) - prison letters
 * Soul On Ice by Eldridge Cleaver (USA)

1971 ''Genre fiction ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
 * In a Free State by V. S. Naipaul (Trinidad, England)
 * M/F by Anthony Burgess
 * Our Gang by Philip Roth
 * The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart (USA)
 * Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins (USA)
 * Being There by Jerzy Kosinski
 * The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth (England)
 * The Happy Hooker by Xaviera Hollander (Indonesia, Netherlands)
 * Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

1972 ''Genre fiction ''Poetry
 * The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman by Angela Carter (England)
 * Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
 * G by John Berger (England, France)
 * The Good for Nothing by Oguz Atay (Turkey)
 * The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins (USA)
 * Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach (USA)
 * The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth
 * Crossing the Water and Winter Trees by Sylvia Plath

1973 ''Genre fiction
 * Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
 * Crash by J. G. Ballard (England)
 * Season of Anomy by Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)
 * Life Is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera (Czechoslovakia, France)
 * Sweet Dreams by Michael Frayn (England)
 * Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (USA)
 * The Great American Novel by Philip Roth
 * Frankenstein Unbound by Brian Aldiss

1974 ''Genre fiction ''Genre fiction ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
 * The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer (South Africa)
 * The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle (USA)
 * The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll
 * Napoleon Symphony by Anthony Burgess
 * Myra Breckinridge and Myron by Gore Vidal - first of pair published in 1968
 * Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré
 * Fletch by Gregory McDonald (USA)
 * Jaws by Peter Benchley (USA)
 * All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (USA)

1975 ''Genre fiction
 * Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
 * The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies - first volume published 1970
 * Dead Babies by Martin Amis (England)
 * The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez
 * The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (England)
 * The Periodic Table by Primo Levi - short stories
 * Watership Down by Richard Adams (England)
 * The Choirboys by Joseph Wambaugh (USA)
 * Shōgun by James Clavell (England, USA)
 * Salem's Lot by Stephen King (USA)

1976 ''Genre fiction ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction ''Drama
 * Ragtime by EL Doctorow (USA)
 * Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice (USA)
 * Roots by Alex Haley
 * Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka

1977
 * The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Škvorecký (Czechoslovakia)
 * Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (USA)

1978 ''Genre fiction
 * Success by Martin Amis
 * The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
 * Lanark by Alasdair Gray (Scotland)
 * Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec
 * The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
 * Jake's Thing by Kingsley Amis
 * The World According to Garp by John Irving (USA)
 * 1985 by Anthony Burgess
 * Horatio Stubbs by Brian Aldiss - trilogy, first volume published in 1970
 * Rumpole of the Bailey by John Mortimer (England)

1979 ''Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
 * A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul
 * The Unlimited Dream Company by J. G. Ballard
 * Sophie's Choice by William Styron (USA)
 * The White Album by Joan Didion
 * The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe (USA)

1980
 * The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
 * Pascali's Island by Barry Unsworth (England)
 * Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess

1981 ''Genre fiction
 * Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (India, UK)
 * The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan (England)
 * The White Hotel by DM Thomas (England)
 * Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez
 * What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver (USA) - short stories
 * The Red Dragon by Thomas Harris (USA)
 * Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith (England, Russia)

1982 ''Genre fiction
 * Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally (Australia)
 * An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd (Ghana, Scotland)
 * The Color Purple by Alice Walker (USA)
 * A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
 * Prizzi's Honor by Richard Condon

1983
 * Waterland by Graham Swift (England)
 * Shame by Salman Rushdie

1984 ''Non-fiction
 * Money by Martin Amis
 * Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney (USA)
 * The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
 * Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (England)
 * Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
 * Enderby by Anthony Burgess - tetrology, first volume published in 1963
 * The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
 * Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard

1985 ''Genre fiction
 * White Noise by Don DeLillo (USA)
 * Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis (USA)
 * Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson (England)
 * The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler (USA)
 * Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd (England)
 * Illywhacker by Peter Carey (Australia)
 * The Kingdom of the Wicked by Anthony Burgess
 * L.A. Noir by James Ellroy (USA) - trilogy, first volume published 1984

1986 ''Non-fiction
 * Slaves of New York by Tama Janowitz (USA)
 * The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis
 * An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (Japan, UK)
 * The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (Canada)
 * Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

1987 ''Genre fiction
 * The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
 * The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
 * Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe
 * Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow (USA)

1988 ''Genre fiction
 * Mother London by Michael Moorcock
 * Libra by Don DeLillo
 * Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (Australia)
 * Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
 * Sprawl by William Gibson (Canada, USA) - trilogy, first volume published 1984

1989
 * London Fields by Martin Amis
 * Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
 * The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
 * To the Ends of the Earth by William Golding - trilogy, first volume published 1980
 * The Book of Evidence by John Banville (Ireland)
 * The Trick of It by Michael Frayn

1990s

 * The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
 * Boris Akunin
 * slam poetry

1990 ''Genre fiction
 * New York Trilogy by Paul Auster (USA) - first volume published 1985
 * Restoration by Rose Tremain (England)
 * Possession by A. S. Byatt (England)
 * The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi (England)
 * Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley (USA)
 * Harry Potter series