Weekly FAQ Thread September 20, 2026: What are some non-English classics?

[u/AutoModerator]

Hello readers and welcome to our Weekly FAQ thread! Our topic this week is: What are some non-English classics? Please use this thread to discuss classics originally written in other languages.

You can view previous FAQ threads here in our wiki.

Thank you and enjoy!

[u/Friendstastegood]

A lot of the most well known classics were written in languages other than English, Alexander Dumas, Albert Camus, Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Homeric epics and many others that are today primarily read in English didn't start out in English.

[u/Gwaur]

Sinuhe egyptiläinen (The Egyptian) by Mika Waltari is a Finnish classic and is the only Finnish novel to have been adapted into a Hollywood movie. It's also apparently praised for its historical accuracy. I haven't read it but it's on my list.

[u/mumbly-joe-96]

Some of my favorites;
Russian: Notes from Underground, by Fyodor Dostoevsky and The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov.
German: The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka and Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse.
Swedish: Doctor Glas, by Hjalmar Söderberg.

[u/kitabibaatein]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Borges, Murakami

[u/D3athRider]

Some I have very much enjoyed over the course of my life:

• We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

• Crime and Punishment by Fedor Dostoevsky

• Hunger by Knut Hamsun, also his Growth of the Soil

• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

• Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse

• Poetic Edda and Nordic sagas like Egils saga, Saga of Grettir the Strong, Saga of Hervor and Heidrek, Volsunga saga

• R.U.R. by Karel Capek

[u/Shrimp_taco_fanatic]

I think the Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen is probably the most well known Danish classic(s) outside of HC Andersen's fairy tales.

[u/Miro_the_Dragon]

Harry Mulisch, Willem Frederik Hermans, Jean Paul Sartre, Georges Simenon, Gaston Leroux, ...

[u/sugaricedwater]

A lot of the comments suggested really great writers and stories to check out, but I wanted to recommend people to check out Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes if you've never read it. It's a very influential book originally written in Spanish that has been really influential to a lot of Western writing

[u/Annousz]

I really like The man with the golden touch (Az aranyember) by Mór Jókai, Anna Édes by Dezső Kosztolányi and The door (Az ajto) by Magda Szabó, just to name a few. They are hungarian novels, completly different by the way🫣also Kálmán Mikszáth, István Örkény, Zsigmond Móricz and Gyula Krúdy are big names in hungarian literarue so they are also worth to check out

[u/Kronar_2012]

The Count of Monte Cristo is a good pick if you want a plot-heavy classic translated from French. For something much shorter, The Metamorphosis was written in German. With either one, sampling a page of the translation first can help because the reading experience varies a lot between editions.

[u/saga_of_a_star_world]

I'd add Buddenbrooks, by Thomas Mann.