Academic Reading Challenge Recommendations: Book by a winner of a Nobel Prize for Literature

As before, I'm writing my recommendations in no particular order. Category Eight: book by a winner of a Nobel Prize for Literature is in some ways, quite easy. There's a list of all the prize winners - and it's a finite list of possibilities. On the other hand, there are so many great writers and books to choose from, that choosing just one book to read seems daunting, and reading the list of laureates is guaranteed to give you "FOMO" when you finally choose something. 

In honor of the prestige of the Nobel, this entry's theme song is "The Greatest" by Cat Power: 

Here are my top-ten, some are chosen because they're authors whose work I already know and love. Others I've chosen because I've never read them, but want to, and some, well, I chose because they have particular relevance for work I'm in the process of doing right now.

1. As suggested above, it's an easy choice to read a book by Toni Morrison, whose novel Beloved is, to my mind, the greatest American novel of the 20th century. If you've already read that one, she has many other books to choose from, several of which have been in the news lately because her work has been targeted by right-wingers.

2. Abdulrazak Gurnah is a writer I'm not at all familiar with, but the themes identified by the Nobel Committee seem appropriate for our current moment. Here's a review of his book Paradise which is set in colonial East Africa.

3. Jose Saramago is someone whose work I'm very interested in, have heard a lot about, but I've never had the pleasure of reading. Recently, another participant in the challenge recommended his novel Raised from the Ground as a great option for the "rural life" category, though remember if you read him for this category, that book won't also count for the "rural life" category. Only one category per book. 

4. Derek Walcott is a wonderful poet and has many collections of poems that you could choose from. He's also a playwright. Here's an example of his work that you can read on his page at the National Poetry Foundation website. 

5. I was shocked when Olga Tokarczuk won a Nobel, simply because she is so young. However, her book Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead which I read for a book club, was one of the best novels I've read in the last ten years. 

6. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is an other easy, much beloved choice. If you haven't read One Hundred Years of Solitude it's simply a fantastic, unforgettable novel. The last time I read it was over 30 years ago  - maybe it's time to revisit.

7. Thomas Mann is a writer who I'm particularly interested in reading right now, but more because of his extra-literary activities. Despite being deeply resented by less famous and more radical members of the community, he was an important spokesman for the anti-Fascist German emigre community in the United States during WWII. 

8. Isaac Beshevis Singer is an old favorite of mine. I read several of his novels when I was in high school - I can't remember why. I'd go back and read The Family Moskat which I believe once started, but never finished. 

9. A less-well known literary anti-fascist (because he was trapped in Spain after Franco's victory and his works were banned there) is 1977 winner, Vincente Aleixandre.  I had never heard of him before perusing the Laureates list, but he looks very interesting.

10. Wow, this list has a lot of men on it. My tenth recommendation is for Annie Ernaux particularly in this moment, because of her outspoken feminism and support for Palestinian rights