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Books reviewed in chronological order – 1950-1959
1950
Georges Bernanos: Un mauvais rêve (Night Is Darkest)
Jocelyn Brooke: The Goose Cathedral
Jocelyn Brooke: The Image of a Drawn Sword
Roland Camberton: The Scamp
James Hanley: Winter Song
Norah Lange: Personas en la sala (People in the Room)
Doris Lessing: The Grass Is Singing
Liam O’Flaherty: Insurrection
Cesare Pavese: La luna e i falò (The Moon and the Bonfire; The Moon and the Bonfires)
Mervyn Peake: Gormenghast
Michele Prisco: Gli eredi del vento (Heirs of the Wind)
Pramoedya Ananta Toer: Perburuan (The Fugitive)
1951
Max Aub:Campo abierto [Open Field]
Samuel Beckett: Molloy (Molloy)
Samuel Beckett: Malone Meurt (Malone Dies)
Camilo José Cela: La colmena (The Hive)
Robertson Davies: Tempest-Tost
William Faulkner: Requiem for a Nun
Jean Giono: Le Hussard sur le toit (US/UK: The Horseman on the Roof; UK: The Hussar on the Roof)
William Faulkner: Requiem for a Nun
Julien Gracq: Le Rivage des Syrtes (The Opposing Shore)
Neil Gunn: The Well at the World’s End
John Hawkes: The Beetle Leg
Fumiko Hayashi: 浮雲 (Floating Clouds)
Willem Frederik Hermans: Het behouden huis (An Untouched House)
Wolfgang Koeppen: Tauben im Gras (Pigeons on the Grass)
Wyndham Lewis: Rotting Hill
Norman Mailer: Barbary Shore
Thomas Mann: Der Erwählte (The Holy Sinner)
Carson McCullers: The Ballad of the Sad Café
Alberto Moravia: Il conformista (The Conformist)
Anthony Powell: A Question of Upbringing
Salvador Reyes: Mónica Sanders
Manuel Rojas: Hijo de Ladrón (Born Guilty)
J. D. Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye
William Styron: Lie Down in Darkness
Tarjei Vesaas: Store spelet (The Great Cycle)
Henry Williamson: The Dark Lantern
Marguerite Yourcenar: Mémoires d’Hadrien (Memoirs of Hadrian)
1952
Bozorg Alavi: چشمهايش (Her Eyes)
Isabel Bolton: Many Mansions
Italo Calvino: Il visconte dimezzato (The Cloven Viscount)
Joyce Cary: Prisoner of Grace
Gabriel Casaccia: La babosa [The Slug]
Austin Clarke: The Sun Dances at Easter
Alba de Céspedes: Quaderno proibito (The Secret)
Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man
Jean Giono: Le Moulin de Pologne (The Malediction)
Neil Gunn: Bloodhunt
James Hanley: The Closed Harbour
Yasunari Kawabata: 山の音 (The Sound of the Mountain)
Yasunari Kawabata: 千羽鶴 (Thousand Cranes)
Orhan Kemal: Cemile (Gemilé)
Doris Lessing: Martha Quest
Bernard Malamud: The Natural
Mouloud Mammeri: La Colline Oubliée [The Forgotten Hill]
Wright Morris: The Works of Love
Flannery O’Connor: Wise Blood
Shohei Ooka: 野火 (Fires on the Plain)
Anthony Powell: A Buyer’s Market
Evelyn Waugh: Men at Arms
Henry Williamson: Donkey Boy
Angus Wilson: Hemlock and After
1953
James Baldwin: Go Tell it on the Mountain
Samuel Beckett: L’innommable (The Unnamable)
Saul Bellow: The Adventures of Augie March
Agustina Bessa-Luís: A Sibila [The Sibyl]
Louis-Paul Boon: De Kapellekensbaan (Chapel Road)
Alejo Carpentier: Los pasos perdidos (The Lost Steps)
Joyce Cary: Except the Lord
Lluïsa Forrellad: Siempre en capilla [Always In The Chapel]
José María Gironella: Los cipreses creen en Dios (The Cypresses Believe in God)
L P Hartley: The Go-Between
Benedict Kiely: The Cards of the Gambler
Wolfgang Koeppen: Das Treibhaus (The Hothouse)
George Lamming: In the Castle of My Skin
Camara Laye: L’enfant noir (The African Child; US: The Dark Child)
Sara Lidman: Tjärdalen [The Tar Still]
Georges Magnane: Où l’herbe ne pousse plus (Where the Grass No Longer Grows)
Albert Memmi: La Statue du sel (Pillar of Salt)
Alain Robbe-Grillet: Les Gommes (The Erasers)
Nathalie Sarraute: Martereau (Martereau)
Henry Williamson: Young Phillip Maddison
1954
Dannie Abse: Ash on a Young Man’s Sleeve
Abdel Rahman al-Sharqawi: الأرض (Egyptian Earth)
Kingsley Amis: Lucky Jim
Heinrich Böll: Haus ohne Hüter (UK: The Unguarded House; US: Tomorrow and Yesterday)
Michel Butor: Passage de Milan
Robertson Davies: Leaven of Malice
Dola de Jong: De thuiswacht (The Tree and the Vine)
Mohammed Dib: L’Incendie [The Fire]
Max Frisch: Stiller (I’m not Stiller)
William Golding: Lord of the Flies
Vasily Grossman: За правое дело (Stalingrad)
Neil Gunn: The Other Landscape
James Hanley: The Welsh Sonata
Elizabeth Jenkins: The Tortoise and the Hare
Yasunari Kawabata: 名人 (The Master of Go)
Wolfgang Koeppen: Der Tod in Rom (Death in Rome)
Camara Laye: Le regard du roi (The Radiance of the King)
Doris Lessing: Proper Marriage
Väinö Linna: Tuntematon sotilas (The Unknown Soldier)
Thomas Mann: Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull (Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man)
Dawn Powell: The Wicked Pavilion
Henry Williamson: How Dear is Life
1955
Ivo Andrić: Prokleta avlija (Devil’s Yard; The Damned Yard)
Albert Cossery: Mendiants et Orgueilleux (UK: If All Men were Beggars …, later: A Room in Cairo; US: Proud Beggars)
Àlvaro Cunqueiro: Merlin e familia (Merlin and Company)
J. P. Donleavy: The Ginger Man
Marguerite Duras: Le Square (The Square)
William Gaddis: The Recognitions
William Golding: The Inheritors
Graham Greene: The Quiet American
John Hearne: Voices Under the Window
Emyr Humphreys: A Man’s Estate
Nikos Kazantzakis: Ο Τελευταίος Πειρασμός (UK: The Last Temptation; US: The Last Temptation of Christ)
Yaşar Kemal: İnce Memed (Memed, My Hawk)
Wyndham Lewis: Malign Fiesta
Wyndham Lewis: Monstre Gai
Norman Mailer: Deer Park
Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita
Fumio Niwa: 菩提樹 (The Buddha Tree)
Peadar O’Donnell: The Big Windows
Anthony Powell: The Acceptance World
Marin Preda: Moromeții (The Morometes)
Alain Robbe-Grillet: Le Voyeur (The Voyeur)
Juan Rulfo: Pedro Páramo (Pedro Paramo: A Novel of Mexico)
Evelyn Waugh: Officers and Gentlemen
Patrick White: The Tree of Man
Henry Williamson: A Fox Under My Cloak
1956
James Baldwin: Giovanni’s Room
John Barth: The Floating Opera
Saul Bellow: Seize the Day
Michel Butor: L’Emploi du temps (Passing Time)
William Golding: Pincher Martin
Caroline Gordon: The Malefactors
João Guimarães Rosa: Grande sertão: veredas (The Devil to Pay in the Backlands)
James Hanley: Levine
James Hanley: Levine
Igor Kaczurowsky: Шлях невідомого (Because Deserters Are Immortal)
Naguib Mahfouz: بينالقصرين (Palace Walk)
Ferdinand Oyono: Vie de boy (UK: Houseboy; US: Boy!)
Ferdinand Oyono: Vieux nègre et la médaille (The Old Man and the Medal)
Robert Pinget: Graal filibuste
Kukrit Pramoj: หลายชีวิต (Many Lives)
Kate Roberts: Y Byw Sy’n Cysgu (The Living Sleep; later: The Awakening)
Joan Sales: Incerta glòria (Uncertain Glory)
Jun’ichiro Tanizaki: 鍵 (The Key)
Llorenç Villalonga: Bearn o la sala de las muñecas (Bearn or The Doll’s Room; The Doll’s Room)
Angus Wilson: Anglo-Saxon Attitudes
Kateb Yacine: Nedjma (Nedjma)
1957
Alfred Andersch: Sansibar oder Der letzte Grund (Flight to Afar)
Marta Brunet: María Nadie [Maria Nobody]
Michel Butor: La modification (UK: Second Thoughts, US: Change of Heart)
Italo Calvino: Il barone rampante (The Baron in the Trees)
Rosario Castellanos: Balún-Canán (The Nine Guardians)
Louis-Ferdinand Céline: D’un château l’autre (Castle to Castle)
Padraic Colum: The Flying Swans
José Donoso: Coronación (Coronation)
Lawrence Durrell: Justine
Fumiko Enchi: 女坂 (The Waiting Years)
Warren Eyster: The Goblins of Eros
William Faulkner: The Town
Max Frisch: Homo Faber (Homo Faber)
Carlo Emilio Gadda: Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana (That Awful Mess on Via Merulana)
Natalia Ginzburg: Valentino (Valentino)
Marlen Haushofer: Die Tapetentür (The Jib Door)
Bill Hopkins: The Divine and the Decay (later: The Leap)
Axel Jensen: Ikaros – ung mann i Sahara (Icarus – A Young Man in Sahara)
Jack Kerouac: On The Road
Halldór Laxness: Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing)
Andrew Lytle: The Velvet Horn
Colin MacInnes: City of Spades
Naguib Mahfouz: قصر الشوق (Palace of Desire)
Naguib Mahfouz: السكرية (Sugar Street)
Bernard Malamud: The Assistant
Tip Marugg: Weekendpelgrimage (Weekend Pilgrimage)
Elsa Morante: L’isola di Arturo (Arturo’s Island)
Alberto Moravia: La ciociara (Two Women)
Vladimir Nabokov: Pnin
V. S. Naipaul: The Mystic Masseur
Boris Pasternak: Доктор Живаго (Doctor Zhivago)
Anthony Powell: At Lady Molly’s
Alain Robbe-Grillet: La Jalousie (Jealousy)
Evelyn Waugh: The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold
Tarjei Vesaas: Fuglane (The Birds)
Patrick White: Voss
Henry Williamson: The Golden Virgin
1958
Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
Chinghiz Aitmatov: Джамиля (Jamila; Jamilia)
José María Arguedas: Los ríos profundos (Deep Waters)
Sylvia Ashton-Warner: Spinster
John Barth: The End of the Road
Anthony Burgess: The Enemy in the Blanket (Part 2 of The Long Day Wanes – The Malayan Trilogy)
Robertson Davies: A Mixture of Frailties
Adem Demaçi: Gjarpinjtë e gjakut [The Snakes of the Blood]
Marguerite Duras: Moderato Cantabile (Moderato cantabile)
Lawrence Durrell: Balthazar
Lawrence Durrell: Mountolive
Fumiko Enchi: 女面 (Masks)
Carlos Fuentes: La región más transparente (Where the Air Is Clear)
Sara Gallardo: Enero (January)
Nadine Gordimer: A World of Strangers
Julien Gracq: Un balcon en forêt (A Balcony in the Forest)
Graham Greene: Our Man in Havana
James Hanley: An End and a Beginning
Willem Frederik Hermans: De donkere kamer van Damokles (The Darkroom of Damocles)
Emyr Humphreys: A Toy Epic
Jorge Icaza: El chulla Romero y Flores [The Lad Flores and Romero]
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa: Il Gattopardo (The Leopard)
Doris Lessing: A Ripple from the Storm
Sara Lidman: Regnspiran (The Rain Bird)
V. S. Naipaul: The Suffrage of Elvira
Aksel Sandemose: Varulven (The Werewolf)
Josef Josef Škvorecký: Zbabelci (The Cowards)
Tarjei Vesaas: Kimen (The Seed)
Henry Williamson: Love and the Loveless
Angus Wilson: The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot
1959
Saul Bellow: Henderson the Rain King
Anthony Burgess: Beds in the East (Part 3 of The Long Day Wanes – The Malayan Trilogy)
William Burroughs: Naked Lunch
Italo Calvino: Il cavaliere inesistente (The Nonexistent Knight)
Bernard Dadié: Un Nègre à Paris (An African in Paris)
Josep Maria Espinás: Combat de nit [Combat At Night]
William Faulkner: The Mansion
George Garrett: The Finished Man
William Golding: Free Fall
Günter Grass: Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum)
H L Humes: Men Die
Qurratulain Hyder: آگ کا دریا (River of Fire)
Uwe Johnson: Mutmassungen über Jakob (Speculations about Jakob)
Hans Keilson: Der Tod des Widersachers (The Death of the Adversary)
Enrique Laguerre: El Laberinto (The Labyrinth)
Journal Kyaw Ma Ma Lay: Mone Ywe Mahu (Not Out of Hate)
Stanisław Lem: Śledztwo (The Investigation)
Väinö Linna: Täällä Pohjantähden alla (Under the North Star)
Colin MacInnes: Absolute Beginners
Ladislav Mňačko: Smrť sa volá Engelchen (Death Is Called Engelchen)
Harry Mulisch: Het stenen bruidsbed (The Stone Bridal Bed)
V. S. Naipaul: Miguel Street
Pier Paolo Pasolini: Una vita violenta (A Violent Life)
Mervyn Peake: Titus Alone
James Purdy: Malcolm
Alain Robbe-Grillet: Dans le labyrinthe (In the Labyrinth)
Raymond Queneau: Zazie dans le metro (Zazie)
Nathalie Sarraute: Le Planétarium (The Planetarium)
Khushwant Singh: I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale
Muriel Spark: Memento Mori
Magda Szabó: Az őz (The Fawn)
Other links
Publishers Weekly list of bestselling novels in the United States in the 1950s
The Books of the Century: 1950-1959
Modern Literature Time Chart (1950 – 1959)
Modern US literature chronological order