Kevin's Watch

Any recommendations of the best non-English writers?

So far, my favorite by far is Lem (Poland). Solaris is as much science fiction as anything written in English, but has a very different feel. It is slower paced, less action, and a lot more introspective than a lot of US science fiction.

I've heard really good things about Borges.

Any recommendations?

Sorry, I'm just a monolinguistic geek, though I have read the Bible, and that wasn't written by English people.

I suck at science fiction, but there are some good non-English/American fantasy authors, including a couple of Swedish ones.

Astrid Lindgren (who died just the other year) is probably the most famous author in Sweden and wrote dozens, if not hundreds, of (mainly) children's books. Many of these were realistic, but some were clearly fantasy - particularly Mio My Son, The Brothers Lionheart and Ronia, the Robber's Daughter. She also wrote a lot of fantastic or surrealistic short stories, often with a sad undertone. To an English-speaking audience she's probably best known as the author of the Pippi Longstocking books.

Tove Jansson was Finnish-Swedish and wrote (among other stuff) the terrific Moomin books: Comet in Moominland, Finn Family Moomintroll, The Exploits of Moominpappa, Moominsummer Madness and a few more. I can't really describe these in any brief way that makes sense, but they're completely wonderful - mostly funny but also sad and sometimes very scary. They are available in English in very good translations (I'm not sure if they're in print, but they should be available in good libraries - I hope); do yourself a favor and read them.

Michael Ende - German, mainly known for Momo and The neverending story.

Christine Nöstlinger - sort of like an Austrian Astrid Lindgren; she's written tons of mainly children's books, many of them fantastic in nature. I read and loved virtually all of them as a kid, though I'm not sure how well they hold up now.