European literature features a rich and diverse heritage, reflecting the continent’s complex history. Today, it continues to thrive, engaging with contemporary issues and pushing the boundaries of storytelling.
Latest Reviews of European Books
![Merging Stories With Water as a Bonding Element [Book Review]](https://i0.wp.com/larissaveloso.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/there_are_rivers_featured.png?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1)
![A Fig Tree Recounts History [Book Review]](https://i0.wp.com/larissaveloso.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/book2_featured-1.png?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1)
![Analyzing One of the New Poirot Mysteries [Book Review]](https://i0.wp.com/larissaveloso.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/mystery_three_quarters__featured.png?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1)
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Famous Authors from Europe
Elena Ferrante (Italy)
Acclaimed for her powerful and intimate portrayals of female friendship, identity, and class in modern Italy. Though her true identity remains anonymous, her Neapolitan Novels have become international bestsellers.
Main works: My Brilliant Friend; The Story of a New Name
Olga Tokarczuk (Poland)
Nobel Prize–winning writer known for her inventive narratives and philosophical depth. Her novels often explore travel, memory, and the interconnectedness of human lives.
Main works: Flights; The Books of Jacob
José Saramago (Portugal)
Nobel Prize–winning novelist celebrated for his allegorical storytelling, experimental prose, and critiques of power, religion, and society.
Main works: Blindness; Baltasar and Blimunda
See also: Elif Shafak, Sophie Hannah, Natalie Haynes, Agatha Christie, Téa Obreht
European Books by Country
Browse key books and authors from every country in Europe. This list updates regularly, and titles highlighted in yellow are the ones I’ve already read as part of my own Read the World Challenge.
Click any link for reviews and details. Icons show prizes, longlists, or inclusion in essential works. See the awards page for more.
Copy the full list here
| Country | Author | Book Title |
| ALBANIA | Ismail Kadare | Broken April |
| ANDORRA | ||
| AUSTRIA | Elfriede Jelinek 🏆 | The Piano Teacher |
| Natascha Kampusch | 3,096 Days | |
| Peter Handke 🏆 | Short Letter, Long Farewell | |
| BELARUS | Svetlana Alexievich 🏆 | Second-hand Time 🏅 |
| Voices from Chernobyl | ||
| BELGIUM | ||
| BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA | Priscilla Morris | Black Butterflies |
| BULGARIA | Ilija Trojanow | The Collector of Worlds |
| CROATIA | Daša Drndić | Belladonna 🏆 |
| Dubravka Ugrešić | Baba Yaga Laid an Egg | |
| Tea Tulić | Hair Everywhere 🏅 | |
| CYPRUS | Christy Lefteri | The Beekeper of Alepo |
| CZECHIA | Bianca Bellová | The Lake 🏅 |
| Milan Kundera | The Unbearable Lightness of Being | |
| DENMARK | Christina Hesselholdt | Vivian 🏅 |
| Dorrit Willumsen | Bang 🏅 | |
| Dorthe Nors | A Line in the World 🏅 | |
| Mirror, Shoulder, Signal | ||
| Olga Ravn | The Employees 🏅 | |
| Tove Ditlevsen | Dependency 🏅 | |
| ESTONIA | ||
| FINLAND | Arto Paasilinna | The Year of the Hare |
| Selja Ahava | Things that Fall from the Sky 🏅 | |
| Sofi Oksanen | Purge | |
| FRANCE | Alice Zeniter | The Art of Losing 🏅 |
| Annie Ernaux | The Years 🏆 | |
| Annie Ernaux 🏆 | A Girl’s Story 🏅 | |
| A Man’s Place | ||
| Camille Laurens | Little Dancer Aged Fourteen 🏅 | |
| Faïza Guène | Men Don’t Cry 🏅 | |
| Gustave Flaubert | Madame Bovary | |
| J. M. G. Le Clézio 🏆 | Desert | |
| Marguerite Duras | The Easy Life 🏅 | |
| Marie Darrieussecq | Sleepless 🏅 | |
| Marion Brunet | Summer of Reckoning 🏅 | |
| Patrick Modiano 🏆 | Missing Person | |
| Violaine Huisman | The Book of Mother 🏅 | |
| Virginie Despentes | Vernon Subutex One 🏅 | |
| GERMANY | Esther Kinsky | Grove🏅 |
| River 🏅 | ||
| Hermann Hesse | Siddharta | |
| Jenny Erpenbeck | Go Went Gone 🏅 | |
| Kairos 🏅 | ||
| Not a Novel 🏅 | ||
| Judith Hermann | Letti Park 🏅 | |
| Judith Schalansky | An Inventory of Losses 🏆 | |
| Katja Oskamp | Marzahn, Mon Amour 🏅 | |
| Larissa Boehning | Swallow Summer 🏅 | |
| Nelly Sachs | Revelation Freshly Erupting 🏆 | |
| Susanne Wedlich | Slime: A Natural History 🏅 | |
| Ulrike Almut Sandig | Thick of It 🏅 | |
| GREECE | Homer | The Iliad |
| Margarita Liberaki | Three Summers 🏅 | |
| HUNGARY | Imre Kertész 🏆 | Fatelessness |
| Krisztina Tóth | Barcode 🏅 | |
| Pixel 🏅 | ||
| Magda Szabó | Abigail 🏅 | |
| Katalin Street 🏅 | ||
| The Fawn 🏅 | ||
| ICELAND | ||
| IRELAND | Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh | The Coast Road 🏅 |
| John Boyne | The Boy in the Striped Pajamas | |
| ITALY | Alba de Céspedes | Forbidden Notebook 🏅 |
| Francesca Melandri | Eva Sleeps | |
| Grazia Deledda | Marianna Sirca 🏅 | |
| The Queen of Darkness | ||
| Isabella Morra | Isabella | |
| Italo Calvino | Invisible Cities | |
| The Baron in the Trees | ||
| Lalla Romano | A Silence Shared 🏅 | |
| Marosia Castaldi | The Hunger of Women 🏅 | |
| Natalia Ginzburg | Happiness as Such | |
| KOSOVO | ||
| LATVIA | ||
| LIECHTENSTEIN | ||
| LITHUANIA | Dalia Grinkevičiūtė | Shadows on the Tundra 🏅 |
| LUXEMBOURG | ||
| MALTA | ||
| MOLDOVA | ||
| MONACO | ||
| MONTENEGRO | ||
| NETHERLANDS | Anne Frank | The Diary of a Young Girl |
| Marente de Moor | The Dutch Maiden 🏅 | |
| Tonke Dragt | The Song of Seven 🏅 | |
| NORTH MACEDONIA | ||
| NORWAY | Hanne Ørstavik | ti amo 🏅 |
| Jon Fosse 🏆 | Septology series | |
| Jostein Gaarder | The Solitaire Mystery | |
| Long Litt Woon | The Way Through the Woods 🏅 | |
| POLAND | Krystyna Boglar | Clementine Loves Red 🏅 |
| Małgorzata Szejnert | Ellis Island: A People’s History 🏅 | |
| Olga Tokarczuk | Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead 🏅 | |
| Flights 🏅 | ||
| The Books of Jacob 🏅 | ||
| Olga Tokarczuk 🏆 | The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story | |
| Urszula Honek | White Nights 🏅 | |
| Wioletta Greg | Swallowing Mercury | |
| Żanna Słoniowska | The House with the Stained-Glass Window 🏅 | |
| PORTUGAL | Ana Luísa Amaral | The Art of Being a Tiger 🏅 |
| José Saramago | Blindness | |
| Death with Interruptions | ||
| ROMANIA | Herta Müller 🏆 | The Fox Was Ever the Hunter 🏅 |
| The Hunger Angel | ||
| Ioana Pârvulescu | Life Begins on Friday 🏅 | |
| RUSSIA | Guzel Yakhina | Zuleikha 🏅 |
| Maria Stepanova | Holy Winter 20/21 🏅 | |
| In Memory of Memory 🏅 | ||
| War of the Beasts and the Animals 🏅 | ||
| Vladimir Nabokov | Lolita | |
| Yulia Yakovleva | Death of the Red Rider 🏅 | |
| SAN MARINO | ||
| SERBIA | Téa Obreht | The Tiger’s Wife |
| SLOVAKIA | ||
| SLOVENIA | Goran Vojnović | Yugoslavia, My Fatherland |
| SPAIN | Alicia Kopf | Brother In Ice 🏅 |
| Irene Solà | When I Sing, Mountains Dance 🏅 | |
| Miguel de Cervantes | Don Quijote | |
| SWEDEN | Amanda Svensson | A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding 🏅 |
| Elisabeth Åsbrink | 1947 | |
| Linnea Axelsson | Ædnan: An Epic 🏅 | |
| Marit Kapla | Osebol: Voices from a Swedish Village 🏆 | |
| Selma Lagerlöf | Mårbacka 🏅 | |
| The Emperor of Portugallia 🏅 | ||
| Stieg Larsson | The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo | |
| Tomas Tranströmer 🏆 | Baltics | |
| Tove Jansson | Letters from Tove | |
| SWITZERLAND | Erich von Däniken | Chariots of the Gods |
| TURKEY | Elif Shafak | The Island of Missing Trees |
| There Are Rivers in the Sky | ||
| Orhan Pamuk 🏆 | My Name Is Red | |
| UKRAINE | Katja Petrowskaja | Maybe Esther 🏅 |
| UNITED KINGDOM | Agatha Christie | The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
| Andrea Levy | Small Island 📃 | |
| Bernardine Evaristo | The Emperor’s Babe 📃 | |
| Doris Lessing 🏆 | The Golden Notebook | |
| Harold Pinter 🏆 | The Birthday Party | |
| Jackie Kay | Trumpet 📃 | |
| Natalie Haynes | Stone Blind | |
| Sophie Hannah | The Mystery of Three Quarters | |
| Suzanna Clarke | Piranesi |
Interested? You can buy the books clicking on the images below.
Every purchase supports indie bookstores and helps me keep the blog running.
Keep exploring:
