1945–1975

The Postwar World

After Auschwitz and Hiroshima, literature reckons with absurdity, guilt, and liberation: existentialism in Paris, boom in Latin America, new voices from decolonizing nations.

Reading path

The Postwar World

Existentialism in Paris, revolution in the reading, and new voices arriving from nations just now writing themselves free.

8 steps

Movements of this era

The British Midcentury Novel

A shared condition, not a school: the English novel between modernism and 1975, watching empire end.

Arabic & Middle Eastern Modern

Mahfouz's Cairo, Salih's Nile, Pamuk's Istanbul: cities as the novels of nations.

Existentialism & the Absurd

Camus, Sartre, and Beckett make fiction from a universe without given meaning.

Argentine Fantastic & Metafiction

Borges, Bioy Casares, and Ocampo invent the fantastic; Piglia, Saer, and Aira turn its games toward politics and theory.

Gruppe 47 & the German Reckoning

Writing in a language the Nazis poisoned, postwar Germany rebuilds its prose from rubble.

The Japanese Postwar

Mishima, Abe, Ōe: defeat, occupation, and the search for a self amid the ruins.

The Jewish American Novel

Bellow, Malamud, Roth, and Singer make the immigrant sons' voice the sound of the postwar American novel.

Magical Realism

The marvelous told deadpan: a global grammar for histories too strange for realism.

The Feminist Novel

Fiction takes up the condition of women as its central, urgent subject.

Founding African Anglophone Fiction

Tutuola, Armah, Aidoo: before and beside Achebe, the African novel in English finds its voices.

The Nouveau Roman

The French new novel abolishes plot, character, and psychology, on purpose.

The Hebrew Israeli Novel

Oz, Yehoshua, Grossman: a revived language carries a new nation's dreams and doubts.

The Latin American Boom

García Márquez, Cortázar, Vargas Llosa: a continent seizes the world's imagination.

Postcolonial Literatures

The empire writes back: Achebe, Rushdie, and the remaking of English-language fiction.

Oulipo

The Workshop of Potential Literature turns constraint itself into the engine of invention.

Authors of this era

1879–1970E. M. ForsterEngland 1887–1970S. Y. AgnonUkraine (Galicia) / Israel 1891–1974Pär LagerkvistSweden 1894–1963Aldous HuxleyEngland 1899–1986Jorge Luis BorgesArgentina 1899–1974Miguel Ángel AsturiasGuatemala 1900–1999Nathalie SarrauteFrance 1901–1962Ahmet Hamdi TanpınarTurkey 1902–1991Isaac Bashevis SingerPoland / United States 1903–1950George OrwellEngland 1903–1966Evelyn WaughEngland 1903–1951Sadegh HedayatIran 1903–1993Silvina OcampoArgentina 1903–1988Alan PatonSouth Africa 1903–1976Raymond QueneauFrance 1904–1991Graham GreeneEngland 1904–1980Alejo CarpentierCuba 1905–1980Jean-Paul SartreFrance 1905–2004Mulk Raj AnandIndia 1906–1989Samuel BeckettIreland / France 1906–1972Dino BuzzatiItaly 1906–2001R. K. NarayanIndia 1908–1986Simone de BeauvoirFrance 1908–2006Raja RaoIndia 1909–1948Osamu DazaiJapan 1910–1976José Lezama LimaCuba 1911–1993William GoldingEngland 1911–2006Naguib MahfouzEgypt 1911–1991Max FrischSwitzerland 1912–1990Patrick WhiteAustralia 1913–1960Albert CamusAlgeria / France 1913–2005Claude SimonFrance 1914–1999Adolfo Bioy CasaresArgentina 1914–1986Bernard MalamudUnited States 1914–1996Marguerite DurasFrance / Vietnam 1914–1984Julio CortázarArgentina / France 1915–2005Saul BellowCanada / USA 1916–1998Elena GarroMexico 1917–1993Anthony BurgessEngland 1917–1985Heinrich BöllGermany 1917–1986Juan RulfoMexico 1917–2005Augusto Roa BastosParaguay 1918–2006Muriel SparkScotland 1919–1999Iris MurdochIreland / England 1919–2013Doris LessingUnited Kingdom / Zimbabwe 1920–1997Amos TutuolaNigeria 1921–2004Carmen LaforetSpain 1922–1995Kingsley AmisEngland 1922–1996Emile HabibiPalestine / Israel 1922–2008Alain Robbe-GrilletFrance 1923–1996Endō ShūsakuJapan 1923–2007Norman MailerUnited States 1923–2014Nadine GordimerSouth Africa 1923–1985Italo CalvinoItaly 1924–1993Kōbō AbeJapan 1924–1996José DonosoChile 1925–1970Yukio MishimaJapan 1925–2000Carmen Martín GaiteSpain 1925–2016Intizar HusainPakistan 1925–2006Pramoedya Ananta ToerIndonesia 1926–2005John FowlesEngland 1926–1973Ingeborg BachmannAustria 1926–2016Mahasweta DeviIndia 1927–2015Günter GrassGermany 1927–2014Gabriel García MárquezColombia 1927–2007Qurratulain HyderIndia / Pakistan 1928–2012Carlos FuentesMexico 1929–2009Tayeb SalihSudan 1929–2011Christa WolfGermany 1929–1981Mariama BâSenegal 1929–2005Guillermo Cabrera InfanteCuba 1930–2005O. V. VijayanIndia (Kerala)1930–2024Edna O'BrienIreland 1930–2013Chinua AchebeNigeria 1931–2021Nawal El SaadawiEgypt 1931–2019Toni MorrisonUSA 1932–1963Sylvia PlathUnited States 1932–2018V. S. NaipaulTrinidad / England 1932–2014U. R. AnanthamurthyIndia (Karnataka)1933–2004Abdul Rahman MunifSaudi Arabia / Jordan 1933–2018Philip RothUSA b. 1934Wole SoyinkaNigeria 1935–2023Kenzaburō ŌeJapan 1935–2003Carol ShieldsCanada / United States 1935–2015André BrinkSouth Africa 1936–1972Ghassan KanafaniPalestine 1936–2015Assia DjebarAlgeria 1936–2022A. B. YehoshuaIsrael 1936–2025Mario Vargas LlosaPeru 1936–1982Georges PerecFrance 1937–2005Juan José SaerArgentina b. 1937Anita DesaiIndia 1937–1986Bessie HeadSouth Africa / Botswana 1938–2024Bapsi SidhwaPakistan / United States b. 1938Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'oKenya b. 1939Margaret AtwoodCanada 1939–2023Ayi Kwei ArmahGhana 1939–2018Amos OzIsrael b. 1940Mahmoud DowlatabadiIran b. 1940Annie ErnauxFrance 1940–1992Angela CarterEngland b. 1940J. M. CoetzeeSouth Africa / Australia 1941–2017Ricardo PigliaArgentina b. 1942Isabel AllendeChile 1942–2023Ama Ata AidooGhana b. 1943Michael OndaatjeCanada / Sri Lanka b. 1943Peter CareyAustralia / United States b. 1944Bernhard SchlinkGermany b. 1944Alice WalkerUnited States 1944–2017Buchi EmechetaNigeria b. 1945Nuruddin FarahSomalia b. 1946Elfriede JelinekAustria b. 1947Salman RushdieIndia / England 1947–2021Keri HulmeNew Zealand 1948–2024Elias KhouryLebanon b. 1948Banu MushtaqIndia (Karnataka)b. 1948Abdulrazak GurnahTanzania / UK b. 1948Zakes MdaSouth Africa b. 1949César AiraArgentina b. 1949Jamaica KincaidAntigua b. 1952Orhan PamukTurkey b. 1952Vikram SethIndia b. 1952Rohinton MistryIndia / Canada b. 1954David GrossmanIsrael b. 1955Mo YanChina b. 1955Mia CoutoMozambique 1956–2019Andrea LevyEngland b. 1956Amitav GhoshIndia b. 1957Alaa Al AswanyEgypt b. 1957Geetanjali ShreeIndia b. 1959Ben OkriNigeria b. 1959Tsitsi DangarembgaZimbabwe b. 1961Arundhati RoyIndia b. 1963Damon GalgutSouth Africa b. 1966David DiopFrance b. 1970Marlon JamesJamaica b. 1971Kiran DesaiIndia / United States b. 1974Aravind AdigaIndia b. 1975Shehan KarunatilakaSri Lanka b. 1977Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieNigeria b. 1978Jokha AlharthiOman