Popular European Contemporary Fiction Books
Find contemporary fiction books written by authors from Europe for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (151)
11.
Aliss at the Fire by Jon Fosse EN
NorwayDescription:
A haunting exploration of love and loss by the Beckett of the twenty-first century (Le Monde).
12.
All Men Want to Know by Nina Bouraoui EN
FranceDescription:
'Intense, gorgeous, troubling, seductive - a novel that has to be surrendered to rather than read' Sarah Waters AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER OF AN ENGLISH PEN TRANSLATES AWARD All Men Want to Know traces Nina Bouraoui's blissful childhood in Algeria, a wild, sun-soaked paradise, with hazy summer afternoons spent swimming, diving, and driving across the desert. Her mother is French, her father Algerian; when racial tensions begin to surface in their neighbourhood, her mother suffers an unspeakable act of violence that forces the family to flee the country. In Paris, eighteen-year-old Nina... continue
13.
All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan EN
IrelandDescription:
'Martin Toppy is the son of a famous Traveller and the father of my unborn child. He's seventeen, I'm thirty-three. I was his teacher. I'd have killed myself by now if I was brave enough. I don't think it would hurt the baby. His little heart would stop with mine. He wouldn't feel himself leaving one world of darkness for another, his spirit untangling itself from me.' Melody Shee is alone and in trouble. Her husband doesn't take her news too well. She doesn't want to tell her father yet because he's a good man and this could break him. She's trying to stay in the moment, but the future is loo... continue
Sweden15.
Aprender a hablar con las plantas by Marta Orriols ES
SpainDescription:
La primera y esperada novela ganadora del premio Òmnium y el premio L'Illa dels Llibres de una gran autora: el retrato de la encrucijada vital de una mujer. «Marta Orriols tiene la capacidad de fijar con palabras la fugacidad y lo imprevisto de las circunstancias cotidianas.» Ponç Puigdevall, El País « El odio y el amor a veces se acoplan en una sola bola, como gotas de mercurio, y de la amalgama surge un sentimiento pesante y tóxico y extrañamente añorado. Eso es lo que irrita. La añoranza, a pesar de todo.» Paula Cid es una neonatóloga de cuarenta y dos años con una vida ordenada. Apasionada... continue
16.
Before the Feast by Saša Stanišić EN
Country: Europe / 
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Description:
Someone has opened the doors to the Village Archive, but what drives the sleepless out of their houses is not that which was stolen, but that which has escaped. Old stories, myths, and fairy tales are wandering about the streets with the people. They come together in a novel about a long night, a mosaic of village life, in which the long-established and newcomers, the dead and the living, craftsmen, pensioners, and noble robbers in football shirts bump into each other. They all want to bring something to a close, in this night before the feast.
17.
Below Zero by Ali Hazelwood EN
ItalyDescription:
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis comes a new steamy, STEMinist novella… It will take the frosty terrain of the Arctic to show these rival scientists that their chemistry burns hot. Mara, Sadie, and Hannah are friends first, scientists always. Though their fields of study might take them to different corners of the world, they can all agree on this universal truth: when it comes to love and science, opposites attract and rivals make you burn… Hannah’s got a bad feeling about this. Not only has the NASA aerospace engineer found herself injured and stranded at a r... continue
18.
Berättelse om ett liv by Peter Handke SV
AustriaDescription:
I Berättelse om ett liv skriver Peter Handke om sin mammas tröstlösa liv och självmord i början av sjuttiotalet. Han berättar om att vara det första barnet med "fel" man, om ett äktenskap som faller samman och om en uppslitande tillvaro i Österrike och krigets och efterkrigstidens Berlin. Det är ett liv som ingen reagerar på, och som till slut går mot sin upplösning.
Handkes berättelse är också en reflexion över det som berättas, över svårigheterna att skriva.
19.
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell EN
Country: Europe / 
United Kingdom
United Kingdom
Description:
The dazzling novel from critically-acclaimed David Mitchell. Shortlisted for the 2006 Costa Novel Award Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2006 January, 1982. Thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor - covert stammerer and reluctant poet - anticipates a stultifying year in his backwater English village. But he hasn't reckoned with bullies, simmering family discord, the Falklands War, a threatened gypsy invasion and those mysterious entities known as girls. Charting thirteen months in the black hole between childhood and adolescence, this is a captivating novel, wry, painful and vibrant with the stuff o... continue
20.
PortugalDescription:
No food, no water, no government, no obligation, no order. Discover a chillingly powerful and prescient dystopian vision from one of Europe's greatest writers. A driver waiting at the traffic lights goes blind. An ophthalmologist tries to diagnose his distinctive white blindness, but is affected before he can read the textbooks. It becomes a contagion, spreading throughout the city. Trying to stem the epidemic, the authorities herd the afflicted into a mental asylum where the wards are terrorised by blind thugs. And when fire destroys the asylum, the inmates burst forth and the last links with... continue