When it comes to choosing the best books ever, the opinions can be many. For that reason, we have adhered to our own criteria already lists such as World Library, compiled by 100 writers from 54 different countries when it comes to finding the 10 best books in history. Works that are already part of the world of letters for eternity.
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez
Latin American letters have given us some of the best books of the XNUMXth century, exploding in worlds of colors, hardness and a magical realism whose main ambassador is, without a doubt, the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez. After its publication in 1967, One Hundred Years of Solitude, the Nobel Prize's magnum opus, became a success thanks to the treatment of the history of the Buendía, a family that over several generations undergoes the transformation of Macondo, a town lost in the middle of the South American tropics where the most powerful metaphor about the contemporary history of an entire continent resided.
You still haven't read One Hundred Years of Solitude?
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
After centuries of denial of female writers, the Englishwoman Austen knew how to unload all the irony accumulated in this novel published in 1813. Considered one of the first romantic comedies in the history of literature, Pride and prejudice revolves around a classic in Austen's work: the war of the sexes in rural English, in this case between Elizabeth Bennet and her opinion about Fitzwilliam Darcy, a man of the high aristocracy who in turn judges her by her position Social.
Everything falls apart, by Chinua Achebe
La african literature it suffered for years the oppression of a European colonization that imposed its norms, its religion and its literary classics rather than allowing the peoples of the largest continent in the world to speak. A reality reflected like few other times in Everything falls apart, the most famous novel by the Nigerian-born Nobel laureate Chinua Achebe. A story through which we witness the decline of a powerful African warrior after the arrival of the English evangelists in Africa, composing a story of tension in growing.
1984, by George Orwell
In the history of literature there have been many visionary stories, but few capable of palpating dystopian terror as did 1984, the work of George Orwell. Published in 1949, the novel emphasized the totalitarian politics of that "all-seeing eye," that Gran Hermano that coerces all freedom and expression. Set in a futuristic world, more specifically in the famous Air Strip 1, known as the old England, 1984 was a best-seller at a time in the XNUMXth century when the whole world was rethinking the consequences of its excesses.
Would you like to read 1984 by George Orwell?
Don Quixote de la Mancha, by Miguel de Cervantes
In the aforementioned World Library list, Don Quixote de la Mancha was separated from the rest to be considered as «the greatest work ever written«. One example, among many others, that confirms the influence that the work of Miguel de Cervantes on the famous nobleman who fought windmills that he mistook for giants has had since its publication in 1605.
Don Quijote de la Mancha you have to read it once in your life.
War and Peace, by Leon Tolstoy
Published in fascicles from 1865 until its final publication in 1869, Guerra y paz is considered not only as one of the best books in the history of Russian literature, but also of the universal. In the play, Tolstoy analyzes different characters through the last 100 years of Russian history, with special emphasis on the Napoleonic occupation through the eyes of four families in the early XNUMXth century.
The Iliad, by Homer
The considered as the oldest work in the western worldThe Iliad is an epic poem whose character, Achilles, son of King Peleus and the Nereid Thetis, is enraged with Agamemnon, a Greek leader who snatches his beloved Briseis from him. Composed of 15.693 verses divided into 24 songs by Greek intellectuals who used this epic for educational purposes in Ancient Greece, The Iliad is a universal classic of literature along with The Odyssey, also by Homer, chronicle of the exciting journey of Ulysses to Ithaca.
Ulysses, by James Joyce
The Irishman Joyce adapted the myth of the Greek hero from The Odyssey into what is considered by many to be the best novel in English literature ever. Subjected to numerous analyzes and discussions by experts, Ulysses narrates the passage through the streets of Dublin of Leopold Bloom and Stepehn Dedalus, both considered as alter egos from Joyce himself. A metaphysical universe where growing nihilism defines a generation and whose characters and symbolisms have much in common with the famous Greek work from which it borrows the name of its protagonist.
Would you like to read Ulysses by James Joyce?
The search for lost time, by Marcel Proust
One of the masterpieces of French literature was divided into seven volumes published between 1913 and 1927 to tell us the story of Marcel, a young man from the French aristocracy who, despite longing to be a writer, is carried away by love, sex and self-discovery. The search for the past through the narrator's internal voice as a monologue reveals a complex work that will go down in history due to the good work of Proust, who died by the time the last three volumes were published, and it is one of the first stories in literature that began to address the issue of homosexuality.
Arabian Nights
We could choose many books from Western literature, but after all, the narrative is nurtured by many nuances depending on the different parts of the world that interpreted the way of telling stories for themselves. And one of the best examples of this reality was the arrival of Arabian Nights to a Europe of the XNUMXth century who was seduced by the stories of Scheherazade, the courtesan who had to satisfy the sultan every night with her stories if he did not want to lose his mind. A sandstorm full of stories of magic lamps, floating islands and mysterious bazaars that collects the narrative essence of countries like India, Persia or Egypt.
What are the best books in history for you?