Marked by the historical episodes that would define the current millennium, the twentieth century was an explosion of literary currents settled with the liberation of old stories, the discovery of new forms of narration and a time that was framed in the pages of some of its greatest plays. This selection of the best books of the XNUMXth century becomes the best example.
Ulysses, by James Joyce
Turned into a provocation for a critic that for years was divided, Joyce's Ulysses speaks of a century, of a time, of nihilistic characters who walk through the streets of Dublin looking for answers. The stories of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus they could belong to the same author whose interior monologue characterizes part of this work that takes its name from the protagonist of Homer's Odyssey as a way of adapting timeless stories to the new times, which needed other perspectives. Considered by many as the best book written in English of the XNUMXth century, Ulises has resulted in a cultural phenomenon in the form of tourist routes and annual celebrations that further enhance the legacy of the work.
In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust
Formed by seven parts written by Proust between 1908 and 1922 (three of them posthumous), In Search of Lost Time speaks of a time, that of Marcel, a young man of great sensitivity who seeks to be a writer and departs from the established path in pursuit of parties and sex. A reflection that includes the first concrete references to homosexuality in literature and an exalted feminism that reduces masculinity to a simple stereotype, forming one of the most influential works of the XNUMXth century.
The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
Winner of pulitzer prize and work that would define an era such as The Great Depression, The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939, is one of the great works of American literature. The journey of the Joad family, forced to emigrate from Oklahoma to California after having their lands expropriated, becomes a portrait of a time marked by economic inequality and frustrated expectations for the future. A whole classic.
Ana Frank's diary
Few books have been able to tell the truth from hell itself; much less a thirteen-year-old girl who once dreamed of a better world. Anne Frank and her family, all Jews, fled the Nazi occupation by hiding in the attic of an old warehouse in Amsterdam from June 12, 1942 to August 1, 1944, the day they were discovered and sent to concentration camps. A long period during which the young Frank wrote her state, her vision of the world and the life that she still had to experience in a diary that would be rescued by her father, the only survivor of the tragedy.
The Little Prince, by Antoine Saint-Exupéry
Aviator and writer, Saint-Exupéry was inspired by a landing in the Sahara desert to tell the story of a pilot who runs into a blond boy escaped from an asteroid threatened by the presence of baobabs. The short but intense journey of the Little Prince served to discover the different metaphors of a not so perfect world where that fox who sought to be domesticated or the businessman who counted the stars represented a reality that continues to this day. Timeless and essential for young and old.
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
When the story of the obsession of a psychology teacher by his twelve-year-old stepdaughter was published in 1955, the world went into a rage and the censorship lashed out. As time went by, everyone would realize the quality of the most famous work of the Russian Nabokov, the basis for understanding the psychopathy of a society where morals and values are often inhibited by a desire that does not understand ages or relationships.
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez
During eighteen months of hardships and economic crisis, Colombian Gabriel García Márquez wrote from Mexico City the book that would change Latin American literature forever. Published in 1967, One Hundred Years of Solitude is the most influential Hispanic novel of the XNUMXth century not only to confirm the hatching of the Latin American boom of the 60s and a magical realism so present in the streets and characters of that lost town of Macondo, but for freezing the history of an entire continent between its pages for all eternity.
1984, by George Orwell
Black Mirror, The Handmaid's Tale ... dystopia It has crept into our lives in the form of films, series and books that owe part of their imagery to 1984, the novel by George Orwell published in a few years after World War II in which the world began to rethink the reasons for its misfortunes and their consequences. Set in a futuristic England where big brother controls the lives of all its inhabitants, the premise of 1984 is as chilling as it is realistic if we analyze the course of current times in which control begins with a simple mobile phone.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Turned into the most widely read novel about racism of the XNUMXth centuryTo Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, published in 1960, is a classic of literature that has served to understand a racial history of the United States not entirely solved. Through the eyes of her father, Atticus Finch, narrator of the play and defender of a black man accused of raping a white woman during the Great Depression, young Scout Finch becomes alter ego from an author familiar with this reality for as long as she could remember. In 2015, a second part written before Killing a Mockingbird itself was published under the name Go and post a sentry.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling
Few, or perhaps none, literary phenomena can be measured against that caused by the saga of the wizard boy Harry Potter and his adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The first work, published in 1997 from the manuscript of a young divorced and unemployed mother, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, became the quintessential teenage boom that would lead to six other books (not counting Harry Potter and the legacy damned) whose total value climbed to $ 15 billion in 2007.
What are, in your opinion, the best books of the XNUMXth century?
It is not serious, -as someone else's shame provokes-, and it teases us, the readers; a "literary critic", who lists the best S20 books; That includes a fraud as it is considered in a literary premium list of humanity, the fraud of what they call the "diary of Anne Frank", a fraud that has been established a hundred thousand times irreproachably. It lacks any merit to exhibit it as a "book" or as a literary work since it has no literary value. This "work" only underestimates the undoubted value of the others mentioned and does it a disservice by comparing it with those written by the rest of the true authors "sacred cows" in literary terms.