10 best books of the XXI century according to The Guardian: David Mitchell, Svetlana Aleksievich and others

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In September 2019, the British edition of The Guardian published a list of the 100 best books of the 21st century, which included the debut novels of writers, historical works and memoirs. The list of one hundred books looks very impressive, but today we propose to get acquainted with those works that are included in the top ten. In fact, each of these books is worthy to go down in literary history.

Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi

The novel by a Nigerian writer, released in 2006, tells the story of the war between Nigeria and Biafra in 1967-1970. At the same time, the story is not only about the war and about the historical and social processes taking place in society in difficult times. This novel is about people forced to live at a time when the country and your own home are shaking from explosions, and about the adaptation of people to the world after the war.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

This work, written in 2004, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and the novel itself is like a roller coaster. It includes six stories that lift the reader to the emotional peak, and then sharply lower them down to a state of almost complete emptiness. An unusual construction, a very peculiar manner of storytelling and a fascinating plot of each story make the reader go from the middle of the 19th century to a fairy tale outside of civilization, after the world collapsed.

Autumn, Ali Smith

In her novel, published in 2016, the British writer tries to find an answer to the question "what is time and how do we experience it." This is the first work in a series of books, each of which will bear the name of a season. "Autumn" at a time when the UK just held a referendum on EU membership, and this event could not but leave an imprint on Ali Smith's collage novel.

"Between the World and Me", Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates' novel-meditation on what it is like to be a black American today is conceived by the author as a letter to his teenage son. The pages of the book deal with racial injustice that we have to face every day, police violence, the history of slavery and the civil war. A difficult conversation about the complexities and problems that have not yet been resolved in a democratic society.

The Amber Telescope, Philip Pullman

The Amber Telescope is the end of the Dark Beginnings trilogy. According to The Guardian, in Pullman's third book, children's fiction has come of age. And the topics touched upon by the author are no longer childish: the writer talks about faith and freedom, about religion and totalitarian structures, and also about the eternal human desire for knowledge, his craving for rebellion and inner growth. And that even white and black have their own shades.

"Austerlitz", W. G. Sebald

"Austerlitz" is a difficult and even partly gloomy work, telling about the architectural historian Jacques Austerlitz, who studied books all his life. Gradually, the novel makes him live with the main character his entire life, from the Holocaust in Czechoslovakia to life in east London. But there is another anonymous storyteller in the work, while the reader can only guess whether the writer is describing himself, meeting on the pages of his own novel with an old academician in mysterious time periods.

Don't Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

The Booker Prize laureate, a British writer of Japanese descent, is known for his allegorical works about history and nationalism, as well as about the place of personality in this world and about the boundaries of understanding and perception of life. “Don't let me go” is a reflection on death and hopelessness, and even a little about love.

"Second Hand Time", Svetlana Aleksievich

The Belarusian writer, Nobel Prize winner, in her novel published in 2013, brought together the oral history of the Soviet Union, told by eyewitnesses. Svetlana Aleksievich gave an opportunity to speak out for writers and waiters, Kremlin apparatchiks and ordinary soldiers, doctors and those who survived going through the crucible of the GULAG. Each story has its own pain, its own memories and its own losses.

Gilead by Marilyn Robinson

A philosophical novel in letters that elderly preacher John Amy writes to his young son, a poignant and life-affirming book. It is about heritage, beauty and thousands of reasons to live this life. The preacher's son will come of age and read his father's letters when he is no longer alive. And yet he will live as long as his boy reads his father's messages.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

The novel, which tells the story of the rise of Thomas Cromwell at the Tudor court, turned out to be very unusual, because the reader is given the opportunity to look at the events taking place in England through the eyes of Cromwell himself. It is a poignant and sensual narrative of history, lively, vibrant and fresh.

Some books become bestsellers almost at the moment of their release. However, many famous works after the first publication failed: the books were not accepted by readers, and critics could well write very unflattering reviews. Several years, or even decades, had to pass for readers to be able to appreciate the ingenious work of the great author at its true worth, to accept and understand the meaning embedded in it.