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Books reviewed in chronological order – 1940-1949
1940
Miklos Bánffy: Darabokra szaggattatol (They Were Divided)
Karin Boye: Kallocain (Kallocain)
Kay Boyle: The Crazy Hunter – Three Short Novels (The Crazy Hunter; The Bridegroom’s Body; Big Fiddle)
Dino Buzzati: Il deserto dei Tartari (The Tartar Steppe)
Willa Cather: Sapphira and the Slave Girl
William Faulkner: The Hamlet
Oskar Maria Graf: Das Leben meiner Mutter (The Life of My Mother)
Graham Greene: The Power and the Glory (US: The Labyrinthine Ways)
Neil Gunn: Second Sight
James Hanley: Our Time Is Gone
Ernest Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Sándor Márai: Vendégjáték Bolzanóban (Casanova in Bolzano)
Carson McCullers: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Carson McCullers: Reflections in a Golden Eye
Irène Némirovsky: Les Chiens et les loups (The Dogs and the Wolves)
Hans Scherfig: Det forsømte forår (Stolen Spring)
Christina Stead: The Man Who Loved Children
Miklós Szentkuthy: Eszkoriál [Escorial]
Richard Wright: Native Son
1941
Ciro Alegría: El mundo es ancho y ajeno (Broad and Alien Is the World)
Joyce Cary: Herself Surprised
F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Last Tycoon
Paul Gadenne: Siloé [Siloam]
Jean Giono: Pour saluer Melville (Melville: A Novel)
Béla Illés: Kárpáti Rapszódia (Carpathian Rhapsody)
Wyndham Lewis: The Vulgar Streak
Andrew Lytle: At the Moon’s Inn
François Mauriac: La Pharisienne (A Woman of the Pharisees)
Vladimir Nabokov: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
Flann O’Brien: An Béal Bocht (The Poor Mouth)
Miklós Szentkuthy: Europa Minor
Elio Vittorini: Conversazione in Sicilia (Conversation in Sicily; In Sicily; Tears and Wine)
Patrick White: The Living and the Dead
Virginia Woolf: Between the Acts
1942
Albert Camus: L’Etranger (UK: The Outsider; US: The Stranger)
Joyce Cary: To Be a Pilgrim
Camilo José Cela: La familia de Pascual Duarte (Pascual Duarte’s Family, US: The Family of Pascual Duarte)
William Faulkner: Go Down, Moses, and Other Stories (later title: Go Down, Moses)
Milán Füst: A feleségem története (The Story of My Wife)
Vasily Grossman: Народ бессмертен (The People Immortal; No Beautiful Nights)
Neil Gunn: Young Art and Old Hector
Rim Kin: សូផាត (Sophat)
Sándor Márai: A gyertyák csonkig égnek (Embers)
Dawn Powell: A Time to Be Born
Ion Sadoveanu: Sfârşit de veac în Bucureşti [Fin-de-siècle in Bucharest]
Antal Szerb: VII. Olivér (Oliver VII)
Frank Waters: The Man Who Killed the Deer
Evelyn Waugh: Put Out More Flags
Eudora Welty: Robber Bridegroom
Austin Tappan Wright: Islandia
1943
Sabahattin Ali : Kürk Mantolu Madonna (Madonna in a Fur Coat)
Jorge Amado: São Jorge dos Ilhéus (The Golden Harvest)
Jorge Amado: Terras do Sem-Fim (The Violent Land)
Max Aub: Campo cerrado (Field of Honour)
Georges Bernanos: Monsieur Ouine (The Open Mind; Monsieur Ouine)
Jane Bowles: Two Serious Ladies
Simone de Beauvoir: L’invitée (She Came to Stay)
Graham Greene: The Ministry of Fear
Neil Gunn: The Serpent (US: Man Goes Alone)
James Hanley: No Directions
Egon Hostovský: Úkryt (The Hideout)
Halldór Laxness: Íslandsklukkan (Iceland’s Bell)
Thomas Mann: Joseph, der Ernährer (Joseph the Provider)
Shinobu Orikuchi: 死者の書 (The Book of the Dead)
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: Le petit prince (The Little Prince)
Antal Szerb: A királyné nyaklánca (The Queen’s Necklace)
1944
Saul Bellow: Dangling Man
Joyce Cary: The Horse’s Mouth
Louis-Ferdinand Céline: Guignol’s Band (Guignol’s Band)
Mário de Andrade: Macunaíma (Macunaíma)
Caroline Gordon: The Women on the Porch
Neil Gunn: The Green Isle of the Great Deep
L P Hartley: The Shrimp and the Anemone
Volter Kilpi: Gulliverin matka Fantomimian mantereelle (Gulliver’s Voyage to Phantomimia)
Curzio Malaparte: Kaputt (Kaputt; later: Kaputt goes Europe!)
Alfredo Pareja Díez Canseco: Las tres ratas [The Three Rats]
Jacques Roumain: Gouverneurs de la rosée (Masters of the Dew)
Jean Stafford: Boston Adventure
MartinWickramasinghe: ගම්පෙරළිය (The Uprooted) Part 1: (The Village)
1945
Ivo Andrić: Na Drini ćuprija (The Bridge on the Drina)
Ivo Andrić: Travnička hronika (Bosnian Story; Bosnian Chronicle; The Days of the Consuls)
Ivo Andrić: Gospođjica (The Woman from Sarajevo)
Max Aub: Campo de sangre [Field of Blood]
Mukhtar Auezov: Абай жолы (Abai)
Hermann Broch: Der Tod des Vergil (The Death of Virgil)
Julien Gracq: Un beau ténébreux (A Dark Stranger)
Henry Green: Loving
Neil Gunn: The Key of the Chest
Christopher Isherwood: Prater Violet
Carlo Levi: Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (Christ Stopped at Eboli)
Carmen Laforet: Nada (Nada; Andrea)
Vítězslav Nezval: Valérie a týden divů (Valerie and Her Week of Wonders)
George Orwell: Animal Farm
Jean-Paul Sartre: L’Age de raison (The Age of Reason)
Jean-Paul Sartre: Le Sursis (The Reprieve)
Tarjei Vesaas: Huset i mørkret (The House in the Dark)
Evelyn Waugh: Brideshead Revisited
1946
Miguel Ángel Asturias: El Señor Presidente (The President; El Señor Presidente)
Isabel Bolton: Do I Wake or Sleep
Marta Brunet: Humo hacia el sur [Smoke Towards the South]
Stella Gibbons: Westwood
Neil Gunn: The Drinking Well
L P Hartley: The Sixth Heaven
T. Rowland Hughes: Chwalfa (Out of Their Night)
Emyr Humphreys: The Little Kingdom
Nikos Kazantzakis: Βιος και Πολιτεία του Αλέξη Ζορμπά (Zorba the Greek)
Clarice Lispector: O lustre (The Chandelier)
Gianna Manzini: Lettera all’editore (Game Plan for a Novel)
Carson McCullers: The Member of the Wedding
Liam O’Flaherty: Land
Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan
Janos Szekely: Kísértés (Temptation)
Angelos Terzakis: Ταξίδι με τον Έσπερο [Travelling with Hesperus])
Eudora Welty: Delta Wedding
1947
Anna Banti: Artemisia (Artemisia)
Saul Bellow: The Victim
John Horne Burns: The Gallery
Italo Calvino: Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno (The Path to the Nest of Spiders)
Albert Camus: La Peste (The Plague)
Osamu Dazai: 斜陽 (Japan: The Declining Sun, US: The Setting Sun)
Lawrence Durrell: The Dark Labyrinth
Gaito Gazdanov: Призрак Александра Вольфа (The Spectre of Alexander Wolf)
Jean Giono: Un roi sans divertissement [A King Without Distraction]
L P Hartley: Eustace and Hilda
Sigurd Hoel: Møte ved Milepelen (Meeting at the Milestone)
Berdi Kerbabaev: Aĭgytly ădim (Der entscheidende Schritt) [The Decisive Step]
Malcolm Lowry: Under the Volcano
Andrew Lytle: A Name for Evil
Julian Maclaren-Ross: Of Love and Hunger
Naguib Mahfouz: زقاق المدق (Midaq Alley)
Thomas Mann: Doktor Faustus (Doctor Faustus)
Alberto Moravia: La romana (The Woman of Rome)
Vladimir Nabokov: Bend Sinister
Cesare Pavese: Il compagno (The Comrade)
Vasco Pratolini: Cronaca familiare (Two Brothers; Family Chronicle)
Vasco Pratolini: Cronache di poveri amanti (A Tale of Poor Lovers)
Gerard Reve: De avonden (The Evenings)
Rogelio Sinán: Plenilunio [Full Moon]
Jean Stafford: The Mountain Lion
Agustín Yáñez: Al filo del agua (The Edge of the Storm)
1948
Jerzy Andrzejewski: Popiół i diament (Ashes and Diamonds)
Elizabeth Bowen: The Heat of the Day
Jocelyn Brooke: The Military Orchid
Osamu Dazai: 人間失格 (No Longer Human)
G V Desani: All About H. Hatterr
William Faulkner: Intruder in the Dust
Paul Gadenne: Rue profonde [The Deep Street]
Graham Greene: The Heart of the Matter
Neil Gunn: The Shadow
Neil Gunn: The Silver Bough
Aldous Huxley: Ape and Essence
Norman Mailer: The Naked and the Dead
Leopoldo Marechal: Adán Buenosayres
Achdiat Mihardja: Atheis (Atheis)
Elsa Morante: Menzogna e sortilegio (House of Liars)
Wright Morris: The Home Place
Yolanda Oreamuno: La ruta de su evasión [The Route of Her Escape]
Pa Chin: 寒夜 (Cold Nights)
Dawn Powell: The Locusts Have No King
Ernesto Sabato: El túnel (The Outsider; The Tunnel)
Nathalie Sarraute: Portrait d’un inconnu (Portrait of a Man Unknown)
Zaharia Stancu, : Desculț (Barefoot)
Jun’ichiro Tanizaki: 細雪 (The Makioka Sisters)
Elio Vittorini: Il garofano rosso (The Red Carnation)
Evelyn Waugh: The Loved One
Patrick White: The Aunt’s Story
1949
Nelson Algren: The Man with the Golden Arm
Miguel Ángel Asturias: Hombres de maíz (Men of Maize)
Isabel Bolton: The Christmas Tree
Paul Bowles: The Sheltering Sky
Jocelyn Brooke: A Mine of Serpents
Alejo Carpentier: El reino de este mundo (The Kingdom of this World)
Alba de Céspedes: Dalla parte di lei (The Best of Husbands)
Neil Gunn: The Lost Chart
John Hawkes: The Cannibal
Hans Henny Jahnn: Die Niederschrift des Gustav Anias Horn nachdem er 49 Jahre alt geworden war [The Notebook of Gustav Anias Horn after he was 49 years old]
Naguib Mahfouz: بداية ونهاية (The Beginning and the End)
Curzio Malaparte: La Pelle (The Skin)
Wright Morris: The World in the Attic
Máirtín Ó Cadhain: Cré na Cille (The Dirty Dust)
George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four
Jean-Paul Sartre: La mort dans l’âme (UK: Iron in the Soul; US: Troubled Sleep)
Jun’ichiro Tanizaki: 少将滋幹の母 (Captain Shigemoto’s Mother)
Other links
Publishers Weekly list of bestselling novels in the United States in the 1940s
The Books of the Century: 1940-1949
Modern Literature Time Chart (1940 – 1949)
Modern US literature chronological order