Must-read Spanish books
Hi, everybody.
I speak English and Russian. I know all too well that of the great library of Russian literature, only a small part is properly translated into English and is easy to find. In fact, some of my all-time favourite books either have not been translated well or at all.
I suppose, the same must be true for Spanish. Can you recommend a book that would be a must-read for someone able to understand the language? Ideally, one I can download online from Amazon or some other source. I would especially like something using the modern peninsular dialect.
Just to clarify, I mean books only available in Spanish — those I have to read now that I understand the language, because I would not have been able to read them before.
9 Answers
I, too, was confused about what you were asking for based on your title and opening post, but when I read your comment on the first answer I figured it out.
Here are some things that I know of; I haven't read any of them and I can't take the time to make sure they haven't been translated (maybe you would be able to get more responses if you ask the question in Spanish).
Lorenzo Silva- I think some of his stuff has been translated into a few languages, but nothing in English yet.
It looks like most of Miguel Delibes' works are not available in English.
Amor se escribe sin hache by Enrique Jardiel Poncela (I want to read this book; my friends read it for a literature class they took in Spain and they really enjoyed it.)
You might want to try something like GoodReads and look at the "Readers also enjoyed similar books" section for a Spanish book and then click on something that looks interesting. Then click on the "Other Editions" button to see what languages it's available in. There is something about GoodReads that really annoys me though. When I look up books in Spanish it usually automatically takes me to the English version (if available) and then when I click on Other Editions it will have editions listed in English and some other languages before the Spanish version, even if the book was originally in Spanish! ¡Qué ridículo!
Hi
- García Márquez's works are being read by all the universe! - a Colombian writer. One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera are the best!
search for more and the rest!
tnx
Check out Zafon, contemporary and Castellano Zafon site You can buy his stuff on Amazon, He's a best-seller and that means you can discuss him with lots of Spanish speakers.
La puta de Babilonia, by Fernando Vallejo.
That's the original title and I recommend it because it offers an insight to the history of the Church that I found very interesting.
I am reading "The complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Spanish", by Gail Stein, A very handy book. It is helping me a lot.
I don't know any Spanish book titles off hand, but a couple of really good short stories (which is a great place to start):
Continuidad de los parques http://www.literatura.org/Cortazar/Continuidad.html
La señorita Julia: http://people.uncw.edu/mountt/401La senorita Julia.htm
Enjoy!
I'm reading Tolstoy's Anna Karanina in English, do you think that would be any good. As far as Spanish books, I'm reading Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo and it is very good.
Don Quixote de la Manca
Books that are only available in Spanish? The only one that comes to mind right now is " Don Quijote de la Mancha"
