Less known internationaly writers who you think deserve more readers?

[Kyriakos]

A thread about suggesting writers who in your view are very good, but are not known names and others here likely would not have read them yet.

I'll start with two suggestions, an early 20th century Swiss-German and a late 19th century Greek:

1) Alexander Papadiamantis is by a huge margin the best modern greek novelist. His novella 'The Murderess' is in my view one of the better euro small novels of the last two centuries, and deals with an elderly woman who gets violent out of her view that little girls in her village do not stand to live any life to speak of.

2) Robert Walser is easily one of the most striking authors i ever read. While he was admired by later on famous authors (eg Hesse and Kafka), he never had much of a reader following, and likely still does not. My favorite works of his are the numerous short stories, such as "Kienast", "So, i have you!" and fable-like horror or melancholic tales of death. Another work of his i have is Jacob von Gunden.

Your turn

 

[warpus]

Would Stanislaw Lem be a good name to mention here?

One of the best sci-fi authors of our time. But he is only really unknown if you aren't into reading sci-fi.

 

[Kyriakos]

Would Stanislaw Lem be a good name to mention here?

One of the best sci-fi authors of our time. But he is only really unknown if you aren't into reading sci-fi.

You suggested that years ago in a similar thread

Is the Multivac story his own, then? I read that some weeks ago given it was mentioned in the forum. Pretty good, but i did not like everything there..

 

[warpus]

Not sure about Multivac. Is that the title? It doesn't sound familiar.

His prose can be very .. silly at times. He wrote sci-fi, for the most part, but a lot of it was wrapped in absurdism and satire. It wasn't easy to make fun of the communists back then, so he had to not make it very clear that that's what he was doing. Some of his prose is heady, some is silly like I said, and a lot of it relies a lot on wordplay.. which has been very excellently translated into the English mind you, from what I've read so far anyway.

Some of his stuff reads like silly children's books, but some of it is deep philosophical stuff. He even has a book out which contains reviews of books that don't exist. He just sort of wrote wherever the pen took him, I suppose. I find his work fascinating.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Would Stanislaw Lem be a good name to mention here?

One of the best sci-fi authors of our time. But he is only really unknown if you aren't into reading sci-fi.

Oh. My. God! I remember that at my grandfather's library we had a book of his! It was about some travelers crashing on an alien world. What was really odd was that all the humans were called by their proffesions (i.e the Doctor, the Engineer and so on.). And the aliens were really weird.
It was one of my first sci-fi novels I read.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You suggested that years ago in a similar thread

Is the Multivac story his own, then? I read that some weeks ago given it was mentioned in the forum. Pretty good, but i did not like everything there..

Multivac is Asimov's.

 

[Borachio]

Well. Solaris is his best known work. Lem must be pretty mainstream, because even I've read Solaris.

 

[Kyriakos]

Multivac is Asimov's.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I guess Haruki Murakami isn't a secret anymore. Nicola Griffith? There are probably a zillion authors who are well-known to a particular group of fans and unknown outside of it.

 

[red_elk]

Would Stanislaw Lem be a good name to mention here?

About as good as Mark Twain or Leo Tolstoy
I think he is known very well.

Good authors which I read recently, were Leonard Mlodinow and Oliver Sacks.

From Russian classic writers, probably Mikhail Bulgakov should be mentioned.

 

[warpus]

Lem seems to be well known in central and eastern europe but not so well known elsewhere, especially North America - unless you happen to be an avid sci-fi reader.

From my experience anyway.

Oh. My. God! I remember that at my grandfather's library we had a book of his! It was about some travelers crashing on an alien world. What was really odd was that all the humans were called by their proffesions (i.e the Doctor, the Engineer and so on.). And the aliens were really weird.
It was one of my first sci-fi novels I read.

Yeah, that sounds like Lem alright

 

[gay_Aleks]

Now that I looked around, the book's name is Eden...and it's darker than I remember.
Another Soviet bloc author(s) that are underestimated would be the brother Strugaski. Roadside picnic is a great book. There's a movie on it, Stalkers it's called.

 

[red_elk]

Another Soviet bloc author(s) that are underestimated would be the brother Strugaski. Roadside picnic is a great book. There's a movie on it, Stalkers it's called.

Strugatskie are very good sci-fi authors.
Though "Stalker" movie has quite remote connection to a "Roadside Picnic".
It's an art movie of Andrey Tarkovsky, which is based on a different scenario, though written by Strugatskie too. Movie shares some common concepts and characters from a book, such as the Zone and protagonist Redrick Schuhart, but the described events are different.