Male
Russell Banks - Cloudsplitter
Kevin Baker - Paradise Alley
T.C. Boyle - Talk Talk
Peter Cameron - The City of Your Final Destination
Michael Chabon -
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Michael Cunningham - The Hours
E. L. Doctorow - The March
Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex
Richard Ford - Independence Day
Jonathan Franzen - The Corrections
Kent Haruf - Plainsong
Robert Hellenga - The Sixteen Pleasures
John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meany
Charles Johnson - Middle Passage
Edward P. Jones - The Known World
Ward Just - An Unfinished Season
Joseph Kanon - The Good German
William Kennedy - Ironweed
Chang-rae Lee - Aloft
Jonathan Lethem - The Fortress of Solitude
Cormac McCarthy - All the Pretty Horses
Dennis McFarland - The Music Room
Alistair MacLeod - No Great Mischief
Thomas Mallon - Henry and Clara
Howard Frank Mosher - A Stranger in the Kingdom
Walter Mosley - Fortunate Son
Howard Norman - The Bird Artist
Tim O’Brien - The Things They Carried
Stewart O’Nan - A World Away
Philip Roth - The Plot Against America
Richard Russo - Empire Falls
Mark Salzman - Lying Awake
John Updike - Terrorist
Larry Watson - The Orchard
Tobias Wolff - Old School

Female
Margaret Atwood - The Penelopiad
Andrea Barrett - The Voyage of the Narwhal
Rosellen Brown - Before and After
Tracy Chevalier - The Girl with the Pearl Earring
Robb Forman Dew - The Truth of the Matter
Mary Gaitskill - Veronica
Louise Erdrich - The Painted Drum
Kaye Gibbons - Charms for the Easy Life
Ellen Gilchrist - Sarah Conley
Gail Godwin - Father Melancholy’s Daughter
Allegra Goodman - Kaaterskill Falls
Mary Gordon - Pearl
Jane Hamilton - A Map of the World
Alice Hoffman - Blue Diary
Frances Itani - Deafening
Diane Johnson - Le Divorce
Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible
Alison Lurie - Truth and Consesquences
Alice McDermott - Charming Billy
Claire Messud - The Emperor’s Children
Sue Miller - While I Was Gone
Toni Morrison - Beloved
Alice Munro - Runaway: Stories
Sena Jeter Naslund - Ahab’s Wife
Joyce Carol Oates - We Were the Mulvaneys
Cynthia Ozick - Heir to the Glimmering World
Ann Patchett - Bel Canto
Jodi Picoult - Mercy
Marge Piercy - Sex Wars
E. Annie Proulx - The Shipping News
Marilynne Robinson - Gilead
Anne Roiphe - An Imperfect Lens
Carol Shields - Unless
Anita Shreve - The Weight of Water
Jane Smiley - A Thousand Acres
Lee Smith - The Last Girls
Amy Tan - The Joy Luck Club
Gail Tsukiyama - The Samurai’s Garden
Anne Tyler - Back When We Were Grownups
Jane Urquhart - The Stone Carvers
Susan Vreeland - Girl in Hyacinth Blue
Alice Walker - The Color Purple
Dorothy West - The Wedding

World Authors

Female
Isabel Allende - Portrait in Sepia
Kate Atkinson - Case Histories
Pat Barker - Regeneration
Geraldine Brooks - March
A. S. Byatt - Possession
Anita Brookner - Hotel du Lac
Kiran Desai - The Inheritance of Loss
Chitra Divakaruni - The Mistress of Spices
Margaret Drabble - The Seven Sisters
Penelope Fitzgerald - Offshore
Pamela Gien - The Syringa Tree
Nadine Gordimer - My Son’s Story
Kate Grenville - The Secret River
Joanne Harris - Gentlemen and Players
Shirley Hazzard - The Great Fire
Jamaica Kincaid - The Autobiography of My Mother
Jhumpa Lahiri - The Namesake
Doris Lessing - The Sweetest Dream
Penelope Lively - The Photograph
Margot Livesey - The Missing World
Colleen McCullough - The Grass Crown
Bharati Mukherjee - The Holder of the World
Edna O’Brien - Down by the River
Ali Smith - The Accidental
Zadie Smith - On Beauty
Rose Tremain - The Colour
Joanna Trollope - The Choir

Male
Alaa Al Aswany - The Yacoubian Building
Julian Barnes - Arthur and George
William Boyd - Any Human Heart
Peter Carey - True History of the Kelly Gang
J.M. Coetzee - Disgrace
Louis De Bernieres - Birds Without Wings
Roddy Doyle - Paddy Clarke, Ha–Ha–Ha
Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose
Sebastian Faulks - Birdsong
Garbriel Garcia Marquez -
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Jens Christian Grondahl - An Altered Light
Nick Hornby - How to Be Good
Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner
Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day
Ha Jin - Waiting
Thomas Keneally - Schindler’s List
Harry Kunzru - The Impressionist
John Le Carre - Absolute Friends
Ian McEwan - Atonement
John McGahern - By the Lake
Michael Ondaatje - The English Patient
Orhan Pamuk - Snow
Iain Pears - The Dream of Scipio
Arturo Perez–Reverte - The Fencing Master
Salman Rushdie - Fury
Jose Saramago - The Cave
Graham Swift - Last Orders
Colm Toibin - The Master
William Trevor - Felicia’s Journey
Mario Vargas Llosa - The Way to Paradise
A.B. Yehoshua - A Woman in Jerusalem

Books in the category called “literary fiction” are characterized by high quality writing. They generally receive critical acclaim and are often nominated for or receive literary awards such as the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Booker Prize etc.

Literary fiction is more often character than plot driven. Unlike most genre fiction (mysteries, romances, thrillers) literary fiction tends not to have neatly resolved endings, but leaves you, the reader, to speculate on the outcome and the characters’ future.

These are books that make you think!

An example of
literary fiction.

Gail Tsukiyama
The Samurai's Garden