Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century

**_Le Monde**s 100 Books of the Century** is a list of books thought to be the 100 best of the 20th century. The list was made in 1999 by the French retail store Fnac and the Paris newspaper _Le Monde_.

Starting with a list of 200 titles made by bookshops and journalists, 17,000 French people answered the question, "Which books have stayed in your memory?" The list includes novels, poetry, theatre, and comic strips. Some received the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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## The 100 Books of the Century

|scope=col|No.|scope=col|Title|scope=col|Author|scope=col|Year|scope=col|Language|scope=col|Country|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|align="right"|1|_The Stranger_ (_The Outsider_)|Albert Camus|1942|French|French Algeria||||||
|align="right"|2|_In Search of Lost Time_ (_Remembrance of Things Past_)|Marcel Proust|1913–1927|French|France||||||
|align="right"|3|_The Trial_|Franz Kafka|1925|German|Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia||||||
|align="right"|4|_The Little Prince_|Antoine de Saint-Exupéry|1943|French|France||||||
|align="right"|5|_Man's Fate_|André Malraux|1933|French|France||||||
|align="right"|6|_Journey to the End of the Night_|Louis-Ferdinand Céline|1932|French|France||||||
|align="right"|7|_The Grapes of Wrath_|John Steinbeck|1939|English|USA||||||
|align="right"|8|_For Whom the Bell Tolls_|Ernest Hemingway|1940|English|USA||||||
|align="right"|9|_Le Grand Meaulnes_|Alain-Fournier|1913|French|France||||||
|align="right"|10|_Froth on the Daydream_|Boris Vian|1947|French|France||||||
|align="right"|11|_The Second Sex_|Simone de Beauvoir|1949|French|France||||||
|align="right"|12|_Waiting for Godot_|Samuel Beckett|1952|French, English|Ireland, France||||||
|align="right"|13|_Being and Nothingness_|Jean-Paul Sartre|1943|French|France||||||
|align="right"|14|_The Name of the Rose_|Umberto Eco|1980|Italian|Italy||||||
|align="right"|15|_The Gulag Archipelago_|Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn|1973|Russian|Soviet Union||||||
|align="right"|16|_Paroles_|Jacques Prévert|1946|French|France||||||
|align="right"|17|_Alcools_|Guillaume Apollinaire|1913|French|France||||||
|align="right"|18|_The Blue Lotus_|Hergé|1936|French|Belgium||||||
|align="right"|19|_The Diary of a Young Girl_|Anne Frank|1947|Dutch|<small>Germany</small>, Netherlands||||||
|align="right"|20|_Tristes Tropiques_|Claude Lévi-Strauss|1955|French|France||||||
|align="right"|21|_Brave New World_|Aldous Huxley|1932|English|UK||||||
|align="right"|22|_Nineteen Eighty-Four_|George Orwell|1949|English|UK||||||
|align="right"|23|_Asterix the Gaul_|René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo|1959|French|France||||||
|align="right"|24|_The Bald Soprano_|Eugène Ionesco|1952|French, Romanian|<small>Romania</small>, France||||||
|align="right"|25|_Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality_|Sigmund Freud|1905|German|Austria||||||
|align="right"|26|_The Abyss_ (_Zeno of Bruges_)|Marguerite Yourcenar|1968|French|France, Belgium||||||
|align="right"|27|_Lolita_|Vladimir Nabokov|1955|English, Russian|Russia, USA||||||
|align="right"|28|_Ulysses_|James Joyce|1922|English|Ireland||||||
|align="right"|29|_The Tartar Steppe_|Dino Buzzati|1940|Italian|Italy||||||
|align="right"|30|_The Counterfeiters_|André Gide|1925|French|France||||||
|align="right"|31|_The Horseman on the Roof_|Jean Giono|1951|French|France||||||
|align="right"|32|_Belle du Seigneur_|Albert Cohen|1968|French|<small>Greece</small>, Switzerland||||||
|align="right"|33|_One Hundred Years of Solitude_|Gabriel García Márquez|1967|Spanish|Colombia||||||
|align="right"|34|_The Sound and the Fury_|William Faulkner|1929|English|USA||||||
|align="right"|35|_Thérèse Desqueyroux_|François Mauriac|1927|French|France||||||
|align="right"|36|_Zazie in the Metro_|Raymond Queneau|1959|French|France||||||
|align="right"|37|_Confusion of Feelings_|Stefan Zweig|1927|German|Austria||||||
|align="right"|38|_Gone with the Wind_|Margaret Mitchell|1936|English|USA||||||
|align="right"|39|_Lady Chatterley's Lover_|D. H. Lawrence|1928|English|UK||||||
|align="right"|40|_The Magic Mountain_|Thomas Mann|1924|German|Germany||||||
|align="right"|41|_Bonjour Tristesse_|Françoise Sagan|1954|French|France||||||
|align="right"|42|_Le Silence de la mer_|Vercors|1942|French|France||||||
|align="right"|43|_Life: A User's Manual_|Georges Perec|1978|French|France||||||
|align="right"|44|_The Hound of the Baskervilles_|Arthur Conan Doyle|1901–1902|English|UK||||||
|align="right"|45|_Under the Sun of Satan_|Georges Bernanos|1926|French|France||||||
|align="right"|46|_The Great Gatsby_|F. Scott Fitzgerald|1925|English|USA||||||
|align="right"|47|_The Joke_|Milan Kundera|1967|Czech|Czech Republic, France||||||
|align="right"|48|_A Ghost at Noon_ (_Contempt_)|Alberto Moravia|1954|French|France||||||
|align="right"|49|_The Murder of Roger Ackroyd_|Agatha Christie|1926|English|UK||||||
|align="right"|50|_Nadja_|André Breton|1928|French|France||||||
|align="right"|51|_Aurélien_|Louis Aragon|1944|French|France||||||
|align="right"|52|_The Satin Slipper_|Paul Claudel|1929|French|France||||||
|align="right"|53|_Six Characters in Search of an Author_|Luigi Pirandello|1921|Italian|Italy||||||
|align="right"|54|_The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui_|Bertolt Brecht|1959|German|Germany||||||
|align="right"|55|_Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique_|Michel Tournier|1967|French|France||||||
|align="right"|56|_The War of the Worlds_|H. G. Wells|1898|English|UK||||||
|align="right"|57|_If This Is a Man_ _Survival in Auschwitz_|Primo Levi|1947|Italian|Italy||||||
|align="right"|58|_The Lord of the Rings_|J. R. R. Tolkien|1954–1955|English|<small>Orange Free State</small>, UK||||||
|align="right"|59|_Les Vrilles de la vigne_|Colette|1908|French|France||||||
|align="right"|60|_Capitale de la douleur_|Paul Éluard|1926|French|France||||||
|align="right"|61|_Martin Eden_|Jack London|1909|English|USA||||||
|align="right"|62|_Ballad of the Salt Sea_|Hugo Pratt|1967|Italian|Italy||||||
|align="right"|63|_Writing Degree Zero_|Roland Barthes|1953|French|France||||||
|align="right"|64|_The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum_|Heinrich Böll|1974|German|Germany||||||
|align="right"|65|_The Opposing Shore_|Julien Gracq|1951|French|France||||||
|align="right"|66|_The Order of Things_|Michel Foucault|1966|French|France||||||
|align="right"|67|_On the Road_|Jack Kerouac|1957|English|USA||||||
|align="right"|68|_The Wonderful Adventures of Nils_|Selma Lagerlöf|1906–1907|Swedish|Sweden||||||
|align="right"|69|_A Room of One's Own_|Virginia Woolf|1929|English|UK||||||
|align="right"|70|_The Martian Chronicles_|Ray Bradbury|1950|English|USA||||||
|align="right"|71|_The Ravishing of Lol Stein_|Marguerite Duras|1964|French|France||||||
|align="right"|72|_The Interrogation_|J. M. G. Le Clézio|1963|French|France||||||
|align="right"|73|_Tropisms_|Nathalie Sarraute|1939|French|<small>Russia</small>, France||||||
|align="right"|74|_Journal, 1887–1910_|Jules Renard|1925|French|France||||||
|align="right"|75|_Lord Jim_|Joseph Conrad|1900|English|<small>Russian Empire</small>, UK||||||
|align="right"|76|_Écrits_|Jacques Lacan|1966|French|France||||||
|align="right"|77|_The Theatre and its Double_|Antonin Artaud|1938|French|France||||||
|align="right"|78|_Manhattan Transfer_|John Dos Passos|1925|English|USA||||||
|align="right"|79|_Ficciones_|Jorge Luis Borges|1944|Spanish|Argentina||||||
|align="right"|80|_Moravagine_|Blaise Cendrars|1926|French|France, Switzerland||||||
|align="right"|81|_The General of the Dead Army_|Ismail Kadare|1963|Albanian, French|Albania||||||
|align="right"|82|_Sophie's Choice_|William Styron|1979|English|USA||||||
|align="right"|83|_Gypsy Ballads_|Federico García Lorca|1928|Spanish|Spain||||||
|align="right"|84|_The Strange Case of Peter the Lett_|Georges Simenon|1931|French|Belgium||||||
|align="right"|85|_Our Lady of the Flowers_|Jean Genet|1944|French|France||||||
|align="right"|86|_The Man Without Qualities_|Robert Musil|1930–1932|German|Austria||||||
|align="right"|87|_Fureur et mystère_|René Char|1948|French|France||||||
|align="right"|88|_The Catcher in the Rye_|J. D. Salinger|1951|English|USA||||||
|align="right"|89|_No Orchids For Miss Blandish_|James Hadley Chase|1939|English|UK||||||
|align="right"|90|Blake and Mortimer|Edgar P. Jacobs|1950|French|Belgium||||||
|align="right"|91|_The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge_|Rainer Maria Rilke|1910|German|Austria-Hungary, Switzerland||||||
|align="right"|92|_Second Thoughts_|Michel Butor|1957|French|France||||||
|align="right"|93|_The Burden of Our Time_ _The Origins of Totalitarianism_|Hannah Arendt|1951|English, German|<small>Germany</small>, USA||||||
|align="right"|94|_The Master and Margarita_|Mikhail Bulgakov|1967|Russian|Soviet Union||||||
|align="right"|95|_The Rosy Crucifixion_|Henry Miller|1949–1960|English|USA||||||
|align="right"|96|_The Big Sleep_|Raymond Chandler|1939|English|USA||||||
|align="right"|97|_Amers_|Saint-John Perse|1957|French|France||||||
|align="right"|98|_Gaston_ (_Gomer Goof_)|André Franquin|1957|French|Belgium||||||
|align="right"|99|_Under the Volcano_|Malcolm Lowry|1947|English|UK||||||
|align="right"|100|_Midnight's Children_|Salman Rushdie|1981|English|India, UK||||||
Note: **Language** and **Country_' refer to the author's career generally, not to the book specifically.

## Related pages

- Nobel Prize in Literature - <small>Camus, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Beckett, Sartre, Solzhenitsyn, Gide, García Márquez, Faulkner, Mauriac, Mann, Pirandello, Böll, Lagerlöf, Le Clézio, Perse</small>
- Booker Prize - <small>Kadare, Rushdie</small>
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction - <small>Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner, Mitchell, Styron</small>