LangWanderer Diglot Pro Member Australia digintoenglish.com Joined 4528 days ago 74 posts - 97 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, French, Mandarin Personal Language Map
| Message 25 of 33 04 July 2012 at 3:52am | IP Logged |
For Japanese, it would be "Genji monogatari [The Tale of Genji]" hands down. There was an entire subject devoted to this book at my university in Japan.
Second place is where the competition gets more interesting. Perhaps "Kokoro" by Natsume Sōseki.
Edited by LangWanderer on 04 July 2012 at 5:52am
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Bobb328 Groupie Canada Joined 4575 days ago 52 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian
| Message 26 of 33 04 July 2012 at 7:38pm | IP Logged |
Hamlet.
But for just sheer "prettiness" of language, Ulysses or The Great Gatsby.
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Al-Irelandi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5525 days ago 111 posts - 177 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 27 of 33 04 July 2012 at 10:43pm | IP Logged |
Arabic: al-Qur'aan, followed by Sahiih al-Bukhaarii and Sahiih Muslim.
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DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6141 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian
| Message 28 of 33 10 July 2012 at 3:54pm | IP Logged |
Irish - Táin Bó Cúailnge - The famous epic featuring Cú Chulainn.
English (by an Irish author)
Ulysses by James Joyce
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Edudg Pentaglot Newbie Brazil Joined 4661 days ago 16 posts - 28 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Italian, English, French, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, Swedish
| Message 29 of 33 20 July 2012 at 9:55am | IP Logged |
Best known in Brazil? I'd say a work from Machado de Assis, not sure which though.. Memórias Póstumas de Brás
Cubas, Quincas Borba or Dom Casmurro. Choose yours!
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tiagocunha Diglot Newbie Brazil Joined 4852 days ago 24 posts - 27 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: French
| Message 30 of 33 20 August 2012 at 11:08am | IP Logged |
Portuguese: Lusiadas - Camões (oldie) or Dom Casmurro -Machado de Assim(modern)
English: The taming of the shrew - Shakespeare (oldie) or Pride and Prejudice - Jane
Austen(modern)
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Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6572 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German
| Message 31 of 33 20 August 2012 at 10:24pm | IP Logged |
Well, there's not a lot of literature in Cantonese, but probably "Diary of a Little Man" would be the prime example.
It's pretty well-known in Hong Kong still (no Cantonese book is well-known outside Hong Kong), and it's one of few
books written in Cantonese.
For Swedish I'd say it'd have to be something by Strindberg, maybe "Röda rummet"? Tomas Tranströmer won the
Nobel Prize of literature recently for his poetry, so he might be a contender, maybe.
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Wayawa Diglot Newbie Russian Federation Joined 4570 days ago 3 posts - 5 votes Speaks: Russian*, English
| Message 32 of 33 07 March 2013 at 8:16am | IP Logged |
For me the best Russian book ever written is Мастер и Маргарита (The Master and Margarita) by Михаил Булгаков (Mikhail Bulgakov).
BTW there is a very good English translation of it by Diana Bürgin & Katherine O’Connor.
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