Cleanthess
Dinanukht wannabe
Cross-posted from our sister site the concocted woods:
In 2001 the Spanish newspaper El Pais published a list of the 100 best Spanish language fictional works of the 20th. Century. The selection favored Spanish writers over Latin American ones, but it offered a very good overview of the evolving canon at the time.
Of course, the choices from the 10 years just before the list was assembled were mostly misses rather than hits due to the brief time for a selection to emerge at that point. Also, Spanish language fiction of the 20th. Century before Borges with a few notable exceptions (e.g. Unamuno) is not that interesting.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Lista_El_Mundo_de_las_100_mejores_novelas
Given those two criteria, I excised the 1993-2001 and pre-1944 selections, and this is the list that remained for the 50 years between 1944 and 1993 (twenty years ago):
Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges 1944
Nada, Carmen Laforet 1944
The President, Miguel Angel Asturias 1946
Men of Maize, Miguel Angel Asturias 1949
The Cypress Casts a Long Shadow, Miguel Delibes 1947
Five hours with Mario, Miguel Delibes 1966
The holy innocents, Miguel Delibes 1981
La cabeza del cordero, Francisco Ayala 1949
The adventures of Alfanhui, Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio 1951
The River: El Jarama, Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio 1955
Plaza del Castillo, Rafael Garcia Serrano 1951
The Beehive, Camilo Jose Cela 1951
San Camilo, 1936, Camilo Jose Cela 1969
Cypresses Believe in God, Jose Maria Gironella 1953
Pequeno teatro, Ana Maria Matute 1954
Good Intentions, Max Aub 1954
Pedro Paramo, Juan Rulfo 1955
Behind the Curtains, Carmen Martin Gaite 1957
Retahilas, Carmen Martin Gaite 1974
Los gozos y las sombras, Gonzalo Torrente Ballester 1957-1962
La saga/fuga de J.B., Gonzalo Torrente Ballester 1972
Requiem for a Spanish Peasant, Ramon J. Sender 1960
Las mocedades de Ulises, Alvaro Cunqueiro 1960
Truce, Mario Benedetti 1960
On Heroes and Tombs, Ernesto Sabato 1961
Time of Silence, Luis Martin Santos 1961
The Shipyard, Juan Carlos Onetti 1961
No One Writes to the Colonel, Gabriel Garcia Marquez 1961
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez 1967
Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez 1981
Explosion in a Cathedral, Alejo Carpentier 1962
Bomarzo, Manuel Mujica Lainez 1962
Hopscotch, Julio Cortazar 1963
The Time of the Hero, Mario Vargas Llosa 1963
Conversation in the Cathedral, Mario Vargas Llosa 1969
Jose Trigo, Fernando del Paso 1966
Marks of Identity, Juan Goytisolo 1966
Paradiso, Jose Lezama Lima 1966
Return to Region, Juan Benet 1967
Three Trapped Tigers, Guillermo Cabrera Infante 1967
Infante's Inferno , Guillermo Cabrera Infante 1979
El dia que murio Marilyn, Terenci Moix 1969
No digas que fue un sueno, Terenci Moix 1986
The Obscene Bird of Night, Jose Donoso 1970
La oscura historia de la prima Montse, Juan Marse 1970
Perpetual Motion, Augusto Monterroso 1972
Agatha Cat's Eyes, Jose Caballero Bonald 1974
I, the Supreme, Augusto Roa Bastos 1974
The Nymphs, Francisco Umbral 1975
A Mortal Spring, Francisco Umbral 1975
The Legend of the Visionary Caesar, Francisco Umbral 1992
The Maravillas District, Rosa Chacel 1976
Kiss of the Spider Woman, Manuel Puig 1976
Extramuros, Jesus Fernandez Santos 1978
The South Seas, Manuel Vazquez Montalban 1979
Galindez, Manuel Vazquez Montalban 1990
Volaverunt, Antonio Larreta 1980
The Ages of Lulu, Almudena Grandes 1980
Martin Romana, Alfredo Bryce Echenique 1981
Octubre, octubre, Jose Luis Sampedro 1981
The Etruscan Smile, Jose Luis Sampedro 1985
Museo de cera, Jorge Edwards 1981
Belver Yin, Jesus Ferrero 1981
The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende 1982
Tower Struck by Lightning, Fernando Arrabal 1983
Tiempo nublado, Octavio Paz 1983
Voyage to Nowhere, Fernando Fernan Gomez 1985
Burning Patience, Antonio Skarmeta 1985
The City of Marvels, Eduardo Mendoza 1986
The Fencing Master, Arturo Perez-Reverte 1988
Juegos de la edad tardia, Luis Landero 1989
Like water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel 1989
El camino del corazon, Fernando Sanchez Drago 1990
The Polish Horseman, Antonio Munoz Molina 1991
A Heart So White, Javier Marias 1992
In 2001 the Spanish newspaper El Pais published a list of the 100 best Spanish language fictional works of the 20th. Century. The selection favored Spanish writers over Latin American ones, but it offered a very good overview of the evolving canon at the time.
Of course, the choices from the 10 years just before the list was assembled were mostly misses rather than hits due to the brief time for a selection to emerge at that point. Also, Spanish language fiction of the 20th. Century before Borges with a few notable exceptions (e.g. Unamuno) is not that interesting.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Lista_El_Mundo_de_las_100_mejores_novelas
Given those two criteria, I excised the 1993-2001 and pre-1944 selections, and this is the list that remained for the 50 years between 1944 and 1993 (twenty years ago):
Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges 1944
Nada, Carmen Laforet 1944
The President, Miguel Angel Asturias 1946
Men of Maize, Miguel Angel Asturias 1949
The Cypress Casts a Long Shadow, Miguel Delibes 1947
Five hours with Mario, Miguel Delibes 1966
The holy innocents, Miguel Delibes 1981
La cabeza del cordero, Francisco Ayala 1949
The adventures of Alfanhui, Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio 1951
The River: El Jarama, Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio 1955
Plaza del Castillo, Rafael Garcia Serrano 1951
The Beehive, Camilo Jose Cela 1951
San Camilo, 1936, Camilo Jose Cela 1969
Cypresses Believe in God, Jose Maria Gironella 1953
Pequeno teatro, Ana Maria Matute 1954
Good Intentions, Max Aub 1954
Pedro Paramo, Juan Rulfo 1955
Behind the Curtains, Carmen Martin Gaite 1957
Retahilas, Carmen Martin Gaite 1974
Los gozos y las sombras, Gonzalo Torrente Ballester 1957-1962
La saga/fuga de J.B., Gonzalo Torrente Ballester 1972
Requiem for a Spanish Peasant, Ramon J. Sender 1960
Las mocedades de Ulises, Alvaro Cunqueiro 1960
Truce, Mario Benedetti 1960
On Heroes and Tombs, Ernesto Sabato 1961
Time of Silence, Luis Martin Santos 1961
The Shipyard, Juan Carlos Onetti 1961
No One Writes to the Colonel, Gabriel Garcia Marquez 1961
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez 1967
Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez 1981
Explosion in a Cathedral, Alejo Carpentier 1962
Bomarzo, Manuel Mujica Lainez 1962
Hopscotch, Julio Cortazar 1963
The Time of the Hero, Mario Vargas Llosa 1963
Conversation in the Cathedral, Mario Vargas Llosa 1969
Jose Trigo, Fernando del Paso 1966
Marks of Identity, Juan Goytisolo 1966
Paradiso, Jose Lezama Lima 1966
Return to Region, Juan Benet 1967
Three Trapped Tigers, Guillermo Cabrera Infante 1967
Infante's Inferno , Guillermo Cabrera Infante 1979
El dia que murio Marilyn, Terenci Moix 1969
No digas que fue un sueno, Terenci Moix 1986
The Obscene Bird of Night, Jose Donoso 1970
La oscura historia de la prima Montse, Juan Marse 1970
Perpetual Motion, Augusto Monterroso 1972
Agatha Cat's Eyes, Jose Caballero Bonald 1974
I, the Supreme, Augusto Roa Bastos 1974
The Nymphs, Francisco Umbral 1975
A Mortal Spring, Francisco Umbral 1975
The Legend of the Visionary Caesar, Francisco Umbral 1992
The Maravillas District, Rosa Chacel 1976
Kiss of the Spider Woman, Manuel Puig 1976
Extramuros, Jesus Fernandez Santos 1978
The South Seas, Manuel Vazquez Montalban 1979
Galindez, Manuel Vazquez Montalban 1990
Volaverunt, Antonio Larreta 1980
The Ages of Lulu, Almudena Grandes 1980
Martin Romana, Alfredo Bryce Echenique 1981
Octubre, octubre, Jose Luis Sampedro 1981
The Etruscan Smile, Jose Luis Sampedro 1985
Museo de cera, Jorge Edwards 1981
Belver Yin, Jesus Ferrero 1981
The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende 1982
Tower Struck by Lightning, Fernando Arrabal 1983
Tiempo nublado, Octavio Paz 1983
Voyage to Nowhere, Fernando Fernan Gomez 1985
Burning Patience, Antonio Skarmeta 1985
The City of Marvels, Eduardo Mendoza 1986
The Fencing Master, Arturo Perez-Reverte 1988
Juegos de la edad tardia, Luis Landero 1989
Like water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel 1989
El camino del corazon, Fernando Sanchez Drago 1990
The Polish Horseman, Antonio Munoz Molina 1991
A Heart So White, Javier Marias 1992