Every poet who’s thought about writing a novel has heard the same advice: slow down, add more, learn to plot. Some of the best novels, though, often work the way poems do—through rhythm, image, compression, obsession.
So below I’ve got just that for you. Beware, though, this isn’t a list of “lyrical” novels—that word has been used to death and means nothing anymore. You won’t find craft books here either. I truly feel that the work of learning to write a novel doesn’t primarily occur by reading about how to write a novel. We learn, most foundationally, by reading other books and talking about them.
So, dig into any of these and tell us if we missed some that should be here! And if you’ve read any of the books on this list, tell us what you thought?
Beloved — Toni Morrison
The Passion According to G.H. — Clarice Lispector
Wide Sargasso Sea — Jean Rhys
Human Acts — Han Kang
Mrs Dalloway — Virginia Woolf
Pedro Páramo — Juan Rulfo
Invisible Cities — Italo Calvino
Their Eyes Were Watching God — Zora Neale Hurston
Love in the Time of Cholera — Gabriel García Márquez
Parable of the Sower — Octavia Butler
Freshwater — Akwaeke Emezi
The Left Hand of Darkness — Ursula K. Le Guin
The Remains of the Day — Kazuo Ishiguro
The Stranger — Albert Camus
Hopscotch — Julio Cortázar
Pale Fire — Vladimir Nabokov
As I Lay Dying — William Faulkner
Piranesi — Susanna Clarke
Tomb of Sand — Geetanjali Shree
Disgrace — J.M. Coetzee
Ok now we need a list for novelists who want to be poets!! 🙏🏼
Not to be overly literal, but I'd add Bolaño to this list. Also add Roy's God of Small Things to the list of prose poems.