Literature & Languages — Stories That Define Us

Victorian England's greatest storyteller; championed social reform through fiction

Colombian Nobel laureate; father of magical realism; greatest Spanish-language author

Ancient Greek poet credited with the Iliad and Odyssey; father of Western literature

Russia's greatest novelist; author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina

India's greatest poet; wrote India's national anthem; first Asian Nobel laureate

England's greatest playwright and poet; invented 1,700+ English words still in use today

Kautilya's ancient treatise on governance, economics and statecraft; India's Machiavelli moment

Tagore's Nobel Prize-winning poetry collection; spiritual songs of devotion and beauty

Premchand's masterpiece; the tragic story of Indian peasant life and the feudal system

Greatest Sanskrit poet and dramatist; wrote Shakuntala, Meghaduta and Raghuvamsha

World's longest epic; 100,000 verses exploring dharma, war and the Bhagavad Gita

R.K. Narayan's short story collection set in the fictional Indian town of Malgudi

Ancient Indian collection of animal fables; world's most widely translated non-religious text

Ancient Sanskrit epic by Valmiki; one of the two great Hindu epics of India

UK's most prestigious literary award for the best novel written in English

Celebrates the best fiction translated into English from any language

India's highest literary honour; awarded to the best lifetime contribution to Indian literature

World's most prestigious literary award; given annually since 1901 by the Swedish Academy

USA's most prestigious award for literature, journalism and music; given since 1917

National academy of letters award; India's most recognised literary prize after Jnanpith

Collection of moral animal stories from ancient Greece; source of universal wisdom sayings

British mythology of King Arthur, Excalibur, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table

World's oldest known work of literature; Sumerian king's quest for immortality

Stories of Olympian gods, heroes and monsters that formed the foundation of Western culture

Viking myths of Odin, Thor and Ragnarok; preserved in the Eddas of medieval Iceland

Arabian folk tale collection from the Islamic Golden Age; Scheherazade's stories to survive

García Márquez's magical realist masterpiece; the defining novel of Latin American literature

Cervantes's comic masterpiece; often called the world's first modern novel

Shakespeare's tragedy of revenge, madness and mortality; most performed play in history

Homer's twin epics of the Trojan War and Odysseus's voyage home; pillars of Western literature

Jane Austen's beloved novel of love and social manners in Georgian England

Paulo Coelho's philosophical novel about following one's Personal Legend; a global bestseller

Dante's epic poem journey through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven; a masterpiece of world literature

Tolstoy's monumental novel of Russian society during the Napoleonic Wars

Language of the Quran; official in 26 countries; written right-to-left

Global lingua franca; official language of 67+ countries and international diplomacy

Language of diplomacy; official in 29 countries; second most studied language globally

India's most widely spoken language; written in Devanagari script; official language

World's most spoken first language; official language of China and Taiwan

Classical language of India; mother of many Indian languages; language of Vedas and Hindu scriptures

Second most-spoken native language on Earth; language of Cervantes and García Márquez

One of the world's oldest living languages; classical language with 2,000+ year literary tradition