5 Canadian titles make the New York Times' best books of the 21st century list
Canada Reads novel Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel takes spot 93
To mark the first quarter of the 21st century, The New York Times has released a list of the best books so far — and five Canadian works have made the cut.
The 100-book list was voted on by 503 writers, critics and book lovers with help from the staff of the New York Times Book Review. It features fiction and nonfiction published since Jan. 1, 2000.
The highest-ranking Canadian book on the list is Outline by Canadian-born, U.K.-based writer Rachel Cusk. The novel takes the 14th spot and was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award in 2015.
Outline follows a writer who travels to Athens to teach a writing course and gets swept up in the stories that she encounters.
"Along the way, and once there, she falls into intense and resonant conversations about art, intimacy, life and love," wrote American journalist Dwight Garner in the feature. "Cusk deals, brilliantly, in uncomfortable truths."
Cusk's other novels include Parade, Transit and Kudos.
Two short story collections by Alice Munro are on the list: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage at spot 23 and Runaway at 53.
The Canadian author and Nobel Prize winner died in May and was celebrated for her real-life portrayal of the lives of women and girls, but her legacy is complicated by recent revelations of a dark secret she kept.
Munro's daughter, Andrea Robin Skinner, published an essay in the Toronto Star describing her mother's decision to stay with second husband Gerald Fremlin even after she learned that he sexually abused her.
The Years by Annie Ernaux, translated by Alison L. Strayer was ranked 37th on the list. The Years was shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize and is a personal narrative of Ernaux's life from 1941 to 2006.
While Ernaux is a French writer and Nobel Prize-winner, translator Strayer is Canadian. Born in Saskatchewan, she now lives in Paris. Her work has been shortlisted for two Governor General's Awards for literature and translation, the Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal and the Prix Littéraire France-Québec. Her translation of The Years won the 2018 French-American Translation Prize in the non-fiction category.
Canada Reads 2023 finalist Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel was 93rd on the list.
Station Eleven, championed by nêhiyaw actor, choreographer and director Michael Greyeyes, is a dystopian novel that takes place on an Earth undone by disease, following the interconnected lives of several characters — actors, artists and those closest to them — before and after the plague. One travels the wasteland performing Shakespearean plays with a troupe, while another attempts to build community at an abandoned airport and another amasses followers for a dangerous cause.
Station Eleven was adapted into a TV series for HBO Max. It can be seen on CBC Gem and Crave TV in Canada.
Mandel is a bestselling Canadian author currently living in New York and Los Angeles. Her other novels include The Glass Hotel, which was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and Sea of Tranquility.
The number one book was My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein, which tells the story of Elena and Lila as they grow up in a poor neighbourhood in Naples, Italy. The novel paints a striking portrait of female friendship in all its messiness while exploring themes of class, gender, art and politics.
The complete list of books is available on The New York Times website.
