Anyone who would like to help with this, feel free to send me something. I am looking to read books in several languages, probably starting next summer. Currently I read Spanish, French, Russian, Latin well enough to start now but have some preliminary work I want to do. My Spanish and Russian are on par with each other with French and Latin ranking a bit below. Soon my Urdu will be good enough to read non-classical literature (I’m working toward reading “digests”, short stories by Manto and more popular works to build up my vocabulary and cultural competence. I have an excellent source, a retired newspaper man fluent in several Indian languages). The classical poetry I have plenty of.
Also, Norwegian is coming along so that I should be able to start this next summer. Modern Greek will be longer in coming, I think, because I haven’t been putting in the time on it. I have a lot of literature in Modern Greek annotated for English-speakers and when I finish those, I should be ready for modern novels.
On the horizon are Dutch and Italian, both fairly accessible due to my familiarity with cognate languages.
And, finally, for now, Kweyol. I know little about the current state of literature in Haiti but have a good start on the language and the culture.
Before you express skepticism over the number of languages, bear in mind I’m 70 and have been studying these languages (and teaching 3 of them) for many years.
So, if you are acquainted with the literature of any of these languages and have some recommendations, I’d be obliged. Ten or so would be a workable number. I have a large collection of Russian classics and 20th century works, not so much for Spanish or French – in fact, very little. The Latin liteterature I either own or have access to and could start on right away even. The rest of the languages I have little in. With a list for each, I could begin ordering this year.
Classics are fine, hot new authors are fine, standards of the 20th century are fine. Keep in mind that books difficult to read even for natives might not be a good idea e.g. Solzhenitsyn, though you could certainly recommend them for the possibility my knowledge of that language will be good enough to tackle a Faulkner-like author or an experimental author.Late medieval works along the lines of Spencer where native speakers need notes would be too much.
Imagine me retired and curled up with these books and let your mind wander. I’ll enjoy reading your suggestions.