My Global Literacy

I've read a lot of books. Many, however, are nonfiction - science, philosophy, history. So the other day, when I finished Madame Bovary, I began to wonder just how many French works of literature I'd read. One thing led to another and...

...here's my breakdown, by nationality, of the literature I've read. (Note: This was made much easier by the existence of Goodreads. Works I don't recall having read are not included (selections of anthologies which didn't stay with me, for example) nor are graphic novels - as attributing nationality might prove too difficult in those cases. I also didn't include YA or children's authors.)

For the sake of the list a 'work' can be anything from a collection of short stories, to an epic novel, to a single story, to a poem collection. It's relatively arbitrary. For example, Ursula K Le Guin's in there for a single short story, and Flannery O'Connor's entire collection, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" also gets one entry - based on how I encountered the works.

Ancient Greece

8 authors, 17 works

Ancient Rome

3 authors, 3 works

India

6 authors, 7 works

China

13 authors, 13 works

Japan

7 authors, 9 works

Medieval Middle East

4 authors, 4 works

Lebanon

1 author, 1 work (Issam Mahfouz)

Egypt

1 author, 1 work (Naguib Mahfouz)

Sudan

1 author, 1 work (Tayeb Saleh)

Nigeria

2 authors, 2 works

Kenya

1 author, 1 work (Ngugi Wa Thiong'o)

South Africa

2 authors, 2 works

Russia

12 authors, 20 works

Greece

3 authors, 3 works

Serbia

1 author, 1 work (Ivo Andric)

Romania

1 author, 1 work (Eugene Ionesco)

Hungary

1 author, 1 work (Emre Kertesz)

Austria

1 author, 1 work (Elfriede Jelinek)

Czechia (*includes Bohemia)

2 authors, 2 works

Poland

4 authors, 4 works

Germany

10 authors, 10 works

Belgium

1 author, 1 work (Maurice Maeterlinck)

Denmark

3 authors, 3 works

Finland

1 author, 1 work (Frans Sillanpaa)

Norway

3 authors, 4 works

Sweden

9 authors, 10 works

Iceland and Greenland

5 authors, 5 works

Britain

68 authors, 125 works

Ireland

10 authors, 18 works

Switzerland

1 author, 1 work (Carl Spitteler)

Italy

12 authors, 15 works

France

32 authors, 41 works

Spain

9 authors, 10 works

Argentina

1 author, 1 work (Jorge Luis Borges)

Chile

2 authors, 3 works

Brazil

2 authors, 2 works

Colombia

1 author, 3 works (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

Guatemala

1 author, 1 work (Miguel Asturias)

Mexico

2 authors, 3 works

Dominica

1 author, 1 work (Derek Walcott)

Canada

3 authors, 3 works

United States

98 authors, 132 works

Graphically: