Academy of NZ Lit responds to The Guardian Top 100

Source: Academy of New Zealand Literature

A reply to the Guardian’s “best ever”: the Southern Hemisphere Fiction 100
 
22 June 2026 – The Academy of New Zealand Literature has compiled the first-ever list of the top 100 works of fiction from the Southern Hemisphere. It is published today. Read the list here: https://www.anzliterature.com/feature/the-southern-hemisphere-fiction-100/
 
It was created as a response to a list of 100 novels published last month in the Guardiannewspaper, which they described as “the greatest literature ever published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide.” Only three writers from countries in the southern hemisphere were included in the Guardian’s list – two novels from the 1980s and one from the 1990s.
 
The Guardian’s list also excluded all but one of the Nobel literature laureates from the southern hemisphere, and many of the most important fiction writers in world literature – like Mario Vargas Llosa, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Nadine Gordimer, Roberto Bolaño and Janet Frame.
 
“How could a list of ‘the greatest literature ever published in English’ exclude so much of the world?” asks Paula Morris, founder of the Academy of New Zealand Literature. “This alternative Fiction 100 reminds us that where lists are made is important. I hope it encourages readers to new as well as familiar regions, countries, cultures and names.”
 
Almost 200 writers, critics, scholars, librarians, booksellers, editors and festival directors – most from the southern hemisphere – nominated books for the Southern Hemisphere Fiction 100. The ANZL included novels and short-story collections, and – like the Guardian– allowed books written in another language that are available in English translation.