20. The Handmaid’s Tale. Margaret Atwood. Canada. (1985)
Another dystopian novel, this time set in America in the near future, where the country has abrogated its constitution and has been replaced by a Christian theocracy called the Republic of Gilead. Unbelievers, homosexuals and dissidents are executed. Women are subjugated, stripped of their independence and segregated into categories, and dressed according to their social functions. The ‘handmaid,’ of the title rediscovers a feminist past, tries to escape and joins the underground resistance.
Atwood’s novel is a critique of the growing wave of religious fundamentalism, creeping fascism as well as, ironically, contemporary feminism.

19. Love in the Time of Cholera. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Columbia. (1985)
As John Cusack muses as Rob in the film version of High Fidelity “I’ve read books like The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Love in the Time of Cholera, and understood them, I think -- they’re about girls, right?” He was kidding. We hope. Love in the Time of Cholera follows the fifty-year love triangle between Fermina Daza, Florentino Ariza and Doctor Juvenal Urbino. Set in an unnamed Caribbean South American country at roughly end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, the novel blends magic realism and the picaresque and deeply explores the themes of both unrequited love and the suffering that love brings.

18. Beloved. Toni Morrison. US. (1987)
Widely regarded by many as the most important American novel of the last 25 years. The book tackles the lingering effects of slavery on African-Americans and follows the story of Sethe and her daughter Denver who struggle to survive having escaped from slavery. One day, a young lady enters their lives calling herself "Beloved." Sethe slowly begins to believe that the girl is another of her daughters, whom Sethe murdered when she was only two years old to save her from a life of bondage. The novel directly confronts the most painful aspects of slavery, such as sexual abuse and violence. Morrison explores the past, the repression of memory as well as the roles of mothers and men.

17. The Black Dahlia. James Ellroy. US. (1987)
With this novel, Ellroy invented neo-noir crime fiction and elevated himself from genre novelist to serious writer of literature. The Black Dahlia is the first book in Ellroy's L.A. Quartet, a cycle of novels set in 1940s and 1950s Hollywood. The Quartet continued with The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz.
Based on the true story of the murder of Elizabeth Short, the novel follows two fictional detectives as they try to solve the crime and as they do, they reveal a city of corruption and depravity. 

16. Oscar and Lucinda. Peter Carey. Australia. (1988)
Oscar and Lucinda won is regarded as one of the finest novels by Peter Carey, perhaps Australia’s most preeminent writer. It tells the story of Oscar, an English Anglican priest, and Lucinda, a young Australian heiress who buys a glass factory. After meeting on the boat to Australia from England they discover a mutual love of gambling. Lucinda bets Oscar that he cannot transport a glass church into the outback in one piece; a bet that will lead them on a Fitzcaraldo-like journey into the physical and metaphysical outback.

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