15. The Remains of the Day. Kazuo Ishiguro. UK/Japan. (1989)
This, the third novel by Japanese-British author Kazuo Ishiguro, won the Booker prize in 1989. It tells the story of Stevens, an English butler, who in his twilight years looks back at his life of service with longing and regret for missed opportunities in love and life. Told in flashbacks, the novel brilliantly describes the ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ world of the English country house, the corruption of the aristocracy as well as the themes of class, repressed love, loss and regret.

14. A Prayer for Owen Meany. John Irving. US. (1989)
It was a toss-up between Meany and The Cider House Rules. But Owen Meany is such a   unique character that this list opted for the 1989 novel. Told in flashback, the story follows the life of Owen Meany, a short boy who barely grows taller as he ages, has a high-pitched, screaming voice and a unique sense of purpose in life. In a novel that begins with Owen’s accidental killing of his mother and ends with a redemptive act of bravery, Irving considers the issues of faith, fate, social justice and, as with most of his novels, death.

13. Amongst Women. John McGahern. Ireland. (1990)
Regarded by many as one the best novels to come out of Ireland, a country with a long history of great literature. Set in rural western Ireland, McGahern’s novel covers 20 years in the middle of the 20th Century and centres on Michael Moran, patriarch of the Moran family and a former IRA guerrilla fighter. Moran is a well-respected member of his community and a devout Catholic, but to his family a cruel, violent, domineering thug. His wife and children attempt to reconcile loyalty and independence, how to deal with violence and how to find one’s own way in the world.

12. Regeneration. Pat Barker. UK. (1991)
Regeneration, the first in a trilogy of novels that detail events in the First World War. Is not your usual war novel detailing the horrors of the front but it details what happens to wounded soldiers when they come back from war. It also examines the repression of women, homosexuals and anti war protestors on the home front all the in the name of patriotism. Set mostly at Craiglockhart Hospital in Scotland where shell-shocked soldiers were treated, the novel blends real life characters like innovative psychiatrist Dr Rivers and famous patients like the poets Seigfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen and fictitious characters who find them selves mute or mad and must deal with a world that has no idea of the horrors they have seen. The book intricately explores the issues of madness, masculinity, homosexuality and the psychological effects of war.

11. The Famished Road. Ben Okri. Nigeria. (1991)
Okri put Africa back on the literary map when The Famished Road won the Booker prize in 1991. While Africa has a long tradition of great literature, it took this unusual novel to make critics look again at the continent’s up and coming writers. The novel follows Azaro, an “abiku” or spirit child, who exists in an unnamed African city. Employing a unique narrative style incorporating the spirit world with the “real” world in a form of magical realism, (some have labeled it animist realism) the book revolves around the themes of traditional and contemporary Africa, politics and the struggle of the poor.

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