For me, The Unbearable Lightness of Being-Milan Kundera; On Earth we are Briefly Gorgeous-Ocean Vuong; Love in the Time of Cholera-Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The most tragic, painful, human suffering can be presented and these writers present it in the most excruciatingly beautiful prose.
On Earth we are Briefly Gorgeous-“A woman stands on the shoulder of a dirt road begging, in a tongue made obsolete by gunfire, to enter the village where her house sits, has sat for decades. It is a human story. Anyone can tell it. Can you tell? Can you tell the rain has grown heavy, its keystrokes peppering the blue shawl black?”
What is the beauty for you?
Don’t hate me as I know it’s an unpopular opinion but I didn’t like the prose of on earth we are briefly gorgeous, I was drawn in by the title and thought I’d love it but I found it hard to engage with. It sounded like it was trying so hard to be profound but was just non sensical. “Is that what art is? To be touched thinking what we feel is ours when, in the end, it was someone else, in longing, who finds us” Like ?? 😭