Writing & Literature Student Reading List
Here's a list of every book I studied, read, or was reccomended to read as part of my Writing and Literature BA - for eager academics, fellow writers & nostagic graduatesđ Let's milk my educationđȘ
created by Sunflower_Witch
last updated November, 2025
Comments
can i ask if this is based on a uk or us curriculum? (now i would love to see different lists of lit readings from all around the globe đ)
I'm currently enrolled in a Writing and Literature BA in Ireland!đđźđȘ
That's cool!! Hello!!
Other writing and lit students - have you read any of these, or reccomend any others?
I was not a writing and lit student, but i took a handful of spanish and latin american literature classes for the spanish double major i did :D Out of the works that have english translations available, The Carpenter's Pencil by Manuel Rivas, The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico GarcĂa Lorca, and Nada by Carmen Laforet were probably my favorites. Manuel Rivas also has this gorgeous heartbreaking short story called "Butterfly's Tongue" (La lengua de las mariposas) which you can probably find a free translation of from some random person online; it's about the onset of the spanish civil war + francoist regime from the POV of a young child
Ooh, we breifly studied a Mexican play based on Antigone called La Fuerza de AntĂgona last year and I absolutely loved it - have you come across it?
I've read a few of them! What's your position on poetry books? My degrees are more poetry-focused. Leaving out poetry, here's my suggestion of what I'd consider more seminal and/or insightful works from my shelves from my undergrad days (leaving off Hemingway because I hate that guy) -
The House on Mango Street - Sandra Cisneros Passing - Nella Larsen The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri Lucy - Jamaica Kincaid A Small Place - Jamaica Kincaid Mullumbimby - Melissa Lucashenko The Cassandra - Sharma Shields Colored People: A Memoir - Henry Louis Gates Jr. Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration - David Wojnarowicz How To Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies - Robert Dale Parker Method and Madness: The Making of a Story (A Guide to Writing Fiction) - Alice LaPlante
Wow, thanks for the recs! I am going to be studying poetry next semester so I'm sure I'll be adding some poetry books thenđ I'm also not a fan of Hemingway - we had to read a story of his last year called A Cat in The Rain or something like it, and it was the most ridicolusly simple and boring piece I've ever read and we spent 3 classes analysing it, just because the guy's descriptions had inconsistancies that create speculation. Like, move on people, it's 500 words about a catđ
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