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?
Octavia Butler, John Steinbeck, Charles Dickens, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Jhumpa Lahiri are among the few who have stopped me in my tracks.
+1 for Steinbeck, East of Eden has so many of these moments
I just started reading East of Eden and wow!! It really encapsulates the human condition really well.