/lit/ - Literature

It's funny and sad to see what this guy wrote because he tries so hard to say "see, I'm a western too my fellow westerners".
Honestly, how can you look at Brazil, Switzerland, America and England and say "yep, same thing"? It's so ridiculous.
Brazil isn't part of western society, it's not going to save it, Brazil is what happens when western society dies.

>>11972969
When i was 12 my mom bought from a book fair a book full of what she thought were short criminal stories and gave it to me to read it. I instantly went into it, only to discover it was all stories about child molestation and child abuse from the POV of the children being abused. There was a story about a young boy being lured by an older man and of a young girl sold to prostitution, the author describing in extreme detail both their experiences. I didn't made it after these first two stories and reading some other excerpts of the following stories. I gave it back to her and told her to return it. It was called "Dirty Minds" I think, or something along those lines.

I have some questions and some requests.
The question is:
How is Haruki Murakami?
I want to read some of his books to see how it is and I'm interested in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and, after that, jump into his tetralogy. Is this a good idea?
I saw some comment saying that he is "too westernized". In what sense?

How is Cronopios and Famas from Julio Cortázar? Is it a good book to start? I've never read anything from Argentina except Borges.

Now, the requests:
>five good Chinese books, at least one needs to be contemporary
>five good Russian books, at least one needs to be contemporary
>five good German books, at least one needs to be contemporary
>five good Mexican books, Octavio Paz not allowed
All fiction, I don't want poetry because it get lost in translation.

I have never read Hemingway and I would give myself a 5/10 in English. Should I read one of his books the way they were wrote or get a translated version? Which title?