Any Conrads or Kristófs for languages other than English and French?

[MorkTheFiddle]

Joseph Conrad famously mastered English as an L2 well enough to write first-rate novels and short stories in it. Samuel Beckett and Agota Kristóf did likewise for French. Although I myself certainly do not have the talent--never mind the language proficiency--to duplicate their efforts, their success buoys me up as a language learner, and I ask myself, “Do languages other than English and French have their Conrads and Kristófs?”

I posed this question as well in the "real" HTLAL:

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... PN=1&TPN=1

[galaxyrocker]

Patrick Pearse is a notable one for Irish. He was a native English speaker, but has written several short stories in Irish. While there are critiques of them and the use of the language (mainly that he used a lot of English idioms and constructions directly translated), the short stories are still included in many short story compilations.

Another possible one is Liam Mac Cóil. He was born in Dublin in the 50s, so I would say it's unlikely he is a native speaker (though, admittedly, I can't find any definitive information). However, he has several amazing books, including one that was on the "Must Read Irish Novels" list compiled by scholars.

[zatris]

It's not exactly the same case, but there's Israeli writer Aharon Appelfeld, whose mother tongue was German but who decided to write in Hebrew, which he learned as a teenager. I suppose this can be the case of other Israeli writers born before 1948.

[tarvos]

Kader Abdolah is a native Persian speaker but immigrated (or rather fled) to the Netherlands years ago and has become a literary household name in the Netherlands, whose works can be read by students and the curious alike. He writes in Dutch. He learned it as an adult but nevertheless, even though he struggled with the language he wrote in Dutch and has always done so.

[Takra jenai]

The title of the thread
Fritofs should be Agota Kristof

I had to check in Wikipedia who Conrad and Agota Kristof are.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes in English (non-fiction), so it doesn't count.
In the olden times plenty of people wrote in Latin and Greek that were not their native languages.

[Polyclod]

English wasn't Nabokov's first language, although he learned it very young, yet he still managed to write a masterpiece like Lolita. The German translation isn't too terrible, but I've heard that when it was translated into Nabakov's native Russian it was awful.

[MorkTheFiddle]

Takra jenai wrote
"The title of the thread
Fritofs should be Agota Kristof"

Yes, thank you for the correction.

For what it's worth, I took the misspelling from this YouTube trailer for the movie (which I have not seen):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmAxu0kLRg8

[kimchizzle]

There is Jonathan Littell who was born in New York City and who won the Gran Prix du roman for a French novel in 2006. But his case is a bit different because he grew up basically bilingual and spent his childhood and teenage years going to school in both the US and France at different periods.

[zenmonkey]

English wasn't Nabokov's first language, although he learned it very young, yet he still managed to write a masterpiece like Lolita. The German translation isn't too terrible, but I've heard that when it was translated into Nabakov's native Russian it was awful.

I was going to mention Nabokov.
There are literally hundreds of these transliterate writers. Hmm,... off the top of my head - and really worth reading:

Antonio Tabucchi - Italian also wrote in Portuguese
Elias Cannetti - Bulgarian, Ladino, English speaker - wrote in German (every language learner should read his autobiography....) and is Nobel laureate.
Milan Kundera - a Czech writer that is now a French writer
Anais Nin - French/Cuban and wrote in English...

[Serpent]

Any Esperanto writer probably counts.