WBarabbas is a 1950 novel by Pär Lagerkvist. It tells a version of the life of Barabbas, the man whom the Bible relates was released instead of Jesus. The novel is built on antithesis: Jesus dies first among the three crucified – Barabbas dies last. Jesus dies among several of his friends – Barabbas dies alone. Jesus talks to God – Barabbas talks to the darkness. The novel starts with Jesus' crucifixion and ends with Barabbas' crucifixion in Rome.
WThe Drinker is a novel by German writer Hans Fallada, first published posthumously in 1950.
WHasamba is a series of children's adventure novels written by Yigal Mossinson. The stories are a chronicle of the heroic exploits of a group of children from Tel Aviv as they assist the underground Haganah in its struggle for Israeli statehood against the British. Subsequent books revolve around assisting the security forces, including the IDF, against Israel's external and internal enemies. It became the most popular series of pocket books ever written in Israel, and part of the Israeli culture.
WThe Hive is a novel written by the Spanish author Camilo José Cela, first published in 1950.
WInsurrection is a 1950 novel by the Irish novelist Liam O'Flaherty. The story takes place during the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916. It was O’Flaherty’s final novel.
WThe Judge and His Hangman is a 1950 novel by the Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt. It was first published in English in 1954, in a translation by Cyrus Brooks and later in a translation by Therese Pol. A new translation by Joel Agee appeared in 2006, published together with its sequel Suspicion, as The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries, with a foreword by Sven Birkerts. Together with Dürrenmatt's The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel, these stories are considered classics of crime fiction, fusing existential philosophy and the detective genre.
WKredu min, sinjorino! is an Esperanto-language novel by Cezaro Rossetti. It is listed in William Auld's Basic Esperanto Reading List and was published for the first time in 1950, the same year in which Rossetti died.
WArgentina Díaz Lozano was the pseudonym for the Honduran writer Argentina Bueso Mejía. She was a journalist and novelist, who wrote in the romantic style with feminist themes. She won numerous awards for her books, including the Golden Quetzel from Guatemala, the Honduran National Literature Prize Ramón Rosa" and the "Order Cruzeiro do Sud" from Brazil. She was admitted to the Academia Hondureña de la Lengua and is the only Central American woman whose work has officially contended for a Nobel Prize for Literature.
WPeople in the Room is a novel by Argentinian author Norah Lange, originally published in Spanish under the name Personas en la sala in 1950. The English version, translated by Charlotte Whittle, was published in August 2018. In 1959, the Argentine Writer’s Association bestowed the novel with the Gran Premio de Honor. The book was notable for diversifying existing feminine themes expected of female Argentine authors at the time into new areas.
WThe Petrov Case is a 1950 mystery fiction novel by a Japanese novelist, Tetsuya Ayukawa. It is Ayukawa’s debut novel, and is based on memories and experiences from Ayukawa’s childhood in Manchuria. The story was also the first in a long series of novels featuring the same protagonist, “Detective Onitsura”.
WPinjar is a 1950 Punjabi novel written by noted poet and novelist Amrita Pritam. It is the story of a Hindu girl, Puro, abducted by a Muslim man, Rashid; Puro's parents refuse to accept the defiled girl when she manages to escape from Rashid's home. Pinjar is widely considered one of the outstanding works of Indian fiction set during the period of the Partition of India.
WThirst for Love is a 1950 novel by the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. The word "kawaki" literally means thirst, but has a sense of parched dryness associated with it.