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?
Ditto on the Marquez. He’s pissed me off, I’m tired of his sad old men protagonists, but you can’t deny his prose is amazing.
There’s a lot of good stuff in the Russian classics but last time I reread Gogol’s overcoat it hit just as hard.
Recently reading Colson Whitehead’s Nickel Boys I full on broke down at two different parts. Like ugly crying and not just because it was a sad moment - there was too much going on in my head as a result of the writing for me to process.