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?
On The Road. The best description I ever saw of the prose was that it’s the written equivalent of improv jazz. The scene where they’re sleeping in jungle and Sal(?) is on top of the car is particularly beautiful imo; it’s so descriptive and it raises up something kind of gross and unpleasant and turns it into an almost spiritual experience.