What novel to do you think of as the 'national epic' of your home country?

Toward the Last Spike, by EJ Pratt.

I have not. I will check it out

Beautiful Losers

Ulysses obviously.

Oh, whoops. Getting my /int/ bait mixed up with actual flags.

Mein Kampf

We are a simple people

Moby Dick

Ausfag here

Yeah this guy pretty much right. Aus/lit/ never even reached adolescence.

Trainspotting

It's either the Emigrants series, or the collective works of Astrid Lindgren.

Perhaps Selma Lagerlöf's works too, she's received a Nobel prize and everything.

It's kind of hard to think of one single national epic.

If it can only be one book, then Witi Ihimaera' 'The Whale Rider' but if it can involve more than one book then Maurice Shadbolt's New Zealand Wars Trilogy (Season of the Jew , Monday's Warriors , The House of Strife)

Macunaíma by Mário de Andrade

>novel
>Leaves of Grass

Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Trilogy

There isn't one that fits with all the transformations Germany has gone through

Peer Gynt, personally, but most people would probably go with the Eddas.

The Martín Fierro. (Its a collection of poems about a rural landworker sent to war. He deserts and tries to return to his home, but discovers that his house, farm, and family are gone and then, he becomes and outlaw)

We don't have one, thank God.
>tfw eternal Anglo
It is a good feel.

Oh, and because I'm an eternal something else as well, I'll also claim the Bible.

Not a leaf but great choice user.

I guess the rough translation would be The Hatchet. It's pretty good.

Was gonna say for the the term of his natural life by clarke

Once were Warriors is real great, both book and film.

I agree, but I'm not sure I'd consider it a 'national epic' of NZ. To be honest even the examples aren't that strong, it's not like Maori mythology has been compiled into a defining work of literature or anything.

The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch

That's a damned shame those people look really interesting and proud you'd think they had someone write about them.

T. Played rugby in my youth for 6 years

You might like 'Foreskin's Lament' by Greg McGee, it's a play based around the Springbok Tour, though it tends to deal with hyper-masculinity in NZ Culture, good read regardless

Thanks lad I'm genuinely curious.