I. L. Peretz's short story "Bontsha the Silent" centers on a character who, when offered everything in heaven, asks only for a hot roll with butter for breakfast every morning.

Sherwood Anderson's short story "I'm a Fool" is told by a first-person narrator, a racehorse groom, who lies to get what he wants.

The 1989 novel A Prayer for Owen Meany by

American author John Irving centers on a Christ-like hero and examines the meaning of good and evil.

Prussian author Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1869 novel The Idiot centers on the protagonist's loss of innocence and his experience of sin.

James Michener's Poland (1983) is a fictionalized history of Poland which spans 700 years.