If you like 'East European' authors, here's a few that DoDo didn't mention, I'm not sure about insights into the world but they're good, and that's generally my chief criterium for fiction.

Bruno Schulz and Witold Gombrowicz (Polish) Danilo Kis (Serb, sort of), Christa Wolf (East German), Uwe Johnson (East/West German), Joseph Roth and Robert Musil (Habsburg).  

I could also provide a pretty long list of good history books, primarily dealing with modern European history, particularly Germany and ECE.