10 Favorite living writers

[Heteronym]

Hm,

Philip Roth
Milan Kundera
Alan Moore
Mario Vargas Llosa
Pepetela
Adam Zagajewski
Edward Albee
Dario Fo
Gabriel García Márquez
J.M. Coetzee

[Cleanthess]

Philippe Jaccottet
Yves Bonnefoy
Pascal Quignard
/Amin Maalouf
Milan Kundera
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Nicanor Parra
Gunter Grass
Antonio Lobo Antunes
Robert Coover
Annie Dillard
Cynthia Ozick

Ten is impossible, so I'm cheating and going with twelve. I have not read forum favorites Ndiaye, Olga Tokarczuk, Cartarescu or wa Thiong'o yet, so my list may change in the near future.

[Daniel del Real]

Good list Cleanthess. I'm also a big fan of Maalouf & Parra. The good works by GGM are also stupendous. I've read Bonnefoy before but wasn't impressed at all; probably a lot was lost in translation.

[Flint]

Daniel Alarcon
Ann Beattie
JM Coetzee
Rachel Cusk
Lydia Davis
Junot Diaz
Michael Moorcock
Lorrie Moore
ZZ Packer
Ali Smith

I see with horror that most of my favourite writers are dead (Raymond Carver, Sebald). Some of them long dead (Martin Santos).

Then there are writers who have written books I'm absolutely enthusiastic about, but others that I don't like so much. For example, I think Vargas Llosa's Conversation in the Cathedral is one of the greatest novels of all time, but I'm not so enthusiastic about his ulterior production. Same happens to me with Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years. I like some Philip Roth novels, but not all of them. I like Richard Ford's short fiction but not so much his novels. I liked Zadie Smith's White Teeth, but not her other novels. I love Lobo Antunes's Cronicas, but I can't stand his novels. I like some stuff by David Schickler, but not all his stuff. Etc, etc.

So the names I've listed above are those writers who interest me so much that I'll rush to buy, or at least to have a look at, anything new they produce. A fairly heterogeneous list indeed. Very different writers. Maybe I haven't yet developed a fully mature literary taste.

[Cleanthess]

Good list Cleanthess. I'm also a big fan of Maalouf & Parra. The good works by GGM are also stupendous. I've read Bonnefoy before but wasn't impressed at all; probably a lot was lost in translation.

Thank you. Your list was even better, but I tried to avoid listing too many Nobel Prize winners.

Yeah, Bonnefoy and Jaccottet are hard to translate they are like a cross between Eluard and Rilke and thus, extremely hard to render well. A favorite of mine: "Le mot ronce, dis-tu?" is a good example; the English translator mistook ronce : burr/ nudo de madera for ronce : brambles /zarzamora. And this, even though the whole poem is an elaboration on that image.


The Word Burr, You Say

The word Burr, you say? It reminds me of
Those boats wrecked in the seaweeds
That kids drag on summer mornings
With light cries inside dark pools,

Because there are some, you see, with traces
left by a fire that burned at the world's fore
--And on the blackened wood, where time places
salt that looks like a message and then is no more,
You will also love the water that shines.

Fires at the sea have short-lived flames
But when they are extinguished by the waves,
You can see irisations in the smoke
--The word burr is like this wood that drowns.

And poetry, if we can say this word still,
Poetry, isn't it to know where the star
Seems to take us, clearly towards death,

And yet to love this light? To love
the opening of the almond of absence in words?

Le mot ronce, dis-tu?

Le mot ronce, dis-tu? Je me souviens
De ces barques échouées dans le varech
Que traînent les enfants les matins d'été
Avec des cris de joie dans les flaques noires

Car il en est, vois-tu, où demeure la trace
D'un feu qui y brûla à l'avant du monde
--Et sur le bois noirci, où le temps dépose
Le sel qui semble un signe mais s'efface
Tu aimeras toi aussi l'eau qui brille.

Du feu qui va en mer la flamme est brève,
Mais quand elle s'éteint contre la vague,
Il y a des irisations dans la fumée.
Le mot ronce est semblable à ce bois qui sombre.

Et poésie, si ce mot est dicible,
N'est-ce pas savoir là où l'étoile
Parut conduire mais pour rien sinon la mort,

Aimer cette lumière encore? Aimer ouvrir
L'amande de l'absence dans la parole?

burr:



varech/ wreck:


irisation:

[Cleanthess]

Daniel Alarcon
Ann Beattie
JM Coetzee
Rachel Cusk
Lydia Davis
Junot Diaz
Michael Moorcock
Lorrie Moore
ZZ Packer
Ali Smith

Michael Moorcock, huh? I still remember the shock of reading as a teen Behold the man translated as Voici l'homme and seeing that hunchbacked main character drooling like and idiot and repeating his name over and over. Not to mention that allegedly virginal woman being a tramp.
As for Lydia Davies and Lorrie Moore I'm currently reading them and loving it!

[nagisa]

10 favorite living authors... I'd have to say :

J.M. Coetzee
László Krasznahorkai
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Peter Handke
J.M.G. Le Clézio
Kenzaburō Ōe
Imre Kertész
Toni Morrison
Philip Roth
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

[Cleanthess]

My Indian coworkers here at New Jersey are divided between Chetan Bhagat and Jumpa Lahiri as to which one is their favorite contemporary Indian writer. Males tend to favor Bhagat and females tend to choose Lahiri. Based on the mass success of the 3 idiots movie, Bhagat would seem a more fun writer to read. Could you please share some of your favorite moments from his books?

[kpjayan]

My Indian coworkers here at New Jersey are divided between Chetan Bhagat and Jumpa Lahiri as to which one is their favorite contemporary Indian writer. Males tend to favor Bhagat and females tend to choose Lahiri. Based on the mass success of the 3 idiots movie, Bhagat would seem a more fun writer to read. Could you please share some of your favorite moments from his books?

I dont know about your co-workers. But, Chetan Bhagat writes chic-lit. Page turners for neo-urban youngsters , mostly around his time in the Management institute. It's not worth your money if you are looking for serious literature. But, if you need one for a short travel or a quick read, its a good time pass read. Nothing more.

I am not really warmed to Jumpa Lahiri as well, against the the general view. I found her writing pretty ordinary.

[Cleanthess]

Thank you Jayan. So it seems that it's going to be back to Premchand, Tagore, Narayan and Kipling for me when I need my Indian Lit. fix.

[kpjayan]

going to be back to Premchand, Tagore, Narayan and Kipling for me when I need my Indian Lit. fix.

No, there are lot more interesting writers in various regional languages. Some of them have been available in English.

Also, there are many writers who write in English are better than those above ( Chetan Bhagat et all)

[giggs85]

My top 10:
Laszlo Krasznahorkai
Attila Bartis
JM Coetzee
Gao Xiangjian
Ian McEwan
Antonio Lobo Antunes
Christoph Ransmayr
Javier Marias
Per Petterson
Gerald Murnane

[maidenhair]

Which one of Bartis books would you recommend for a first try, Giggs? A nyugalom?

[Raphael Lambach]

Certainly it's a hard choice but here we go.

Ian McEwan
Chico Buarque
Orhan Pamuk
Mario Vargas Llosa
G G Marquez
Danto Trevisan
Martin Amis
Haruki Murakami
Antonio Lobo Antunes
JM Coetzee

[Stevie B]

Certainly it's a hard choice but here we go.

Ian McEwan
Chico Buarque
Orhan Pamuk
Mario Vargas Llosa
G G Marquez
Danto Trevisan
Martin Amis
Haruki Murakami
Antonio Lobo Antunes
José Saramago

Raphael, I read a short story collection The Vampire of Curitiba by a Brazilian writer Dalton Trevisan years ago. I'm curious if Dalton is better known as Danto in Brasil or are if Danto is a completely different guy. Any idea?

[Cleanthess]

Raphael, I read a short story collection The Vampire of Curitiba by a Brazilian writer Dalton Trevisan years ago. I'm curious if Dalton is better known as Danto in Brasil or are if Danto is a completely different guy. Any idea?

Stevie, given the fact that Dalton was recently awarded the Camoes prize for this year, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it's him.

For the patinhos sortudos (lucky duckies) who read Portuguese, here is a link to a sample of Dalton's short stories (he's written only one novel IIRC, A Polaquinha):
http://www.releituras.com/daltontrevisan_menu.asp

By the way, that releituras site is very good; it has a lot of samples of the writings from some of the best contemporary authors.

I got this haiku by Paulo Leminski from there:

It's enough for me
the shadow that takes it
the body that flees.

A mim me basta
a sombra que se deixa,
o corpo que se afasta.

[Cleanthess]

A little explanation about the Leminsky thingy for my non Brazilian friends.
Leminski was nicknamed once the 'lampiro de Curitiba/firefly of Curitiba' (a pun on 'vampiro de Curitiba/vampire of Curitiba') by Haroldo de Campos, the great poet who wrote Galaxias.

[Stevie B]

Stevie, given the fact that Dalton was recently awarded the Camoes prize for this year, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it's him.

For the patinhos sortudos (lucky duckies) who read Portuguese, here is a link to a sample of Dalton's short stories (he's written only one novel IIRC, A Polaquinha):
http://www.releituras.com/daltontrevisan_menu.asp

Nice to see Trevisan is still going strong. The collection I read was published at least 40 years ago. Hopefully, the Camoes prize will lead to more translations of his work. I'm a bit confused about the Camoes prize, though. On one hand, a reference suggests it is awarded for a particular book. On the other, when I looked at a list of past recipients, genres were cited but not specific books. That made me wonder if the intent of the award was to recognize an author's body of work. Any idea which is correct?

[Daniel del Real]

Certainly it's a hard choice but here we go.

Ian McEwan
Chico Buarque
Orhan Pamuk
Mario Vargas Llosa
G G Marquez
Danto Trevisan
Martin Amis
Haruki Murakami
Antonio Lobo Antunes
José Saramago

I really wish Saramago would still be alive

[Raphael Lambach]

I really wish Saramago would still be alive

I am sorry I was thinking of him when I wrote this. We can replace it for J M Coetzee.