10 Favorite living writers

[Rumpelstilzchen]

But surely there must be something that even brings a man of stone like you to shed a tear So come on, let us into your deepest hidden literary vices and put up your list.

[Worldeater]

Hey Worldeater, maybe you have said it already somewhere, so please excuse me in that case, but what's your native language and which languages are you familiar with?

Actually i didnt, my native language is Serbian, im familiar with English and German (hm, little bit).

[Daniel del Real]

I must say I find Stiffelio's list rather puzzling with two pretentious magical realists plus one snooty British dopehead. And everyone seems to have a lot of Yanks. Is that because they are easier to access than many things in translation? The same people who berate the USA for neo-imperialism seem surprisingly interested in U.S. authors...

Do you see any US flags on my list Dickens? By the way, where's your list? You can add 10 Estonian nobody's no problem

[Daniel del Real]

Wow , a lot of common names with my list Caodang. And if we consider that the 5 names I had to dropped from a 15 writers initial list contemplated Vila-Matas, Makine & Tavares it makes it even more surprising.

[Baudelaire Theorist]

Awfully sorry not to enlighten this thread with some more obscure names, but so it shall be - the list is mine, take it or leave it my friends and non-friends.

Olga Tokarczuk

J.M.G. Le Clezio
Don DeLillo
Elfriede Jelinek
Magdalena Tulli
Andrei Makine
Thomas Pynchon

And with some hesitation and pulled out from a pool of eight more, but ten names it shall be to complete the quest. (Legal disclaimer: I have read only one book by each of them three, so those folx are not exactly my most favourite ones but those from whom, among others, I would read voluntarily more novels.)

Aharon Appelfeld
Wieslaw Mysliwski
Cees Nooteboom

I know, too many Nobel laureates, too many US-Americans - awh, my taste is just awesome, no needs for congrats, thank you very much. The space between Tokarczuk and the rest of the names is not done without a thought, as she is really my all-time-no-one-comes-close-in-admiration-favourite-writer

[Stiffelio]

I must say I find Stiffelio's list rather puzzling with two pretentious magical realists plus one snooty British dopehead. And everyone seems to have a lot of Yanks. Is that because they are easier to access than many things in translation? The same people who berate the USA for neo-imperialism seem surprisingly interested in U.S. authors...

Actually my list is pretty much mainstream lit, so I don't see what puzzles you about it. The Brit may be a nasty dopehead but he's a brilliant writer nonetheless. I have only two Americans on my top 10 and my list would have been a bit more euro-weighted had the thread been posted only a few months ago (e.g. we've just lost Antonio Tabucchi and other great writers like Harry Mulisch and Christa Wolf died only months ago).

[Daniel del Real]

Hey Oliver, Welcome my friend. Appelfeld is a name I have seen but never tried. Same happens with Tulli. Three Polish names, very interesting. I also thought adding Tocarzuk, but since I've only read one book by her I decided to give priority to authors I have read more works.

[kpjayan]

Let me attempt.. Many familiar names..

I am itched to include lot many Indian writers, but will avoid this time ( if some one wanted I could make a list of them as well)

I have decided to restrict the list to writers whom I have read more than 3 books.

1. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2. Mario Vargas Llosa
3. Ismail Kadare
4. Mo Yan
5. Milan Kundera
6. Gao Xingjian
7. J M Coetzee
8. Carlos Fuentez
9. Kensaburo Oe
10. Andre Makine

[Stevie B]

But surely there must be something that even brings a man of stone like you to shed a tear So come on, let us into your deepest hidden literary vices and put up your list.

I'm more often a peeper than an exhibitionist when it comes to lists like these, but I'll make an exception this time. Like Eric, I mostly read books by authors who have already passed on, but I do read some contemporary authors now and again to keep up with the WLF whippersnappers. Off the top of my head, here you have it:

Andre Aciman
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Sherman Alexie
Kazuo Ishiguro
Alice Munro
Yi Mun-Yol
Emine Sevgi Ozdamar (based only on The Bridge of the Golden Horn since I'm fond of immigrant fiction)
Bapsi Sidhwa
Mario Vargas Llosa (his earlier comic novels)
Tobias Wolff

[Caodang]

Wow , a lot of common names with my list Caodang. And if we consider that the 5 names I had to dropped from a 15 writers initial list contemplated Vila-Matas, Makine & Tavares it makes it even more surprising.

Unexpected coincidences, albeit logical, are always fascinating


Some other more or less outstanding writers who, though not exactly my favourites, are those whom I'll definitely set my eyes on in the future:
- Horacio Castellanos Moya (Senselessness)
- Alain Mabanckou (Broken Glass)

[Amichai]

This thread is as good as any other to make a first post, most likely. So here it is, my list of my currently 10 favourite living novelists:

Marie Ndiaye
Kjell Askildsen
Samanta Schweblin
Elsa Osorio
Zsuzsa Bánk
Milena Michiko Flašar
Julie Otsuka
Gyrdir Eliasson
Noemi Kiss
Olga Martynova

8-2 in favour of the women, didn´t notice before...

[Aldawen]

Difficult. By thinking about it and looking through my reading lists, I found that quite a lot of my preferred writers are dead. The selection doesn't become easier by the fact that I like trying „new“ authors which sadly reduces the time for those I've already come to like. Therefore a list like that is very versatile, I might easily make a slightly different choice next month. But right now my ten favorite living writers are:

Ngűgĩ wa Thiong'o
Meja Mwangi
/ Abdulrazak Gurnah
Chinua Achebe
Mahi Binebine
Derek Walcott
J.M.G. Le Clézio
A. F. Th. van der Heijden
Oliver Plaschka
Mani Beckmann

Yes, many Africans in the list which reflects my primary reading interest. The two German writers aren't translated to any other language I'm afraid, not high literature but very solid in their respective genres. Unfortunately Patrick Leigh Fermor died last year otherwise he would have been definitely part of the list.

[Amichai]

Unfortunately Patrick Leigh Fermor died last year otherwise he would have been definitely part of the list.

Strange that you mention his name. I have heard about him today and his little book A time to keep silence for the first time and want to read it badly now, put it already on my Amazon wishlist.

Like this review very much (also an excerpt is included).

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/10/132708...ell-of-silence

[Hamlet]

a few recent favourites -

Playwrights

Tom Stoppard -Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead/England.
Alan Bennett -The History Boys/England.


Novelists

Timothy Mo, yet to read in full, but perhaps Sour Sweet, The Monkey King, Brownout on Breadfruit Boulevard. et al. Hong Kong.
Douglas Coupland. Jpod, Generation A./Canada.

Tentatively~

Heartfelt accounts by emerging writers I've discovered by chance recently-

Karl Marlantes - Matterhorn. USA (a first novel about his experiences in the Vietnam War, took a lifetime to write)
Phillip Connors - Fire Season. USA
Jane Smiley - A Thousand Acres. King Lear adaptation. USA

Poets

Seamus Heaney, a recent discovery. /Collected Poems. Beowulf in translation/Ireland


that's a few, tapping finger, will have to think on this some more to get up to ten. . .

[Aldawen]

@Amichai: Oh, yes, A time to keep silence is a wonderful little book I drag from my shelf from time to time to refresh my memory. But I can also recommend the descriptions of his travels, especially his tour from Hoek van Holland to Constantinople.

[Amichai]

Thanx Aldawen, I am not really interested in travel writing as such but who knows, once I have read the aforementioned book I might give it a try. I am fascinated with monks and monasteries so this one, A time to keep silence,​ goes well with my own interests.

[Daniel del Real]

Amichai:

Interesting you selected two female Argentinian writers. I've heard about Schweblin and her short stories book Pájaros en la Boca, but I've never read it. Don't know anything about Elsa Osorio and her wiki entry, even in Spanish is very poor. In what language are you reading those books Amichai?

[Uemarasan]

Assia Djebar
Moto Hagio
Stephen Sondheim
Nicole Brenez
Homi Bhabha
Michio Kaku
Ellen Bryant Voigt
Ada Louise Huxtable
Taeko Kono
Amartya Sen

[Mystic Melody]

Mahashweta Devi
Nadine Gordimer
J.M. Coetzee
Philip Roth
Cynthia Ozick
Shashi Tharoor
Toni Morrison
Alice Walker
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Margaret Atwood

[miobrien]

Cormac McCarthy, Coetzee, Banville, William Trevor, Atwood, Didion, Vargas Llosa, John Irving, David Mitchell, Geoff Dyer

Others: Murakami, Franzen, Roth, Munro, Byatt, Toibin, Kundera, Oe, Jack Gilbert