Who was the greatest author of the twentieth century? And Why?

Answer 1

This one is tough because the publishing industry took off in the 20th Century. Modern printing equipment and distribution made possible millions of books a year. The novel became an important entertainment vehicle especially before films were taken seriously and television became popular. A good book was where the thinking people got their ideas.

American authors, the most important ones, were Ernest Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, Nathaniel West, Carson Macullers (bad spelling I think), and William Faulkner. The best? That's tough. These are all masterfull.

On the other side of the Ocean, George Orwell, HG Wells, James Joyce and Virginia Wolf are all very high quality and quite different in style.

Notice that the best writers wrote in the early or middle part of the Century. The ones that came later: Saul Bellow, John Barth, or Phillip Roth are considered Post-Moderns. They never achieved mass popularity as the earlier Moderns.

Answer 2

Ugh...there are so many, but my personal favorites (it's kind of a tie) are Samuel R. Delany and Mihail Bulgakov.

Delany was hailed as one of the most interesting authors writing in the English language, and though that praise sounds a bit like hyperbole, one has only to read his classic science fiction novels, Nova, Dhalgren, Babel-17, or any of his short stories "Aye and Gamorrah" or "Time Considered as a Helix of Semiprecious Stones" among others in order to get why I say this. He is a brilliant writer and keenly perceptive. Many of his science fictional works have since come back into print, so they should be easy to find at your local bookstore, or at Amazon.com.

I choose Delany as one of my all time favorites because of his use of language, his cunning intellect, and his ability to actually craft science fictional heroes and heroines out of people we may not necessarily want to care about. He makes the reader care, or at least feel compelled enough to see how the physical and existential situations ultimately play out in his novels. Often when other writers are asked to comment on Delany, and what other writer he most resembles in some way, he's always linked to James Joyce, and indeed, his novel Dhalgren bears more than a few casual notes of "cross-genre" dialogue with James Joyce.

Mihail Bulgakov, the guy I like as much as Delany is also known for works that at least touch on science fiction/fantasy, though more specifically, he's a satirist responsible for the CLASSIC novel, Master and Margarita, and the obscure, utterly hilarious short novel The Fatal Eggs. Bulgakov is one of the greatest Russian writers to ever live, and that's saying something, since he's in the company of such giants as Tolstoy, Dosteyevsky, Gogol, and Turgenev. Where Delany just flat out impresses me and inspires me whenever I sit down to do my own writing, Bulgakov does the same AND makes me laugh, sometimes to the point of...um...urinary distress.

Answer 3

on your question, I say no. for sure, there are more advantageous than one thousand different authors in the international who're underrated, or not even given due interest because they don't look to be as time-honored. pondering this, i imagine that's why those who often "win" in questions like this, notwithstanding subjective they could be, are those who're the most prolific, or maximum time-honored, or both. after all, someone won't be able to be the magnificent if he has not confident people to verify his works. yet lamentably, in situations like those, crap should be wrapped in satin and positioned on a pedestal. i'm sorry you imagine the Potter books are coma-inducing tripe, yet we may be able to continually disagree without being ugly. And, purely to ward off anybody from jumping to conclusions, i don't think of Rowling is the magnificent author of the 20 th century.

Answer 4

Ernest Hemingway his book a farewell to arms and old man in the sea ...note.. JK rowing creator of harry potter is not greatest the author of the 20 century his book is pure fiction fantasy and has nothing to do with classical book and arts his book is a trash and not worth reading compare to him his book is being studied by different university in the world he won the Nobel peace prize in literature in 1952

Answer 5

It depends on what you mean by "greatest." One of the interesting (and sorta sad) things about literature in the 20th century is the separation between "serious" literature and "popular" literature. Most of the writers propular with a general reading public were not considered "great" or even "good" by literary critics and, thus, are not studied in schools nor given prestigious awards. On the other hand, many of the "serious" writers, such as James Joyce, John Barth, much of Faulkner, T. S. Eliot and his followers, are considered too "difficult" by the general reader and resisted by most students in schools.

Is there an author who speaks to and for the people but who also appeals to critics and meets their high intellectual standards? Like Charles Dickens and Mark Twain and Walt Whitman and Emily Dickenson and George Eliot in the 19th century?

Probably not, at least no one has emerged to take the lead in our culture at this point. Perhaps Toni Morrison, and her predecessor Zora Neal Hurston, come closest. Their works are deep, but also deeply moving. They speak to the mind and to the heart. They speak for their own people and for all people, their own lifetime and for all time. They reward study in school, analysis by critics, AND reading for pleasure on a summer vacation.

If Salman Rushdie's later works were as good as Midnight's Children or if more of John Irving's works were like Prayer for Owen Meany, I would cast my vote for them. They've taken "magical realism," (which, I think, is the most interesting "genre" to develop in the 20th century) and made it readable for the public, they've combined humor and drama (as Twain and Dickens did), their books are page turners but they leave you with lots of issues to reflect upon, and perhaps most important their characters live on in your imagination long after you've finished reading the book.

So, the greatest writer? Probably Toni Morrison. The greatest single book? Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie.

Answer 6

There are so many greats now that the question is almost unanswerable. I guess I'd have to go with Hermann Hesse, whose writings had such an impact on me when I was a younger man.

Answer 7

Stephen King... he's been one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century, has scared the hell out or generations or people of all ages, and many of his detailed and well written books are inter-connected through his 7 book opus The Dark Tower.

Answer 8

George Orwell

JK Rowling - Popularising reading for children in a way never done before.

Answer 9

Garcia Marquez.
Read "Love in the Times of Cholera" and "Hundred years of Solitude" and you know why.

Answer 10

J.K Rowling. Pure imaginative genius!