Who are the greatest American writers?

Question

I am compiling a list of great writers of the world. Please help me with ideas and opinions.

Answer 1

Mark Twain.
E. A. Poe.
E. Hemmingway.
W. Faulkner.
Willa Cather.
Joan Didion.
Tennessee Williams.
Norman Mailer.
Nathaniel Hawthorne.
F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Walt Whitman.
Herman Melville.
Arthur Miller.
John Steinbeck.
John Updike.

And two favorites many may not agree with, but who, in my opinion are extravagently talented and under-rated writters:

John Dos Passos.
Peter de Vries. (Once described by the "New Yorker" as the "Urban Mark Twain").

Answer 2

Gadfly, I am happy I found you back to start with!
OK, your question...
As a French-spoken, I am probably not really an interesting stats for you!
However, I would say that Mark Twain, I love. Huck and Tom, my childhood' friends, even more...
And Cormac McCarthy with Sam Shephard as you can smell the horses they are talking about...
In a minor way, Nicholas just whispers to them...
But just there, I am a bit tired and just can think about one or two pieces of each writers...
"The heart is (such) a lonely hunter" and the novels of Willa Cather and Isaac Bashevis Singer...
I am certainly not going to speak about the obvious ones, hell no!
Those, you know far better than me...

Then all the world around go for the Scottish, Irish ones, I am from a culture which has some of the best artists and writers, why is it then that I only read English, tell me!
Yes because of Stephenson, Barrie, Milne, Doyle and so forth and so on...
Cross the pound and come in Dublin, fair city and what will happen?
I wish you a good and interesting 2007!

Answer 3

1) An American woman's life: Marilynne Robinson: Housekeeping
2) An American black man's life: Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man
3) An American black woman's life: Alice Walker: The Color Purple and Gloria Naylor
4) Gays in America:Randy Shilts: And the Band Played On
5) Selfishness or Being the Best? Ayn Rand: The Fountainhead
6) American small town life (one of the top 100 banned books of 1990-2000): Mark Twain: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
7) Best American Sci-Fi Writers: Octavia Butler and Ursula Le Guin and Edgar Allen Poe
8) Best Contemporary American Mystery Writer: Marcia Muller
9) Best American Poetry: Emily Dickinson
10) Best Asian American Writer: Amy Tan
11) Best American Lesbian Writer: Rita Mae Brown
12) Best American Horror: Anne Rice and Stephen King
13) Best Contemporary American Realism: Anne Tyler
14) Best Contemporary American Southern Writing: Fannie Flagg
15) Best Western Writer: James Fenimore Cooper

It took a while since I realized I liked a lot of British writers:
Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George Orwell, Agatha Christie, plus William Shakespeare.

Good luck!

Answer 4

Kurt Vonnegut. He's an amazing writer. The man is a genius and probably my favorite author of all time.

I'd also have to add Edgar Allen Poe. The man is screwed up, but he's got some great short stories.

Answer 5

James Fenimore Cooper - "Last of the Mohicans"
Nathaniel Hawthorne - "The Scarlet Letter"
Upton Sinclair - "The Jungle"
Mark Twain - "Huckleberry Finn"
John Steinbeck - "The Grapes of Wrath"
Ernest Hemingway - "For Whom the Bell Tolls"
William Faulkner - "The Sound and the Fury"
J.D. Salinger - "Catcher in the Rye"
Robert Heinlein - "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Stephen King - "The Stand"

Just to name a few right off the top of my head.

B

Answer 6

Marc Twain

Answer 7

Mark Twain is the final for my area. Others who're seen large comprise; Ernest Hemmingway Scott Fitzgerald Herman Melville William Faulkner Henry James Edith Wharton Harper Lee (To Kill A Mockingbird - a one-off) Stephen Crane (The purple Badge of braveness - yet another one-off) John Updike Sinclair Lewis John Steinbeck those are novelists, yet i could comprise interior the record the different large American humorists who wrote short products extremely than novels yet produced masterpieces of humour interior the technique. in this classification i could comprise: James Thurber Robert Benchley Will Cuppy S.J. Perelman E.B White Dorothy Parker Don Marquis of cutting-edge American humorous writers, I evaluate Florence King and P.J. O'Rourke to the two be extremely excruciatingly humorous.

Answer 8

I'd like to add Joan Didion to your list.

Answer 9

philip roth