Best World Authors of 20th Century

Danenania · #1 08-30-2005, 10:03 PM

Personally I prefer international literature to American in my reading, so I'm interested in what everyone thinks. It's certainly a much tougher question just based on the sheer quantity of high quality work out there. But give it a shot.

Claunchy · #2 08-30-2005, 10:05 PM

I'm probably not well read enough to give a legit answer to this question, but I'm going with Hesse.

jason_t · #3 08-30-2005, 10:08 PM

Italo Calvino
Albert Camus
Jose Luis Borges
Guenter Grass
Herman Hesse
Thomas Mann
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
V.S. Naipaul
Jose Saramago
George Bernard Shaw

mslif · #4 08-30-2005, 10:14 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Albert Camus

[/ QUOTE ] and I'll have to add Marcel Proust

TheBlueMonster · #5 08-30-2005, 10:22 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Jose Luis Borges

[/ QUOTE ]
Greatest short story of all time "Garden of the Forking Paths"
Another great author is WG Sebald.

TheBlueMonster · #6 08-30-2005, 10:22 PM

How do you forget James Joyce?

luckyharr · #7 08-30-2005, 10:23 PM

Joyce

Danenania · #8 08-30-2005, 10:25 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Italo Calvino
Albert Camus
Jose Luis Borges
Guenter Grass
Herman Hesse
Thomas Mann
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
V.S. Naipaul
Jose Saramago
George Bernard Shaw

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a good list. Is it in order?

A few I must add are Kafka, Joyce, Nabakov (since he's not American), Jerzy Kosinski, and Milan Kundera.

Blarg · #9 08-30-2005, 10:39 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Italo Calvino
Albert Camus
Jose Luis Borges
Guenter Grass
Herman Hesse
Thomas Mann
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
V.S. Naipaul
Jose Saramago
George Bernard Shaw

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting list. I've got to give a lot of credit to a list that includes Naipaul, Camus, and a huge favorite of mine, Calvino.

I don't think many people read widely and deeply enough these days to be able to do much more than venture their personal preferences and prejudices on a question like this.

Having read all but Sarmango on that list, I'd pick Calvino for the truly astonishing breadth and inventiveness. I couldn't put him in Camus' class for the depth of his themes, though.

I also think Celine is world class and very important. Like Pound, he liked the Nazis a little more than was fashionable, though, and his prewar and postwar writings both have been unjustly tainted for it.

And Mark Twain lasted till 1910, though we'd really consider him an author of the century before, when most of his stuff was written.

KDawgCometh · #10 08-30-2005, 10:55 PM

put sarte on that list too