The 10 best authors of the 21st Century
While film, television and music are now the most consumed mediums of entertainment in the world, there was once a time when stories and songs (and the social and moral messages they hold within) were oral traditions. Upon the invention of the printing press, they then became a written art form.
As Victorian literature gave way to modernism, which itself made room for a post-modern bastardisation in the latter half of the 20th Century, stories became more closely aligned with how we actually live our lives. They were no longer fairy tales and mythologies; suddenly, we were in the stories too.
As the 21st Century begrudgingly rolls on, bleary-eyed, stumbling over the complete social and ecological mess that has become the bedroom of the world, several authors have attempted to define sometimes the problem, sometimes the solution and sometimes just the feeling of the travesty that we now find ourselves in.
Amongst those authors are some who look back, others who look forward into distant futures and others still who explicitly lay out the claims of the now. So, from Hilary Mantel to George Saunders, let’s take a look at ten of the best authors of the 21st Century so far.
The 10 greatest authors of the 21st Century:
Hilary Mantel
Hilary Mantel revitalised, no, transcended the historical novel with her trilogy fictionally documenting Thomas Cromwell’s rise to power in the court of King Henry VIII. She won the Booker Prize for the trilogy’s first instalment, 2009’s Wolf Hall.
Mantel scooped the highly-coveted Booker again for the sequel Bring Up the Bodies and was longlisted for the last work in the trilogy, The Mirror and the Light. Mantell died last month, aged 70 and received several warm tributes from the literary world at large.
Ottessa Moshfegh
Ottessa Moshfesh burst onto the literary scene in 2015 with her debut novel, Eileen, which won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Since then, she has written three novels, a collection of short stories and a novella.
Amongst those is a brilliant novel entitled My Year of Rest and Relaxation, which seemingly foresaw the social ennui of the Covid pandemic. It tells the story of a young woman who, in the throes of a traumatic past, quits her job with the only aim of sleeping for an entire year.
Marlon James
Marlon James is a Jamaican writer who now lives in Minneapolis. James’ work is defined by a brutal and visceral style in which he does not hold back from the disturbing details of violent and sexual acts, especially in The Book of Night Women and A Brief History of Seven Killings.
James also explores his nationality in his works, frequently writing conversations in Jamaican Patois. He is as influenced by musicians as he is by other writers and once said, “The reggae singers Bob Marley and Peter Tosh were the first to recognise that the voice coming out our mouths was a legitimate voice for fiction and for poetry.”
Donna Tartt
While Tartt’s excellent debut novel, The Secret History, was first published in 1992, the fact that she takes around 11 years to write each book allows her to take her place on this list rightfully. The Secret History was followed by The Little Friend in 2002 and The Goldfinch in 2014.
Tartt has been awarded the WH Smith Literary Award for The Little Friend and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Goldfinch. Tartt enjoys not engaging in social, literary culture and rarely gives interviews, but we know that she is good friends with fellow writer and Bennington College alum Bret Easton Ellis and dedicated The Secret History to him.
Zadie Smith
Smith came in hot on the back of the post-post-modernist English language writers such as David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen, though she resists being categorised alongside them. Her debut novel White Teeth was published in 2000 and was simultaneously a best-seller and a critic’s favourite.
Her works broadly explore the inner social workings of the British working class, particularly those of North London origins. Since White Teeth was published to widespread acclaim, she has released four further novels, the latest being 2016’s Swing Time.
David Mitchell
David Mitchell’s first novel Ghostwritten was published in 1999. His second, 2001’s number9dream, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, as was 2004’s Cloud Atlas. In 2012, the latter was made into a feature-length film directed by the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer and starred Tom Hanks and Halle Berry.
Number9dream is a beautiful novel that tells the story of a 19-year-old young man going in search of his estranged father. The interesting feature of the novel is that Eiji Miyake’s narration contradicts; it is, in part, an accurate picture of his search, though it is juxtaposed with his daydreams, which are largely influenced by pop culture and video games.
Elena Ferrante
Elena Ferrante is the pseudonym used by a female Italian novelist. Several of her books have been translated from Italian into a wide range of other languages, including her best-known works, the four Neapolitan Novels, which tell about two wistful girls who try to manage creative, meaningful lives in a violent, oppressive culture.
Ferrante has backed her anonymity, saying, “books, once they are written, have no need of their authors.” In fact, her anonymity is a prerequisite to being able to write, for were her true identity to be revealed, it would likely result in a stream of unnecessary public appearances.
Elizabeth Strout
Elizabeth Strout is a Maine-based author who uses her childhood state to formulate the settings for several of her works. Strout’s first novel, Amy and Isabelle, was released to critical acclaim and commercial success and her second, Abide with Me, was given high praise amongst critics.
Olive Kitteridge, Strout’s third novel, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2009 and has grossed over $25 million since then. It was later adapted into a television mini-series starring and produced by Frances McDormand, who revealed herself to be a huge fan of Strout’s intelligent, witty and emotionally sensitive writing.
John Burnside
John Burnside is primarily a poet by trade and an ecological poet by nature. He has published 11 novels alongside 20 collections of poetry and eight works of non-fiction. His novel The Dumb House is a highly moving yet disturbing novel in which a father performs experiments on his children to see if language is learnt or innate.
Burnside’s work is defined by an inner yearning to understand humankind’s position within the wider realm of nature, emphasising the importance of personal sensitivity and social responsibility in light of the ever-changing (and presently disastrous) ecological climate.
George Saunders
George Saunders is primarily a short story writer and won a string of National Magazine Awards for his works published in Harper’s, The New Yorker and Esquire between 1994 and 2004. His 1997 collection CivilWarLand in Bad Decline was a PEN/Hemingway Award finalist.
Since then, Saunders has published four further short story collections and a novel Lincoln in the Bardo. His work concerns the seeming absurdity of modern consumer society and the ever-looming shadow of mass media. Saunders’ style is satirical in tone yet simultaneously raises important social, political and moral questions.
