Writing can be a tedious task. Most of us have favorite writers and favorite novels. They often range from a couple centuries ago to now. All over the world, there have been and still are, some amazing novelists, from Dostoyevsky to Coetzee and everyone in between.
What about American novelists? We can talk about Mark Twain and Herman Melville, but their careers ended over a century ago. What about living American novelists? Here are the best of them
Paul Auster – Postmodernism Galore
Paul Auster was born in 1947, in Newark, New Jersey, to a Jewish family of Polish history. His early life was characterized by a pretty well-grounded life. He graduated from Columbia University in 1970 and moved to Paris, France, for four years. Coming back to the States, he started working on essays, poems and finally, novels. One of his most famous works is The NewYork Trilogy. His works are very distinctive, as are works of many postmodernists, but should you happen to read any of it, you will most likely be captivated.
Thomas Pynchon – Mystery Extraordinaire
Thomas Pynchon, a novelist, a mystery, born in 1937, is a living legend. His postmodernist works are famous throughout the world and very few people know how he looks as of today. His most famous photos date back to his high school years, in 1953.
Some of his most famous works are the Crying of Lot 49, Gravity’s Rainbow, and Inherent Vice, one of his newer additions to the world, also adapted as an eponymous 2014 movie.
William Gibson – Hello Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a science fiction subgenre, mostly credited to William Gibson, who by starting his Sprawl trilogy in 1984 also created cyberpunk. In 1984, Gibson wrote the Neuromancer, a book set in the future, which also gave many writers of the time new topics and more specifically, a type of future known as cyberpunk, an entire subgenre.
Gibson was born in 1948 and has had works such as science fiction, but also realist novels such as Pattern Recognition.
Dan Simmons – Science Fiction Master
Dan Simmons, born in 1948, is largely known for his Hyperion Cantos, a quadrilogy of books which deal with various topics, set in space in a distant future. He also wrote plenty of interesting short stories, including novels of the horror genre, such as The Song of Cali and Terror.
His works are supposed to be adapted into TV and movies, yet only Terror has had an actual adaptation, a successful one, at that.
These are the 4 most influential and interesting American novelists, still alive to this day. Their works have shaped the lives of many, writers and readers alike and will most likely continue to do so for years to come.
