SOUTHEASTERN COLLEGE

FAMOUS
WRITERS
Ranking the most important authors in
contemporary and late-20th-century
literature is impossible. These 10
authors all made their mark over the
last 50 years and are each widely
considered to be significant and worth
exploring.
ISABEL ALLENDE
Chilean-American author Isabel Allende wrote her
debut novel, "House of Spirits," to great acclaim in
1982. The novel began as a letter to her dying
grandfather and is a work of magical realism
charting the history of Chile. Allende began writing
"House of Spirits" on Jan. 8, and subsequently has
begun writing all of her books on that day.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Canadian author Margaret Atwood has numerous
critically acclaimed novels to her credit. Some of
her best-selling titles are "Oryx and Crake" (2003),
"The Handmaid's Tale" (1986), and "The Blind
Assassin" (2000). She is best known for her
feminist and dystopian political themes, and her
prolific output of work spans multiple genres,
including poetry, short stories, and essays.
JONATHAN FRANZEN
Winner of the National Book Award for his 2001
novel, "The Corrections," and a frequent
contributor of essays to The New Yorker, Jonathan
Franzen's works include a 2002 book of essays
titled "How to Be Alone," a 2006 memoir, "The
Discomfort Zone," and the acclaimed "Freedom"
(2010). His work often touches on social criticism
and family troubles.
IAN MCEWAN
British writer Ian McEwan started winning literary
awards with his first book, a collection of short stories,
"First Love, Last Rites" (1976) and never stopped.
"Atonement" (2001), a family drama focused on
repentance, won several awards and was made into a
movie directed by Joe Wright (2007). "Saturday"
(2005) won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His
work often focuses on closely observed personal lives
in a politically fraught world.
DAVID MITCHELL
English novelist David Mitchell is known for his
frequent use of intricate and complex experimental
structure in his work. In his first novel,
"Ghostwritten" (1999), he uses nine narrators to tell
the story, and 2004's "Cloud Atlas" is a novel
comprising six interconnected stories
TONI MORRISON
Toni Morrison's "Beloved" (1987) was named best
novel of the past 25 years in a 2006 New York
Times Book Review survey. The searingly painful
novel offers a very personal window into the horrors
of the enslavement of people and its aftermath. The
novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988, and Toni
Morrison, a luminary of African American literature,
won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Japanese author Haruki Murakami first struck a
chord with "A Wild Sheep Chase" in 1982, a novel
steeped in the genre of magical realism, which he
would make his own over the coming decades.
Murakami's works are melancholic, sometimes
fantastic, and often in the first person.
PHILIP ROTH
Philip Roth (1933–2018) seems to have won more
book awards than any other late-20th-century
American writer. He won the Sidewise Award for
Alternate History for The Plot Against America
(2005) and a PEN/Nabokov Award for Lifetime
Achievement in 2006.
ZADIE SMITH
Literary critic James Wood coined the term
"hysterical realism" in 2000 to describe Zadie
Smith's hugely successful debut novel, "White
Teeth," which Smith agreed was a "painfully
accurate term for the sort of overblown, manic prose
to be found in novels like my own 'White Teeth.'"
JOHN UPDIKE
John Updike (1932–2009) was one of only three
writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more
than once. Some of Updike's most renowned novels
included his Rabbit Angstrom novels, "Of the Farm"
(1965), and "Olinger Stories: A Selection" (1964).
“It matters not what someone is
born, but what they grow to be.”

Harry Potter and the Goblet of

Fire, J.K. Rowling