The Most Important Author of the 20th Century

This might give away my identity but it is he:

Chinua Achebe

Ansab. I'm contractually obligated to nominate him. And it's a violation of the TOS to not vote for him.*

*Subject to approval by the Newsvine team.

George Orwell. His fictional predictions came reality within the 20th Century. Another George is putting on the finishing touches.

Noam Chomsky

If everyone would read and heed him, the world would be a far better place.

Ah, besides Mao, who's Quotations have sold over 900 million copies, I go for J.R.R. Tolkein.

James Joyce redefined the novel.

Do yourself a favor and read Ulysses, you'll see what I mean. Multiple perspectives (parallax) to see the same thing more clearly, an acute sense of overwhelming historical and literary context ("History is a nightmare I'm trying to wake up from!"), narrative ingenuity (The narrator fights with the characters for control of the text!), structural brilliance (each chapter has its own rules and structure - there's even a 200 page play in the middle of the text!), and the list goes on. And the references! Yeah it's kind of a pain in the ass in parts but when the whole project clicks it's really kind of flabbergasting.

And that's not even getting to Finnegans Wake, the 700-page-gorilla-in-the-corner where all of the characters and plots are implied and conveyed only by use of extended metaphorical references to historical and literary charactes and plots. That's a handful.

Kurt Vonnegut. He shows that no matter what the circumstances, no matter how unlikely, unpleasant, or wonderful, the nature of humans is human nature.

I hate to say it, but J.K. Rowling. While in no way do I believe she is the best writer in the 20th Century, the questions posed was "Most Important Author". In an era where kids (and adults) play video games and watch television, the Harry Potter series actually got people interested in reading again.

Henry Miller
His bawdy, rollicking sex drenched novels, many of which were banned in America at the time of their publication, changed what was concerned obscene. Keep in mind this dude started bringing on the sexy in the 1930s and 40s.

Even George Orwell can vouch for him: "Here in my opinion is the only imaginative prose-writer of the slightest value who has appeared among the English-speaking races for some years past. Even if that is objected to as an overstatement, it will probably be admitted that Miller is a writer out of the ordinary, worth more than a single glance; and after all, he is a completely negative, unconstructive, amoral writer, a mere Jonah, a passive acceptor of evil, a sort of Whitman among the corpses."

I'm actually a fan of the modernist authors, that period between the wars produced some brilliant works; but I'm going to go for John Updike - his works are a real chronicle of the US in the second half of the century.

J.K. Rowling, for actually getting kids to pick up a book and read. And love it. And make their parents line up in the middle of the night for the next one.

Although many people read the works of JD Salinger and are accused of finding the idea of living in a shack and sending bombs to people a great idea, I'd have to say that many people have read his "Catcher in the Rye" and felt a bit better about themselves in knowing that everyone suffers unique but still comparable to that of their fellow beings. Plus, it is a great book to piss off old, censorship prone librarians whenever they know deep down in their black hearts that you are reading a novel filled with curse words and solicitation of a prostitute. I mean, really, it is a great book out of the "burned" genre.

Edward de Bono, for teaching the world to think. Links: http://www.debonoconsulting.com/Edward_de_Bono_Facts.asp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_de_Bono

R.L. Stein (anyone?)

George Kennan

In his X-Telegram and his later works of political theory based upon it, Kennan didn't redefine, he defined the way America thought about the USSR and Soviet Communism. His work almost single-handedly dictated US foreign policy for the next fifty years, plunged the United States into wars in Korea, Vietnam, and a host of other countries, and forever altered the history and geography of the world.

Kennan's work arguably created the Cold War, brought the world to the brink of Nuclear Holocaust, and destroyed the Soviet Union. He is, without doubt, the most important and influential author of the 20^th Century.

Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel)

J.K. Rowling might have gotten kids back into reading -- Dr. Seuss taught them to read in the first place.

Beyond the obvious introduction to words and how they sound and rhyme, I think he's also been instrumental in shaping imagination and a sense of whimsy and of the fantastic. I suspect my interest in fantasy, science fiction and (yes) fine art can be traced directly back to Hop on Pop.

Arthur C. Clarke.

Clarke was member of the "Big 3" of science fiction along with Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein.

His 2001: A Space Odyssey produced with Stanley Kubrick, was the first serious science fiction movie and paved the way for blockbusters like Star Wars and Close Encounters.

He was knighted in 2000.

He has written over 33 fiction novels, hundreds of short stories and dozens of nonfiction books on a variety of subjects.

The Asimov-Clarke treaty recognizes Clarke as the best science fiction writer in the world.

However, Clarke's most important contribution was not to the field of science fiction or fiction at all.

Clarke was the first person to conceptualize the geostationary satellite in a paper titled "Extra-Terrestrial Relays — Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?", published in Wireless World in October 1945, of which our entire modern communication system is dependent on.

In four books J.D. Salinger has done more for literature and influenced more authors than many authors with several times that. His novels are driven almost entirely by his characters and his characters are fantastically drawn - hopeful, tragic, beautiful, broken and all heartbreakingly human. One can only wonder what kind of masterpieces are littering the floor of his New England cabin, aching to be read (by me).

While there may be others, the first one that jumped in my head is J. R. R. Tolkien. Not only did he create a series of books widely read around the world, he created an entire world in which his Lord of the Rings, Hobbit, Silmarillion and others are only a small window into. In a way, through his Quenya languages, he's helping to preserve fading elements of Finnish language. His style of writing has appeal across generation and value gaps.

The influence of his writings on society and culture are quite palpable as well. Beyond the highly acclaimed films, the world of Middle-Earth has inspired many other works, from games (EverQuest, Warcraft, Neverwinter Nights, Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons) to film (2010 [Mt. Doom], Star Wars) to music (Led Zepplin, Summoning, Enya, The Beatles, de Meij) to literature (Stephen King, J.K. Rowling) to art (Alan Lee, Michael Hague).

Kurt Vonnegut

His books tell us that the universe is insane, and that frank admission is somehow sensible and comforting.

Plus he's the only author to include in a book a drawing of his own @!$%#, which roughly resembles an asterisk (*)

C. S. Lewis. Not only did he expertly craft a fictional world comparable to that of Tolkien (Chronicles of Narnia), but he also was a philosopher, not afraid to question the theological debacles of the time.

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

There were too many great writers to chose just one, but Tennessee Williams had a gift for cutting to the heart and core of life.

Douglas Adams

His books gave us the answer to life, the universe and everything.

l ron hubbard went from sci fi author to messiah. ANd is most noted for screwing up south park.

The most important book might not be the best or the most popular, but it is: Mein Kampf. So, the most important author of the 20th century is Adolf Hitler.

His book had a profound influence on the world (WWII) and repercussions that remain well into the current century. He is directly responsible for many of today's issues and buzzwords such as neo-Nazism, Holocaust, Holocaust industry, Godwin's law, femiNazi, enviroNazi, etc.

This is what Wikipedia has to say:

The book outlines major ideas that would later culminate in World War II.

Some historians have speculated that a wider reading prior to Hitler's rise to power (or at least prior to the outbreak of World War II) might have alerted the world to the dangers Hitler would pose to peace in Europe and to the Holocaust that he would pursue.