10 Authors That Everyone Needs to Read: The mark of a truly notable author is his or her ability to create a distinct world around him, a world which comprises the author and his or her books. While traversing this world, the reader must be able to make connections within these books, understanding the trademark of the author from a sample of his or her work. In other words, truly great authors are those that have a trademark, a unique authorial voice and something in their craft that distinguishes them from others who write. Here is a list of such writers, mostly modern.
10 Authors That Everyone Needs to Read:
Haruki Murakami
Murakami is the Japanese master of magical realism who writes stories that feel ethereal and dreamlike. Most of his novels and shorter works follow a lonely protagonist in quest of something, which he obtains but sees the fallacy in. During the course of this quest, as in “A Wild Sheep Chase” or “Kafka on the Shore”, the protagonist meets quirkily magic people and traverses to alternative dimensions. His Books are absolutely surreal.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Marquez was the pioneer of magical realism, and his Books, most notably “One Hundred Years of Solitude” won him the Nobel prize. Basically, Marquez writes weird, eccentric stories about Latin American people who live in a world touched by magic. He seamlessly melts one scene into another until we have a rich, vibrant portrait of everyone in the novel. There is one thread of plot that connects all of these characters, whose traits we decipher.
Milan Kundera
Kundera’s novels, like “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, “Life is Elsewhere” or “Laughable Loves” are existentialist. They are stories of people in Czechoslovakia, against the strife of political rebellion and communist regime. Kundera’s stories are full of philosophical ideas and motifs and trace lives as they unfold. In his words, Kundera blends sadness with beauty and humour to create unforgettable novels.
Amitav Ghosh
Ghosh is perhaps India’s biggest chance at a Nobel prize in modern times. His grand works are of various genres. “Shadow Lines” was a postcolonial novel, “The Calcutta Chromosome” was a science fiction and “The Ibis Trilogy” was historical fiction. Whatever the genre is, Ghosh is a master storyteller who weaves intricate, detailed, intersecting narratives. Mini-fictions exist inside of one mega-fiction, which leaves the reader absolutely breathless.
Dan Brown
Brown writers some of the best historical thrillers that have ever existed. His trademark is that the events in his books transpire over the course of a single day and night. Within the space of this eventful night, his protagonist, Robert Langdon, follows a quest or trail leading from a murder. This train results in the appearance of great historical secrets which have immense consequences for the modern world, as in “Origin” or “The DaVinci Code”.
Khaled Hosseini
Hosseini has only three books and one poem to his credit in the published world, but these three works of art have been so powerful that they have cemented his position in the world. Basically, the Afghani writer writes about Afghani men and women and weaves emotional personal stories into the social milieu. His “The Kite Runner” is about friendship across classes while “A Thousand Splendid Suns” explores patriarchy and Talibanism.
Amish Tripathi
Another Indian writer who has a very trademark style of writing, Amish reworks ancient myths and tales of India into his own imaginative, creative frameworks. His Ram Chandra Series and Shiva trilogy are reimaginations of the Ramayana and Shiva lore respectively, but with marked changes. He transforms the milieu into one of tumult and his godly characters into ordinary humans. He adds his own imaginative flavour to all of them.
Paulo Coelho
The Brazilian writer Coelho is one of the most famous spiritual ones in the world. All of his multifarious writings, which include “The Alchemist”, “Brida”, “Aleph”, “The Fifth Mountain” and more are centres around journeys. These journeys might be metaphorical or literal, but they always have a philosophical backing. Coelho has a distinct form of writing in that his narrators often find themselves, in various locations, learning secrets of life.
Rabindranath Tagore
India’s only Nobel laureate in literature is a force of his own. His writings include a vast variety of forms ranging form poems, dramas, short stories, novels, short prose works, essays and more. His writing often draws on the landscapes of Bengal and other traditional Indian motifs to weave great literature with tremendous emotional depth. Also, his poems are often characterized by a certain mysticism, spirituality and Indian philosophy.
Yasunari Kawabata
Kawabata was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature, and for good reason. His writing is characterized by emotion, lyricism and reflection of natural settings in human personalities. His works include “Snow Country” and “Beauty and Sadness”, and all of them are characterized by quietness and restraint but in a very sentimental and poetic way. They often also explore the rural landscapes and ancient traditions of Japan.
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