Please only name living authors, otherwise we would need to have a few hundred Nobel prizes to hand out posthumously.
Troll, J.K. Rowling is the name your looking for.
I love all the answers I'm getting so far i was afraid it would all be twilight and harry potter.
dontpanic
Favorite Answer
This is going to be hard considering most of my favourites are Classics. :)
I'm going to go with Kazuo Ishiguro for Never Let Me Go. He has such a simple but effective way of writing and he manages to combine the tradition feel of an English boarding school and the fraught tensions of growing up with a ton of raw human emotion with regards to the futuristic morality of the story. It's so beautifully written and keeps you enchanted and moved until the end. I can never tell people what it's about, it doesn't do it justice. The film is a faithful adaptation but nothing comes close to the language he conjures up.
Joss: Whilst I agree that Atonement is McEwan's best work I certainly wouldn't say he's worthy of a Nobel prize. The plot drives the novel forward but his writing in itself is nothing extraordinary in my opinion.
:')
?
I think the last novel I read of his was in the mid nineties about the time I gave up on American literature and of course he has some extreme negatives against him, but certainly Philip Roth meets most of the criteria for winning this award.
His negatives include being a New Yorker and being Jewish, though a non-practicing one.
His positives, to the Nobel committee at least, are a "marching to my own drummer" attitude and his unflattering views of American culture.
Joss
Ian McEwan for Atonement. But, apparently - according to a former judge on the panel - there's a systemic bias against European and American writers, especially American writers.
Maybe McEwan will get it next year, though. ;) I might actually read this years winner. I've read a summary of the book and it kind of interests me. I don't think I've read any books that have this award. Though, if McEwan ever wins then that'll be one. :D
Anonymous
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Anonymous
in case you elect to draw close more suitable about the reverence Neruda became accorded - study Burning patience, a really skinny novel. And sure, i imagine he did deserve that honor. perchance you're placed off through his politics.