Underappreciated writers

blacbird

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Just a thought generated via boredom, I suppose. But I'm wondering what writers people think are not sufficiently appreciated these days. My own interest was in writers no longer around, but who would you put in this category? I'll start by nominating Bernard Malamud.

caw
 

cornflake

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Peter Lefcourt; Clyde Edgerton -- neither are famous famous, but they should be. :)
 

Kjbartolotta

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Jan Potocki, if I had to pick one above all else.

Dunno if John Brunner's more fondly remembered on the other side of the pond, but I don't here him talked about much over here.
 

autumnleaf

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Is Wilkie Collins too famous to count? He seems never to be mentioned when people discuss the great Victorian novelists, but IMHO his storytelling skills and characters (especially the female ones) are superior to Dickens.

Walter Macken isn't much known outside Ireland, but his books are well worth reading, especially Rain on the Wind, I am Alone, and the historical trilogy beginning with Seek the Fair Land.
 

randi.lee

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Pat Conroy. Back in college, I'd make a Tom Wingo reference and everyone knew exactly what I was on about. Now I mention something from a Conroy work and the room's all crickets and confused stares.
 

onesecondglance

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I grew up on Wyndham, even named a character in honour of him!

I'd nominate George Alec Effinger. Hugo and Nebula award winner, bending the conventions of cyberpunk before they were even laid.
 

Lakey

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Can I ask that when you name someone, you offer a sentence or two about why you've done so? Your thoughts on why you've chosen those particular writers would much more compelling than a bald list of names (many of which are not familiar). Google would, of course, provide the basics of what they write about, but not of what you think is underappreciated about them. Thanks.

I've been reading a lot of Anthony Trollope lately. When you Google him you find a lot of articles about how he's not as good as Dickens, how nobody other than academics reads him, and so on. Well I like him better than Dickens. I love Victorian literature anyway, but to me Trollope is very clever and loads of fun. And he writes interesting women!

:e2coffee:
 

Tocotin

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Most women writers? :p

Can I ask that when you name someone, you offer a sentence or two about why you've done so? Your thoughts on why you've chosen those particular writers would much more compelling than a bald list of names (many of which are not familiar). Google would, of course, provide the basics of what they write about, but not of what you think is underappreciated about them. Thanks.

Seconded!

I've been reading a lot of Anthony Trollope lately. When you Google him you find a lot of articles about how he's not as good as Dickens, how nobody other than academics reads him, and so on. Well I like him better than Dickens. I love Victorian literature anyway, but to me Trollope is very clever and loads of fun. And he writes interesting women!

:e2coffee:

I also like Trollope a lot, and much more than Dickens. Trollope's men are meh, but his women are wonderful.

Okay, my nominations are: Sylvia Townsend Warner (tremendous descriptive skills, interesting characters, diverse ideas) and Kate O'Brien (I've only read That Lady so far, but I feel that she could write about a wooden spoon and it would be fascinating).
 
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Lehssner

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Matthew Stover. Wrote the Acts of Caine. Although the series is very successful I still feel Heroes Die, the first in the series, is underappreciated. The writing is amazing, far better than most stuff I've read. The world is original too. To sum it up, it's just very creative, very well written and very gritty. One of the best Fantast/Sci-fi books I've read.
 

Chris P

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Some time ago, I read an article praising James Salter, so I picked up A Sport and a Pastime. Wow, that was one nifty book. The narrative was authoritatively literary while remaining accessible, and the unreliability of the narrator is very cleverly done.