Dr Johnson - though I don't know if you'd call him an "author" as such. But without him, boys would never have been able to spend their pre-pubescent years looking up swear words in school dictionaries

Roald Dahl - he should be up there. I voted for the Enormous Crocodile in the BBC's top 100 Books.

Um, Murakami, Murakami, Murakami. No context.

)

A
xxx

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Um, that would be "contest" - and I haven't even started the wine yet!!!!!!!!!!!!

Enid Blyton!!!

How are we defining 'living' here?

I think Britain's best living writer is LisaC.

I'm not sure how I feel about Jeanette Winterson and Ali Smith. I wasn't as impressed as I feel I should have been with 'The Accidental.'

I don't know. I actually think today's greatest writers are coming out of North America. Joyce Carol Oates would be mine.

Jeffrey Archer?

Oh no, sorry, that was greatest living idiot.

JB

Oh...I came to this thread thinking it was about the greatest living author.

Not the greatest living British author.

The only British author to really blow me away is Kazuo Ishiguro. But frankly I don't think any Brit is in the same league as Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Haruki Murakami.

(ducks for cover!!!!!!!!!!!)

Yeah, Maria, I agree that British authors do seem to be lagging behind a bit recently. No one up there with Roth, Updike, Oates, (USA); or Munro, Mistry (Canada).

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Or Coetzee, of course, (South Africa).

Maria, Do you read GGM in Spanish? I'm thinking you probably do. If so do you think it makes a difference?

Odd that no one has nominated Ian McEwan. Wonder why?

George Rodger went and lived and photographed in tribal Africa for five years to recover. And I knew a man whose father was the first English journalist into Dachau. Aparently he went on a five-year bender afterwards.

If you're not deeply damaged before you become a war photographer, you certainly are afterwards.

Emma

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Oh Lord! Wrong thread, sorry! Not very with it this morning.

How weird was that - for a second there I thought I'd gone mad.

No, don't worry, it was me, not you, Colin.

Emma

It's a good way to keep the forum lively though: random replies. I bet treasure hunt forums are full of them.

Maybe David should set up some little program that dives into forums and switches a post from each to another one, every few days, just to keep us doing all that lateral thinking that writers need...

Emma

Do you read GGM in Spanish? I'm thinking you probably do. If so do you think it makes a difference?

Nope, I've lived here since I was 5 so Spanish isn't my native language, although I am fluent. I tried reading in Spanish, but my vocab just isn't up to it and things go too slow.

I'm sure it makes a difference. Some of the translations are really nothing like as good others.