Book that most influenced world writing in past twenty-five years?
October 2nd, 2009 | Published in Reading | 2 Comments
In The Guardian Alison Flood reports that: ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude has most shaped world literature over the past 25 years, says survey’, in Gabriel García Márquez masterpiece tops poll of world literature, as:
Indra Sinha, Blake Morrison, Amit Chaudhuri and 22 other authors were asked to pick the title that they felt had most influenced world writing over the past quarter-century. The survey was conducted by the international literary magazine Wasafiri – meaning “cultural traveller” in Swahili — which celebrates its 25th anniversary today.
(No information at the Wasafiri site that I could find at this time.)
One Hundred Years of Solitude is certainly tremendously influential — but has been around (influencing, presumably) for considerably more than a quarter of a century (and probably had its greatest impact pre 1984). But others named older titles — Sinha picked Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, for example.
Looking strictly at the last quarter of a century (in terms of influence, not when the book was written), I’d have to vote for Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (remember: the question is which book most shaped world literature — not: which book most shaped world literature in a positive way (it’s a very fine novel, but its influence has been pernicious)).
Article Borrowed from the Literary Saloon
