Famous American writers of the 20th century

Famous American writers of the 20th century

It is always interesting to look at lists of books to read. But usually there is a mess - writers, eras and styles are mixed up, it is almost impossible to focus on any topic. American Butler decided to compile the most convenient list of cult American literature. Namely, the literature of the twentieth century.

In the most tense, but at the same time insanely interesting time, US writers created something that will go down in history and will be relevant for many years after.

Literature in the USA: Classic Writers and Popular Works

The twentieth century was not easy for the whole world. The moods and events of that time were directly reflected in literature. A lot was happening in America at that time: the Great Depression, the call for war, the industrial revolution, interracial clashes... You can learn more about this and more from the novels and stories of that period.

We offer you to go through the most significant figures and works of American literature of the 20th century.

Many of the works of the first half of the twentieth century were included in the so-called golden fund. In those days, realism was given absolute leadership: poets and writers considered it important to convey to posterity the description of the situation and the mood of society as accurately as possible. This helped to form important ideas for the new generation. Not everyone was able to do this, since publishers strictly filtered works in terms of compliance with religious and moral canons.

William Faulkner

Faulkner grew up in the southern United States, in the state of Mississippi. His family was engaged in business, but rapidly became impoverished. And it was the fate of the southerners that became the central motif of his works. Faulkner also actively raised the themes of war crippling people, racism, conflicts between the aristocracy and the poor. In 1949 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Iconic works:

• The Sound and the Fury (1929), about the collapse of a Southern aristocratic family
• As I Lay Dying (1930), a direct speech novel about life and death in a farming family;
• A Fable (1954), a theme of man and war, the novel won the Pulitzer Prize.

Margaret Mitchell

Mitchell came from a fairly wealthy family in Atlanta, received an excellent education and worked as a reporter for a local newspaper. But due to a leg injury, I had to give up active work. There were many historians in the Mitchell family, so Margaret was well versed in this topic. She was especially interested in the theme of the Civil War.

Iconic works:

• Gone with the Wind (1936), an epic novel about life during the Civil War through the lens of a Nordic family. The writer worked on it for 10 years and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937.

Theodore Dreiser

The writer was born into a very poor, religious and despotic family in Indiana. He did not have the opportunity to get a decent education, so at the age of 16 he went to work in local newspapers with the desire to realize himself as a writer. He always had problems with publishers about "defective morality": Dreiser was an ardent opponent of religion and did not shy away from naturalism. That is, he liked to depict life as he saw it, with all the unpleasant and private details.

Iconic works:

• "Trilogy of Desires": novels The Financier, The Titan, The Stoic — the theme of the role of man in the big machine of American business;
• The "Genius" (1915), a biographical novel about an unrecognized artist, was banned from publication for a long time;
• An American Tragedy (1925), a novel about how an initially "pure" person is changed by society.

Ernest Hemingway

Someone who hardly needs an introduction. One of the recognized geniuses of the era was born in Illinois. During the First World War, he, being very young, worked in the organization of the Red Cross on the Italian fronts, was seriously wounded more than two hundred times and was terribly worried about his "uselessness" because of this.

He wrote stories for American newspapers, traveled to Europe and Africa, participated in World War II, was married 4 times, lived in Cuba for some time, received the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes... His biography is almost impossible to retell briefly. But it was this that gave him an incredibly broad outlook and rich experience to write great stories.

Iconic works:

• Goodbye to arms! A Farewell to Arms (1929), a novel about love during the war;
• For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), a novel about the fates lost among the wreckage of conflicts and wars;
• The Old Man and the Sea (1952), a philosophical novel about the strength of the spirit, which is one of the top 50 in world literature.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald was born into a wealthy Minnesota family, but at the same time he fell into the ranks of the "lost generation". This was the name of young people who faced the horrors of war before they had time to graduate from high school. He could not get an education, volunteered for the front, survived the betrayal of his beloved woman, but still managed to realize himself as a writer. His novels brought him fantastic wealth for those times. And despite the fact that he idly disposed of it, the theme of social injustice and the rotting of the individual because of money flashed more than once in the novels.

Iconic works:

• The Great Gatsby (1925), a novel about the internal crisis of the carefree and wealthy years after the First World War;
• Tender Is the Night (1934), a story about falling in love with ambition, money, and circumstance.

A new wave

The second half of the twentieth century is already more variegated in the variety of genres. Science fiction, horror, satire, detective stories are gaining popularity, and postmodernism is flourishing. We offer a compact list of American writers from the must-read category.

1. Isaac Asimov is one of the pioneers of science fiction, from whom Elon Musk is inspired;
2. Ray Bradbury is the author of one of the most famous dystopias and wonderful stories about the best times of our lives;
3. Howard Lovecraft, creator of the atmospheric legends of Cthulhu;
4. Kurt Vonnegut is the best satirist not only of his time, but also of many generations to come;
5. Edgar Burroughs - it was he who invented Tarzan and John Carter, about whom films are now being made;
6. Lyman Frank Baum - the one who paved the path of yellow bricks; a classic of children's literature, who is also loved by adults;
7. Jerome Sallinger is the idol of all teenagers in the world;
8. Jack Kerouac is the founder of informal Beat literature.