Originally Posted by
JBI
Meh, in terms of wide spread influence and readership, as well as becoming the most significant writer the fastest, the crown goes to Chairman Mao hands down. That argument is absurd - Mao is by your definition the greatest author - he takes the tradition before him - in his case, a rather impressive knowledge of Chinese classics, both artistic, and literary, historical, fictitious, and poetic, and creates a new ground burning over the old - he has style too, as he is still regarded as an excellent poet and calligrapher, and I would throw in, from a non-political perspective, a fantastic essayist as well (and a rather good literary critic).
That being said, I would not support Mao as the be all and end all of literature, I would just point out the contradiction.
It makes no difference anyway though, the thread is so ethnocentric it is ridiculous - Joyce's audience seems rather tied to France and the English speaking world, Faulkner, is perhaps the most widely read, in that he seems to have had profound influence on Latin American authors, namely Marquez, as well as other ranges, such as dominating the stylistic ideas of excellent novelists like Tony Morrison.
Now, beyond that, these are all novelists. Other forms have had profound influence as well - for instance, essays, poetry, drama, etc. and too, other countries have had their titans of modernist writing, for instance, Japan's Soseki, China's Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Lao She, or Ba Jin (all of whom have had a giant impact on the traditions of the world's biggest population mass, most of whom are as literate and well read as any European).
Who is to say Italo Svevo, or Thomas Mann, or any other number of figures aren't as dominant.
