Who do you think will be revered in the future

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I’m reading The Brothers Karamazov and it got me to think about who, writing now, might be revered like we do Dostoyevsy, or Hugo, or George Eliot?

I really don’t know who- the late Hilary Mantel, VS Naipaul? I read The Years by Annie Ernaux after she won the Nobel Prize, but … meh! To be honest.

What do you guys think?

I think we'll see a lot of mid 20th century male authors quietly disappear. Those with a 'cool' break out book but with subsequently less to back it up. Or who's star burnt bright but then out.
Amis, James Joyce, not sure about Tom Wolfe.
Maybe people's personal lives will also impact their legacy- Ted Hughes

I often think, would I encourage my daughter's to read this? The older surviving 'classics' are often more nuanced than the brasher, more presumptive fiction. It allows new audiences to read about humans with the glaze of history.

I don't know about Hillary Mantel, only because it's that awkward is it fact is it fiction cross. I think Margaret Atwood has an interesting body of work to give lots of scope.

I definitely think Orwell will be read for centuries to come.

Beyond that? A lot of American writers like Don de Lillo or I guess Tom Wolfe seem less universal but more there/then. If I was being contrary I would argue that Bridget Jones Diary has more universality of experience than Wolfe, But she is no Dostoyevsky!

Interesting about Margaret Atwood, I think I would tend to agree.

The whole Magical Realism thing will fade into obscurity I think, and it was v. interesting for a while.

It’s absolutely impossible to tell. I’m an academic who specialises in late 19th and early 20thc women’s writing from my country, and I edit a book series that revives and republishes forgotten writers. Some of them were huge bestsellers and critically acclaimed in their day, but their reputations often didn’t survive their deaths.

Some of it, of course, was sexism, some down to the fact that they fell out of print, hence weren’t teachable in universities, or their estates were left in the hands of their families, who didn’t like it that granny/Great-Aunt X had written ‘scandalous’ novels. A friend of mine discovered the papers of a once-famous female writer in an old suitcase under a bed in the house of one of her great nephews, who had no idea they had any value. The papers of another writer I’ve worked on (UK and US bestseller in the first decade of the 20thc) have only survived because they were among the papers of her fiancé, which he left to a library.

One hopes that might be different with more recent women writers.

That is so interesting. Are there any that you would recommend/are due a revival?

Philip Larkin. His poetry is exquisite, and people will revere his use of language for centuries to come. Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage, on the other hand, will probably be forgotten. Ted Hughes, I suspect, will fade a bit, but he’s profound and original enough to last. Geoffrey Hill may be considered the best British poet of the early 21st century. I may well be wrong, but I’d guess that Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill and Douglas Dunn will be considered the best British poets of my lifetime (so far).

Hilary Mantel’s trilogy will be admired, and so will Edward St Aubyn’s Melrose series.

I’m not sure about writers like Martin Amis and Ian McEwan. I suspect J G Ballard will outlast them.

Anthony Burgess doesn’t get anywhere near the credit he deserves. He’s an extraordinary writer who does amazing things with language.

Any trendy, popular, ‘woke’ writer, and any writer who is promoted because they tick the right boxes, will fade into obscurity. To really last you have to be original, unique, and universal. That’s why we still enjoy Jane Austen or Dickens or Hardy.

Philip Larkin- that’s an interesting choice, ahead of Seamus Heaney?

To be honest I think I only know a few of his best known poems This be the Verse/Aubade/The Whitsun Wedding and Arundel Tomb.

I adore Seamus Heaney, but then, I’m Irish.

agree it’s impossible to tell but I do think Margaret Atwood is a good bet. she has written such a range of books and the Handmaids Tale is already referred to frequently to put in context current political developments.

Kazuo Ishiguro is also a possibility I think. And also Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie particularly for Half a Yellow Sun.

in children’s’ literature I think some of the Ronald Dahl novels have already reached classic status. I just asked my daughter and she argued for the Hunger Games series. I’m not so sure but it’s certainly captivated young teens for well over a decade now.

As long as people continue to love clever, funny books about women's lives, Muriel Spark and Barbara Pym will still be read. Similarly for crime and thrillers; I can't see Agatha Christie or Graham Greene going out of print. Unless the bottom falls out of demand for historical fiction, writers as varied as CJ Sansom, Carlos Ruiz Zafon (both no longer with us, alas) Joseph O' Connor, Toni Morrison, and Sarah Waters will continue to pull in readers. And of course, the inception of ebooks, may mean that "going put of print" isn't what it was.

I think Larkin's great, but Heaney came up with 'Mid-Term Break' about an event in his own life that inflects the poem with bewildered shock and pain. It's brilliant.

I admire Seamus Heaney very much. Wonderful poet (and superb prose writer). Also a wonderful man. Even at the height of the troubles he refused to be drawn into hatred and nationalism. But did he deserve the Nobel prize? I’m not sure. I’m afraid I consider the Nobel prize for literature a bit of a joke. It isn’t based on merit but on politics. Bertrand Russell won it. I mean come on, why not James Joyce or Virginia Woolf? He won it not for the quality of his prose but because he was a pacifist who opposed nuclear weapons. (That said, I absolutely love Russell and read him all the time.)

Technically, I would say Larkin is better than Heaney. In terms of sheer beauty and technical skill Larkin is up there with Keats and Shelley and Yeats. Clive James said he will be revered by future generations as one of the finest craftsmen in the language. The problem is that Larkin was a reactionary whose letters are full of misogyny, racism and snobbery. Unfortunately, people no longer seem able to separate the writer from the work. The critics have surrendered to the woke mob. Many of the greatest artists were horrible people. Proust, D H Lawrence, Hemingway, Picasso, Caravaggio, etc, all had a dark side, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t great artists. Equally, being PC and nice and kind doesn’t make you a great writer or painter.

Another big drawback is that Larkin has nothing interesting to say. He was an anti-intellectual who took no interest in science or philosophy or mysticism or anything else. He has nothing to say, but he says it so beautifully it takes your breath away.

Still, for sure Heaney will be read and admired by future generations. I was thinking more of British poets. I certainly don’t begrudge Heaney the award. But did he deserve it ahead of Larkin and Ted Hughes? I mean if you are being ruthlessly honest and judging purely on literary merit (which is what we ought to do). Hmmm, not sure. I find Hughes’ complete works slightly more interesting than Heaney’s, and I find Larkin’s poetry more beautiful. But he is undeniably great and certainly their equal.

Margaret Atwood will definitely be seen as prescient about societal breakdown and climate change as Orwell has proved to be in politics and science.

I think Salman Rushdie bears the test of time.

Robert Robertson and John Irving too.

WH Auden was a great poet.

Pat Barker and Hilary Mantel. Both write exquisite prose. Anne Tyler, but the earlier work more than the later.

Pratchett, our generation's Wodehouse.

I have mixed feelings about Ian McEwan. I suspect Atonement will be much admired by future generations. And I think McEwan will be given for credit for bringing science into the heart of his work. Fiction writers of the future will no longer be able to disregard science. To be a major, premier league novelist – I mean a Dickens or George Eliot or Tolstoy of the 21st-century – you will need to know your science.

Edward St Aubyn's Melrose novels will be admired in the future, and so will Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy. I suspect Sally Rooney will fade though.