Writers Who Will Stand the Test of Time?

Embedded Geek asks: "Every year, the online version of Locus (a trade magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy) asks the question: "Name the 5 deceased 20th century SF & fantasy writers you think will still be read 50 years from now." The results favored some of the bigger names (Heinlein, Asimov, Tolkein) as well as a few lesser known figures (Simak, Bester). I would like to ask a broader question: What authors (in any genre, fiction or nonfiction) alive today will still be read (hard copy or online) in 2051?" If I had to answer off of the top of my head, I know William Gibson, Charles Sheffield, and Orson Scott Card would be in my list, but that's not all of them. A few authors who I thought would be classics have since vanished (whatever did happen to Daniel Keys Moran, anyways?) aand of course there are a few iffy ones which I could be convinced on (C.J. Cherryh, anyone). What authors do you feel will stand the test of time? Yeah, these are sci-fi authors, but that's about what I read these days.

Comments

William Gates - The Road Ahead

[rjamestaylor]

Will stand the test of time as "the classic 'missed it completely' book".

Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Nabokov, Eliot, Joyce...

[Paul Maud'Dib]

Every highly moderated post so far has been some sci-fi or fantasy author. Yes, some of these authors probably will be read in fifty years, but not nearly as much as the "great" writers of the 20th century. A good corollary is music. Sure, people will still be listening to Black Sabbath and King Crimson in fifty years, but not nearly as many as will be listening to The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Why? Because that's the way music criticism has been running for the last thirty years, and it is showing no signs of changing directions. In order to understand why authors are still read fifty years after, you have to look at the critical direction. This shapes what is talked about, which shapes what is read, which shapes what is known in the future.

So I would say that in fifty years the most widely read authors of the 20th century will be:
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway
Vladimir Nabokov
T.S. Eliot
James Joyce

And probably a few others I've missed. This is the way modern criticism is shaping up, and, personally, I like it this way. Then again, a few of these could be dropped and a few added in the coming years. F. Scott Fitzgerald was not overly popular in his own time, and only became well respected when he was rediscovered in the late forties. Likewise, Shelley was practically worshipped as the greatest romantic poet for much of the 19th century, but his standing dropped dramatically with the "new criticism" of the early 20th century. This has already happened to a degree with Hemingway as he is now regarded as a bit sexist.

So yeah, some S/F is worthwhile and will be read in the future (I'd point to Dune and and LotR)...but the above authors will almost unquestionably be read.