6 ms·
It's impossible to know for certain, of course, but it seems highly unlikely that any of those writers will be quoted beyond the lifespan of contemporary reader
by mattzito 6y ago
It's impossible to know for certain, of course, but it seems highly unlikely that any of those writers will be quoted beyond the lifespan of contemporary readers (except potentially in scholarly books about rationalism/startups/etc). How many authors from the 1940s are still widely read, especially for essays/non-fiction?
- InitialLastName 6y agoExcepting the WWII memoirs (because I'm not sure how I want to count either Anne Frank, Elie Weisel or Winston Churchill in terms of "authors from the 1940s"), among authors whose nonfiction works are still read, there are a few names that do occur to me: George Orwell, Friedrich Hayek, Simone de Beauvoir, John Maynard Keynes, Jean-Paul Sartre For fiction there are obviously many more whose works have come through to frequent readership: Hemingway, Shirley Jackson, Albert Camus, C.S. Lewis, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Ayn Rand to name a few.
- wanderer2323 6y agoLewis would be my example for nonfiction. Narnia is fun and all, but it's stuff like "The Inner Ring" (https://www.lewissociety.org/innerring/ https://www.lewissociety.org/innerring/) where he really shines.
- three14 6y agoNormally I wouldn't comment just to say the equivalent of +1, but I hadn't encountered "The Inner Ring" before, and it's great! Thanks for the recommendation.
- InitialLastName 6y agoI agree (Planet Narnia also blew my mind), but I tried to make a judgement call over whether his non-fiction was "widely read" (I know very few people who have read any of it, relative to the number who have read the Narnia books).