6.03.2010

Top 20 Under 40

The New Yorker has named it's 20 Under 40 - it's favorite authors who are all under 40 years old. When they made the list 11 years ago it included relatively unknown authors at the time who grew to become renowned (Jhumpa Lahiri, Junot Diaz).

A couple of weeks ago I read that they were compiling the list again. Apparently the New Yorker's Editor-in-Chief was brushing his teeth one morning and thought to himself they hadn't done it in awhile, so why not?

Who made the list? I definitely called out one (Jonathan Safran Foer) but the others aren't as recognizable (save Nicole Krauss - Foer's wife!):

Chris Adrian, 39
Daniel Alarcón, 33
David Bezmozgis, 37
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, 38
Joshua Ferris, 35
Nell Freudenberger, 35
Rivka Galchen, 34
Nicole Krauss, 35
Yiyun Li, 37
Dinaw Mengestu, 31
Philipp Meyer, 36
C. E. Morgan, 33
Téa Obreht, 24
Z Z Packer, 37
Karen Russell, 28
Salvatore Scibona, 35
Wells Tower, 37
Jonathan Safran Foer, 33
Chimamada Ngozi Adichie, 32

To my disappointment I have only read the work of one of these authors (and only recognize a handful of their names). Next time I'm at the bookstore I am going to pick up a few books written by them. So, my question to you is have you read anything by any of these authors (besides Krauss and Foer)? What was it? Did you like it?

I've also got to say that the youngest person on this list is my age. Kudos to her. Clearly she is on the right track. To make this kind of list at the age of 24 is quite the accomplishment.

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