Best Young American Novelists
In 1996, Granta selected a list of 20 best young American novelists (all under 40 at the time), following on from its previous first generation best young British novelists and second generation best young British novelists. If this is the best, God help American literature.
Sherman Alexie: Reservation Blues
Madison Smartt Bell: The Year of Silence
Ethan Canin: The Palace Thief
Edwidge Danticat: Breath: Eyes: Memory
Tom Drury: The End of Vandalism
Tony Earley: Here We Are in Paradise
Jeffrey Eugenides: The Virgin Suicides
Jonathan Franzen: The Twenty-Seventh City
David Guterson: Snow Falling on Cedars
David Haynes: Somebody Else’s Mama
Allen Kurzweil: A Case of Curiosities
Elizabeth McCracken: Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Hurry?
Lorrie Moore: Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
Fae Myenne Ng: Bone
Chris Offutt: Kentucky Straight
Robert O’Connor: Buffalo Soldiers
Stewart O’Nan: Snow Angels
Mona Simpson: Anywhere But Here
Melanie Rae Thon: Iona Moon
Kate Wheeler: Not Where I Started From