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Most influential writer of the last century?

Ok bhaiyo - I am not fit for this thread so I will bow out - All I will say is that the fact that some of these are NOT influential is due to the intellectual monopoly of the West , which in turn effects our judgement.
 
kafka wrote three novels only in his entire lifetime but he is primarily known only for one of them (the other two are very obscure..) and that novel was : The Trial!!!

I can safely say that I have never read anything like it. To me, it is the most unique novel out there. Kafka's world-view that is at display in that novel is just brilliant to read. he is also famous for his short stories - mainly "metamorphosis' .
 
MenInGreen said:
Ok bhaiyo - I am not fit for this thread so I will bow out - All I will say is that the fact that some of these are NOT influential is due to the intellectual monopoly of the West , which in turn effects our judgement.
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I don't know migsy, faiz got nominated for a nobel, marques, jose are both not western but still quite famous.
of the current lot there is naipaul and kureishi
 
z10 said:
robo, could you tell us more about Kafka?
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just read metamorphosis and tell me wt do u think abt it. it's a very different experience and i was disturbed for many days after reading it.

many years back, i bought a book on the owrks of kafka translated into urdu by someone in lahore. actually it was a very good book as it had description abt his life history, critiques and his major work including his unfinished novel "the trial".
his style of writing is very absurd and sometimes it's very difficult to understand him. im not a literary critic but ppl say that he was influenced by the ideas of existentialism, surrealism-magic realism school of thoughts. he had also family problems which affected him and his way of writing. he wanted to destroy all of his work after his death (thank God, it never happened).
to be honest with u, i cant claim that i understood him all. but at that time, i was young and believed that one shud read every good book even if it's too difficult to understand!!
 
the way he wrote the trial, robo, it would never have finished. perhaps that was in part where the charm lay
 
MenInGreen said:
Ok bhaiyo - I am not fit for this thread so I will bow out - All I will say is that the fact that some of these are NOT influential is due to the intellectual monopoly of the West , which in turn effects our judgement.
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sir jee, ghussa na karo!
i can agree here with u. one could be a g8 writer without being acknowledged. but he/she maynot be influential with the reason i gave in the first sentence.
for example, if we could see islamic renaissance in next 100 yrs by some true followers of islam, then iqbal will be acknowledged by everyone and will become the most influential writer!!
 
comma said:
I don't know migsy, faiz got nominated for a nobel, marques, jose are both not western but still quite famous.
of the current lot there is naipaul and kureishi
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faiz came into limelight coz of his works outisde pak. he had represented pak at various platforms (although (military)govts were all against him). i think he even had lived in palestine and used to run a newspaper to speak for them. won lenin prize(which russians started to compete with nobel prize).
he was a g8 poet but he himself said abt majeed amjad that "shairi to majeed amjad karte hein, hum to bas yunhi..".
 
comma said:
the way he wrote the trial, robo, it would never have finished. perhaps that was in part where the charm lay
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yeh to he. i think although he was too difficult author for general public yet he influenced many g8 authors.
actually i need to re-read him. next time i go to pak, i'll bring that book with me.
 
robosapien said:
yeh to he. i think although he was too difficult author for general public yet he influenced many g8 authors.
actually i need to re-read him. next time i go to pak, i'll bring that book with me.
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i had his entire work book thinggy, yar the other two novels waisay were prit-ty poor i tell ya.
magar trial trial hai. his jewish backgrd came in handy for us, a student of kierkegaard :91:
 
yep witty is a philosopher. same time period almost as kafka. german jewish kind of thing or austrian jewish i don't remember.
 
comma said:
i had his entire work book thinggy, yar the other two novels waisay were prit-ty poor i tell ya.
magar trial trial hai. his jewish backgrd came in handy for us, a student of kierkegaard :91:
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sab existentialism ke maaray huay hein! :))
 
comma said:
yep witty is a philosopher. same time period almost as kafka. german jewish kind of thing or austrian jewish i don't remember.
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y is he so important?
 
robosapien said:
sab existentialism ke maaray huay hein! :))
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hahaha :91:

witty is considered the single most important phil of 20th primarily for his work on language. he is famous for saying theres nothing left in phil to discuss other than language (paraphrase).
he worked on language and how it equates with thinking and all that jazz.
 
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I don't see how you can say anyone from the sub-continent, considering our abysmally low literacy rate.

That being said, I nominate Orwell
 
alybaba said:
I don't see how you can say anyone from the sub-continent, considering our abysmally low literacy rate.
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So just because we have a low literacy rate, no one can be influential? IMO thats a stronger reason for them to be influential, everyone in the west can read and write.

That being said, I nominate Orwell
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That being said, a very good choice. And I can't believe nobody (including myself) brought it up before.

Orwell Zindabad!
 
why do you say orwell was infleuntial?
art-wise, he didn't really start any movement so to speak.
 
comma said:
why do you say orwell was infleuntial?
art-wise, he didn't really start any movement so to speak.
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Accurately predicting the 1943 Teheran conference in Animal Farm, and predicting the west today in 1984.

I reckon he was the Nostradamus of the 20th century, and I regard him as the novelist of the 20th Century if not the most influential writer.
 
zaf1986 said:
Accurately predicting the 1943 Teheran conference in Animal Farm, and predicting the west today in 1984.

I reckon he was the Nostradamus of the 20th century, and I regard him as the novelist of the 20th Century if not the most influential writer.
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im not sure if that equates with influence yar.
 
one def that robo /i have been working with (insconsistently, i dare add) is infleunce within the art or influencing the intelligentsia. orwell certainly didn't inlfuence art per se and so the q around intellegentsia(for me) remains
 
comma! wt do u think of bertrand russell? (again coming back to iqbal for mig's sake!!) iqbal thought very highly of russell.
have u read him? he was very popular among some of our friends in lahore.
 
robosapien said:
comma! wt do u think of bertrand russell? (again coming back to iqbal for mig's sake!!) iqbal thought very highly of russell.
have u read him? he was very popular among some of our friends in lahore.
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have read quite a bit of him yar. i found him, shall I say, simple. practical common sense kind of stuff for the most part. i can see why iqbal liked him, he was also oriented in some of his famous works towards betterment of humans. someone once said that russell is all mind and no heart :D
 
Ladies (and gentlemen)

The idea behind the thread is simple.

Anybody whose writings have influenced a revolution, a change, a school of thought, a movement in the last 100 years etc qualifies.

As an example, Fidel Castro has some writings but his influence was felt primarily through his political and guerilla activities. Hence he doesn't qualify.

In Robosapien's opinion Iqbal doesn't qualify because his influence is ""restricted" to a billion Muslims worldwide.
 
I think some of us are confusing writers with literary figures.

All literary figures are writers but not all writers are literary figures.
 
Ace Base said:
Ladies (and gentlemen)

The idea behind the thread is simple.

Anybody whose writings have influenced a revolution, a change, a school of thought, a movement in the last 100 years etc qualifies.

As an example, Fidel Castro has some writings but his influence was felt primarily through his political and guerilla activities. Hence he doesn't qualify.

In Robosapien's opinion Iqbal doesn't qualify because his influence is ""restricted" to a billion Muslims worldwide.
Click to expand...

Actually AB, reason Iqbal didn't qualify as per robo and myself, is cause he didn't 'influence' the 'intellgentsia'. he himself was influenced by a lot but we can't mention that ;)


so you're saying anyone who wrote and influenced even the masses qualifies?

and to think i had a hope this mght be an artsy thread :91:
 
comma said:
Actually AB, reason Iqbal didn't qualify as per robo and myself, is cause he didn't 'influence' the 'intellgentsia'. he himself was influenced by a lot but we can't mention that ;)


so you're saying anyone who wrote and influenced even the masses qualifies?

and to think i had a hope this mght be an artsy thread :91:
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Implied in your understanding is the fact that "ïnfluence" must be constructive.

I don't see it as that way at all, at least not for this thread.

This would certainly disqualify a large body of writers and lierature.

Qutb would fall for sure, so would Mao.
 
Ace Base said:
Ladies (and gentlemen)
In Robosapien's opinion Iqbal doesn't qualify because his influence is ""restricted" to a billion Muslims worldwide.
Click to expand...

i would be very much delighted even if 1/10th of billion muslims could understand iqbal.
 
Ace Base said:
Implied in your understanding is the fact that "ïnfluence" must be constructive.

I don't see it as that way at all, at least not for this thread.

This would certainly disqualify a large body of writers and lierature.

Qutb would fall for sure, so would Mao.
Click to expand...

then as mao would say - they must fall, damnit


why can't we disqualify a lot of useless/uninfluential writers? there can be another thread for greatest and they could qualify there, yes?

p.s Dr. Lector to Clarice: no,no,no,no, you were doing fine... ;)
ha
 
comma said:
one def that robo /i have been working with (insconsistently, i dare add) is infleunce within the art or influencing the intelligentsia. orwell certainly didn't inlfuence art per se and so the q around intellegentsia(for me) remains
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I think Orwell influenced the intelligensia a lot. Just my opinion.
 
robosapien said:
i would be very much delighted even if 1/10th of billion muslims could understand iqbal.
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Not a criteria for being influential.

The knock-on effect must be taken into account.

Not all the Sahaba read the Quraan but can anyone say they weren't influenced by it?
 
Ace Base said:
Not a criteria for being influential.

The knock-on effect must be taken into account.

Not all the Sahaba read the Quraan but can anyone say they weren't influenced by it?
Click to expand...


not sure AB. the domino effect is broadening it a bit too much perhaps (just my thought). where do you stop then, where do you begin, more importantly.

joyce (and I hate him) is to me one of the most influential along with eliot because they changed literature all over the world.
from pakistan to honolulu, everyone is on and on about s of c.

(what eliot said about milton applies to him as well waisay :D)
 
Ace Base said:
Not a criteria for being influential.

The knock-on effect must be taken into account.

Not all the Sahaba read the Quraan but can anyone say they weren't influenced by it?
Click to expand...

a flawed example. sahaba had a living Quran with them. atleast they knew arabic.
 
waisay based on al posters in this thread, i think mirza ghulam ahmed seems more influential than anyone!!
 
comma said:
not sure AB. the domino effect is broadening it a bit too much perhaps (just my thought). where do you stop then, where do you begin, more importantly.

joyce (and I hate him) is to me one of the most influential along with eliot because they changed literature all over the world.
from pakistan to honolulu, everyone is on and on about s of c.

(what eliot said about milton applies to him as well waisay :D)
Click to expand...


Consider this then: influence the intelligentsia, influence the masses?
 
I like a lot of writers but I can't inlcude them in thread. Yeats is one of my most fav poets but i don't think he was influential enough. same goes for lawrence.
 
Ace Base said:
Consider this then: influence the intelligentsia, influence the masses?
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how about this

influence the masses and the intellgentsia considers you nada
 
im taking a more artish approach. if the writer (literary one) didn't infleunce a movement et al, he is not worth mentioning in this thread.
 
robosapien said:
a flawed example. sahaba had a living Quran with them. atleast they knew arabic.
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Not all of them could speak or understand Arabic.

Shuaib the Roman?

Living Quran, written Quran- semantics?

Anyways, I can see your point and it is a valid intrepertation.
 
however, in the spirit of generosity, AB started the thread and he should be allowed to define it.

so going by AB's definition of influence(*sigh*), we can include:

Mao

Sir Syed

Mirza Ghulam

Malcolm X
 
comma said:
I like a lot of writers but I can't inlcude them in thread. Yeats is one of my most fav poets but i don't think he was influential enough. same goes for lawrence.
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So you get the point?
 
Ace Base said:
So you get the point?
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hey, i was going to ask this q :91:

i did get your point but i am merely disagreeing with the definition of influence(i have allowed myself to admit your definition later on)
 
Ace Base said:
Not all of them could speak or understand Arabic.

Shuaib the Roman?

Living Quran, written Quran- semantics?

Anyways, I can see your point and it is a valid intrepertation.
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if u ask me who's the greatest literary figure in urdu, i wont hesitate for a second for iqbal. but i dont see iqbal being the most influential writer in the world.

i think probably we need a separate thread on iqbal.
 
we may also include

sorry, syed was before 1900s ( ithink)

so

Iqbal

malcolm

the leader of irish movement

the guys who wrote the book that rumsfeld reads
 
comma said:
however, in the spirit of generosity, AB started the thread and he should be allowed to define it.

so going by AB's definition of influence(*sigh*), we can include:

Mao

Sir Syed

Mirza Ghulam

Malcolm X
Click to expand...

Go on, then, Comma, start one for the literary types!

We can happly marginalise the masses in that one.
 
comma said:
we may also include

sorry, syed was before 1900s ( ithink)

so

Iqbal

malcolm

the leader of irish movement

the guys who wrote the book that rumsfeld reads
Click to expand...
:)))
 
comma said:
we may also include

sorry, syed was before 1900s ( ithink)

so

Iqbal

malcolm

the leader of irish movement

the guys who wrote the book that rumsfeld reads
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Lol!
 
If we go by art for art's sake:

Joyce

if we go by AB's ga-style definition, we get:

(not sure, the 4 i mentioned maybe even witstein)
 
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Well in that case, I'd like to say:

Waisay, apart for you two analists everyone else had the same idea about "writers" and "influential".
 
Ace Base said:
Well in that case, I'd like to say:

Waisay, apart for you two analists everyone else had the same idea about "writers" and "influential".
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you see! this is the basic problem!
waisay wt does "analist" mean?
 
robosapien said:
you see! this is the basic problem!
waisay wt does "analist" mean?
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I'm not sure its a word but I'm trying my best toinfluence the English Language (and its readers)
 
excellent thread and some great discussion. although it took some tome but i have read all the posts so far. someting i havent done in a long time when it comes to reading threads :))

didn't anyone think of twain ?
 
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