03 June 2010

The New Yorker's 20 Under 40

In classically bitchy fashion, the Times goes ahead and publishes the list before David Remnick's baby hits newsstands next Monday. The question isn't whether you have any opinions on it, but do you have enough? Herewith, the class of 2010:
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chris Adrian
Daniel Alarcón
David Bezmozgis
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
Joshua Ferris
Jonathan Safran Foer
Nell Freudenberger
Rivka Galchen
Nicole Krauss
Yiyun Li
Dinaw Mengestu
Philipp Meyer
C. E. Morgan
Téa Obreht
Z Z Packer
Karen Russell
Salvatore Scibona
Gary Shteyngart
Wells Tower
I will quickly call out a few members:

The Prodigy: The youngest author on the list is 24-year-old Téa Obreht, a Cornell MFA grad from the former Yugoslavia whose first novel hasn't even come out yet. All eyes will be on that book (it's called THE TIGER'S DAUGHTER) but Roving Editor seems to have read it and apparently there is an actual tiger in it. Oh boy.
The Overachiever: Author Chris Adrian's other job is pediatric oncologist.
The Married Couple: Super day for the Safran Foer-Krauss hauss, or launch of a thousand after-dinner arguments? Just kidding, I'm sure they aren't that petty.
The First Mistake: Despite the Times calling out the "international" character of the list, at my extremely rough count, the list stands at 9 foreign-born, 11 American-born, which means your odds are still slightly better as an American. U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
The Disappointed: Of all the authors who were too old to make the list, the Times singled out only Colson Whitehead and Dave Eggers as not making the cut. Strikes me as slightly unfair, since a lot of authors are also too old, although some are much too old and others are just slightly too old.
The Busy Summer: By my accounting I have a lot of reading to do, since I've only read books by five of them. Pathetic showing. Dare you do better?

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