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From The Times

May 17, 2007

The 25 writers tipped to be literary lions of the future

Ben Hoyle Arts Reporter

A 61-year-old Ukrainian, the food editor of Glamour magazine and a Nigerian-born Cambridge graduate will be among the publishing phenomena of the future, an industry survey predicted yesterday.

They are three of 25 authors picked out by literary agents, editors and publishers as the writers most likely to dominate our bookshelves over the next quarter of a century.

The list, compiled by Waterstone’s as part of its 25th anniversary celebrations, includes authors from a wide variety of genres.

Gerry Johnson, managing director of the bookshop chain, said: “These authors will be on the bestseller and the awards lists for years to come.”

Some are already well known, such as Marina Lewycka, who scored an acclaimed bestseller with her first book, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. It won the 2005 Saga Award for Wit, the 2005 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize and was shortlisted for the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction.

Lewycka, who is of Ukrainian origin, was born in a refugee camp in Germany during the Second World War but brought up in Britain. She lectures in media studies at Shef-field Hallam University. Her second novel Two Caravans was published this year.

Other well known names on the list include Maggie O’Far-rell, Susanna Clarke, who wrote Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and Jasper Fforde, a former tea boy in the film industry who received 76 rejection letters before eventually finding a publisher. His debut, The Eyre Affair, is set in a parallel 1985 in which Wales is a republic, dodos are back from extinction, the Crimean War is still taking place and an evil character is trying to kidnap Jane Eyre from the pages of Charlotte Brontë’s novel.

Fforde’s agent described it as “one of the strangest books I have ever read” but it turned the writer into a cult figure and even spawned a Fforde Festival in Swindon.

The others include Helen Oyeyemi, 22, who wrote her debut novel The Icarus Girl while still at school. Born in Nigeria, she moved to London when she was 4 and, since graduating from Cambridge, has spent time working in Africa and won a creative-writing fellowship from Columbia University in the United States.

Jo Pratt is the cookery writer who industry experts predict will become the Delia Smith of the coming decades. She worked for Gary Rhodes and Gordon Ramsay before becoming a regular on TV cookery shows. Her first book, The Nation’s Favourite Food, was published in 2003 and she is now the food editor for Glamour.

Publishing’s new wave of talent

Naomi Alderman Her first novel, Disobedience, was set in North London’s Orthodox Jewish community.

Susanna Clarke Ten years in the writing, her 800-page debut, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

Siobhan Dowd Dowd based her novel, Swift Pure Cry, on the unsolved “Kerry Babies” murders and the death of schoolgirl Ann Lovett, both in her native Ireland.

Jasper Fforde The former film industry worker received 76 rejection letters before finding a publisher for his debut, The Eyre Affair.

Julia Golding She has won the Nestlé Children’s Book Prize and the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize for her stories about feisty heroine, Cat Royal.

Emily Gravett Gravett writes and illustrates books for children, including Wolves, Orange Pear Apple Bear and Meerkat Mail.

Jane Harris A former writer-in-residence at Durham prison, Harris has written several award-winning short films and short stories in addition to her first novel, The Observations

Steven Hall Hall’s debut novel was The Raw Shark Texts. Film rights have been optioned and the book has sold to 20 international publishers.

Peter Hobbs His first book, The Short Day Dying, was shortlisted for Whitbread First Novel Award.

Marina Lewycka The 61-year-old Ukrainian was born in a refugee camp in Germany. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian has been translated into more than 30 languages.

Gautam Malkani The Cambridge graduate and Financial Times journalist divided opinion with his debut, Londonstani, about British Asians in Hounslow, West London and written in “rudeboy” patois.

Robert Macfarlane His first book, Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination was born out of Macfarlane’s passion for mountaineering.

Jon McGregor Debut novel If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things made him the youngest contender on the 2002 Man Booker Prize longlist.

Charlotte Mendelson Her second novel, Daughters of Jerusalem, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award. Her latest, When We Were Bad, was published this month.

Richard Morgan A former tutor at the University of Strathclyde. Two of Morgan’s novels, Altered Carbon and Market Forces, have been optioned by Hollywood.

Maggie O’Farrell Her debut, After You’d Gone, won a Betty Trask Award and was followed by bestsellers My Lover’s Lover, The Distance Between Us and The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox.

Helen Oyeyemi Nigerian-born Oyeyemi wrote The Icarus Girl while still at school. It was shortlisted for a British Book Award, has been adapted for the stage and has been published in 18 countries.

Jo Pratt Food stylist and home economist who worked behind the scenes for Gary Rhodes and Gordon Ramsay. She is now a regular on TV cookery shows. Her first book, The Nation’s Favourite Food, was published in 2003.

Dominic Sandbrook Sandbrook is a member of the University of Oxford history faculty. His first book, a biography of US politician Eugene McCarthy, was followed by Never Had It So Good, a history of postwar Britain.

C. J. Sansom Sansom gave up his career as a solicitor to become a full-time author. He made his name writing historical crime novels featuring Tudor lawyer Matthew Shardlake.

Chris Simms His first novel, Outside the White Lines, features a serial killer who stalks Britain’s motorways.

Nick Stone His father is historian Norman Stone and his mother is descended from one of the oldest families in Haiti, the setting for his novel, Mr Clarinet.

Louise Welsh The bestselling Scottish author of The Cutting Room and Tamburlaine Must Die won the Crime Writers’ Association Creasey Dagger Award in 2002.

Ben Wilson The history graduate has published two nonfiction books, The Laughter of Triumph and Decency and Disorder. Worked as a researcher on David Starkey’s TV series Monarchy.

Robyn Young Young ran a nightclub and worked in a building society before publishing historical novel Brethren, the first in a trilogy. The second instalment, Crusade, is out later this year.

Make it twenty-seven: Roger Boylan ("Killoyle," "The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad") and James Hynes ("The Lecturer's Tale," "Kings of Infinite Space"), two of the best damned writers around today.

Brendan, Austin, Texas

Where is Yiyun Li on this list?

Grace, London, UK

My view is that this is a literary agents,, editors, and publishers, list. I f you had asked the members of the general public who read literary novels it would probably have thrown up another list. We are all too ready to make lists and create "top tens", "twentys" or even "twenty-fives" on anything these days. I know what I like to read and it isn't necessarily the same as my friend's, husband's, or sister's preferences. I prefer to choose my reading based on what I like, not what someone else tells me I should be reading, or some "top twenty-five". If the first page doesn't grab me I don't bother. By the way I do like the sound of "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" - it sounds quirky enough to be likely to appeal to me.

Liz Flynn, Exmouth, Devon