swap_horiz Maya Angelou Alternatives

1

Toni Morrison

American Nobel laureate (1993) whose novels, including 'Beloved' (1987), explore the African American experience with ly...

African American American 20TH Century Historical

9.1 Excellent

2

Cormac McCarthy

American novelist celebrated for his bleak, violent themes and his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road.

American 20TH Century Dark Literary

9.1 Excellent

3

Thomas Mann

German novelist who won the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature for his epic, symbol-laden masterpiece The Magic Mountain.

German Psychological 20TH Century Literary

9.0 Excellent

4

Ralph Ellison

American writer whose sole published novel during his lifetime, *Invisible Man* (1952), won the National Book Award and...

African American American 20TH Century Literary

9.0 Excellent

5

James Baldwin

American novelist and essayist whose works, including *Go Tell It on the Mountain* (1953), profoundly explored racial, c...

African American American 20TH Century Literary

9.0 Excellent

6

Ursula K. Le Guin

American author of speculative fiction famous for her influential sci-fi and fantasy works, including the 1969 novel *Th...

Fantasy Sci Fi American 20TH Century

9.0 Excellent

7

William Faulkner

American novelist (1897–1962) and Nobel laureate (1949) whose stream-of-consciousness works set in fictional Yoknapatawp...

American 20TH Century Modernism Southern

8.9 Great

8

Chinua Achebe

Nigerian novelist whose 1958 debut novel Things Fall Apart is a foundational text of modern African literature.

20TH Century Literary African Nigerian

8.9 Great

9

F. Scott Fitzgerald

American novelist (1896–1940) whose 'The Great Gatsby' (1925) is a defining portrayal of the Jazz Age and the American D...

American 20TH Century Tragedy Jazz Age

8.8 Great

10

John Steinbeck

American novelist (1902–1968) and Nobel laureate (1962) whose 'The Grapes of Wrath' (1939), depicting Dust Bowl migrants...

American 20TH Century Social Realism Depression Era

8.8 Great

11

Joseph Heller

American author best remembered for *Catch-22* (1961), a satirical World War II novel that introduced the concept of a p...

American 20TH Century Absurdism Satirical

8.8 Great

12

Frank Herbert

American science fiction author universally recognized for writing the epic 1965 space opera novel *Dune* and its sequel...

Sci Fi Epic World Building American

8.8 Great

13

Zora Neale Hurston

American author and anthropologist who was a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance, best known for her 1937 novel *Th...

African American American 20TH Century Literary

8.5 Great

14

Richard Wright

American author whose landmark 1940 novel *Native Son* and memoir *Black Boy* profoundly impacted discussions of race an...

African American American 20TH Century Literary

8.4 Great

15

Truman Capote

American novelist celebrated for the novella *Breakfast at Tiffany's* and his groundbreaking 1966 true crime novel *In C...

American 20TH Century True Crime Literary

8.3 Great

16

Colson Whitehead

American novelist who won consecutive Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction in 2017 and 2020 for his historical novels *The Underg...

African American American Contemporary Literary

8.2 Great

17

Willa Cather

American author celebrated for her novels depicting frontier life on the Great Plains, including the 1918 classic *My Án...

American 20TH Century Literary Pulitzer

8.1 Great

18

Carson McCullers

American novelist celebrated for her Southern Gothic literature, notably her 1940 debut *The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter*,...

American 20TH Century Dark Literary

8.0 Great

19

Norman Mailer

American novelist and journalist who pioneered New Journalism and won Pulitzer Prizes for *The Armies of the Night* and...

American Controversial 20TH Century Literary

7.5 Good

20

Dave Eggers

American writer and publisher renowned for his 2000 memoir *A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius* and founding McSw...

American Contemporary Social Literary

7.2 Good