My Favourite Authors

I have given a lot of thoughts about the definition of a favourite author and I wonder if my favourite author:

• Is an author of a one-trick pony, who published that one book that I really really like but I didn’t like the rest of his or her novels?
• Is it an author who writes good books but whose ideology I don’t buy?
• Is it an author who wins critically acclaimed prizes?
• Is it an author who writes a series of book which I devour?

So here’s my definition:

1. It must be an author whom I have read and like more than two of his or her books. (So Audrey Niffenegger who wrote my favourite novel The Time Traveler’s Wife but I didn’t like Her Fifth Symmetry, doesn’t count).
2. It must be an author who inspires me to read all of his or her backlist.
3. He or She doesn’t have to be prize winners.
4. He or She doesn’t have to be the author of a series of books I have read (So Stephenie Meyer and J.K. Rowling don’t count)
5. If I were to write or publish a book, I want to write like him or her.
6. My favourite author’s views and beliefs can be different from mine (So Yes, I don’t believe in suicide and dying for honour, I don’t believe in Laissez faire relationship or marriage, I don’t buy into his / her love philosophy but I still love their books anyway!)
7. My favourite authors write (and wrote) books that blown me away and made me take a good hard look at myself, on rare occasion change the way I think.
8. Is it a travesty if he or she is included because of his or her good look too?

So, these are my favourite authors:

In no particular order (so that you could play a little game of who’s who?), Haruki Murakami, Herman Hesse, Lionel Shriver, Xinran, J.M. Coetzee, Daphne Du Maurier, Graham Greene, Tahir Shah, Yukio Mishima, Milan Kundera, Albert Camus, Margaret Atwood, Xiaolu Guo, Jhumpa Lahiri, David Mitchell.

<To include: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Hisham Matar, Mourid Barghouti, George Orwell, Jeanette Winterson, Banana Yoshimoto, Linda Grant.  Potentials in line: Jeffrey Eugenides, Håkan Nesser, Richard Yates, Ian McEwan>

I am sure a few more potential favourites from Middle East, India and English / American authors would make the list, I just haven’t get to read a few more of their novels yet. When that happens, that will decide it for me. As they say, true love (even infatuation) doesn’t happen all the time.

So watch this space, this will be subjected to change.