> I mean, there was someone talking about writing > an entire bonus about Barbara Kingsolver, an > author of no distinction. I say that before we > are to fairly let Kingsolver into a literature > distribution, there are dozens if not hundreds of > unasked authors we should let in... and that we > should not abide by biased standards in doing so, > biased by era, by gender, or by nationality. > Critical study does not support the addition of > Kingsolver or of this massive amount of modern > and American literature; college curricula do not > support it; nothing supports it. Actually, UGA Press will be putting out a book in early 2002 called *South to the Future* that deals extensively with Kingsolver in a couple of the scholarly essays, as well as with some other "emerging" and younger authors. While Kingsolver isn't as clear-cut a case as, say, David Foster Wallace or Amy Bloom, there is some critical literature on Kingsolver, a fairly significant amount for someone who has only been publishing books for about twelve years or so. I would certainly agree with the premise that "flavor of the week" authors aren't necessarily the best way to expand the canon, but isn't there a distinction to be made between authors who merely sell a lot of books to undiscerning readers and those who, while not yet "proven" in the strict sense of the word, have exhibited some staying power? When does a contemporary author become "legitimate"? And from the "legitimacy" stamdpoint, what's the difference between an author like Kingsolver, who seems firmly entrenched in the minds of her fans and yet seems to have garnered the respect of critics as well, and someone like G. K. Chesterton, Dashiell Hammett, or William Saroyan, who wrote extremely commercial fiction in their days and are yet considered essentially legitimate topics for questions?
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