I was asked in the Q&A to name some great writers with leftist sensibilities.
Rafael Chirbes is my absolute favorite. If you are not reading the gay Communist genius that he was, you should.
Juan Goytisolo was another gay Communist genius.
Gabriel García Márquez was, of course, famously and even obnoxiously leftist. The entirety of contemporary Latin American literature with the lonely exception of Mario Vargas Llosa is lefty. It’s great literature, and I sincerely recommend it. Of course, there are talentless Commie propagandists like Elena Poniatowska but there are also real geniuses like Carlos Fuentes.
None of this is very recent because there’s no longer any leftism in the sense that Chirbes or Goytisolo were leftist. That’s all gone. Now there’s only neoliberalism, which is leftism for sex-obsessed people. Almudena Grandes, Paulina Flores, Guillermo Arriaga, Sara Mesa. All mega talented. All writing about very neoliberal people with their extremely neoliberal problems.
If you want some Anglo names, you have Richard Russo, Barbara Kingsolver, Zadie Smith, Toni Morrison.
I’m not sure why this is an interesting question. Obviously, during Stalinism, it was easy to get published if you were a Stalinist. Establishment authors encounter no difficulties. Right-wing authors are working against the establishment. We have to scour the world for them because they are silenced and in hiding. Leftist writers are all on the awards lists and in the NYTimes book reviews.
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