There are no more great writers, says V S Naipaul – News, Books – The Independent
The novelist V S Naipaul has damned the achievements of his literary contemporaries by declaring that there are “no more great writers”.
Naipaul, 75, who won the Booker in 1971 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001, is said to have called this year’s Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival “unimportant and meaningless”.
He made his outspoken comments while at a launch of a new magazine at the Wallace Collection, in London. “Publishing has gone down in quality so much in recent years and the problem is that there is no literary life any more because there are quite simply no more great writers,” he said.
He added that he had also noticed the people who go to Hay were “incredibly ugly”.
Unfortunately for the old, they don’t realize the great writers of the day aren’t writing books. Some write movies. Some write blogs. Many write code. Some write these things wonderfully, some horridly, but trust me, old man, there are most certainly great writers out there, and many of us enjoy their work tremendously.
Robot Pirate Ninja 
Perhaps magazines have gone down in quality, not because there are no good writers anymore, but instead because the magazines are not publishing fiction anymore, so most of the good writers have no place to exhibit their work. Too bad. What a mistake.