Is there a 'number one' writer today?

It may be a silly question, but it's one that won't go away

Top dog in his day ... Henry James

"Who is number one?" asks Blake Morrison in his Guardian Review essay on Jonathan Franzen. Morrison was recalling the poet John Berryman's question after the death of Robert Frost. Answer: (to Berryman's chagrin) Robert Lowell.

Morrison goes on to write that since the deaths of Bellow, Mailer and Updike, the "number one" question is one that "inevitably comes up in relation to American fiction." Tactfully, he avoids raising the same question about British fiction in 2010. Some of the pack leaders (Amis, Rushdie, McEwan) are getting long in the tooth.

There is always something a little bit canine about the literary world: there has to be a top dog. And there are different, even competing, kennels. When Samuel Beckett died, there was general agreement that a 20th-century master had passed from the scene. The death of Harold Pinter in 2009 left a gaping void in European drama, and it's not obvious who takes his place. Currently, in poetry, Seamus Heaney, with a terrific new collection Human Chain, must be a strong contender for "number one", though he might be publicly dismayed at the vulgarity of the idea.

Full report here Guardian