List of American novelists


This is a list of novelists from the United States, listed with titles of a major work for each.
This is not intended to be a list of every American who has published a novel. Novelists on this list have achieved a notability that exceeds merely having been published. The writers on the current list fall into one or more of the following categories:
  1. All American novelists who have articles in Wikipedia should be on this list, and even if they do not clearly meet any other criteria they should not be removed until the article itself is removed.
  2. Winner of a major literary prize, even if the winning work was a story collection rather than a novel: the Pulitzer Prize, the PEN American Center Book Awards, the National Book Award, the American Book Awards, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and others.
  3. Having a substantial body of work, widely respected and reviewed in major publications, and perhaps often nominated or a finalist for major awards.
  4. A pioneering literary figure, possibly for the style or substance of their entire body of work, or for a single novel that was a notable "first" of some kind in U.S. literary history.
  5. Had several massive bestsellers, or even just one huge seller that has entered the cultural lexicon.
  6. A leading figure—especially award-winning, and with crossover appeal to mainstream readers, reviewers, and scholars—in a major genre or subcategory of fiction: Romance, science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, western, young adult fiction, regional or "local color" fiction, proletarian fiction, etc.

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