British · 1949–2023
Martin Amis made prose mean again. The British author's novels—"Money: A Suicide Note" (1984), "London Fields" (1989), "Time's Arrow" (1991)—brought a new velocity to English fiction: sentences that crackle, metaphors that bite, satire that draws blood. His father Kingsley Amis was a novelist; Martin outran him stylistically while inheriting his eye for English failure. "Time's Arrow" was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; "Yellow Dog" (2003) was panned. Amis also wrote criticism and memoir. He died in 2023, having spent his late years in Brooklyn, still writing, still arguing.