Why Don DeLillo Deserves the Nobel

Don DeLillo is “our most necessary writer,” says his longtime editor Gerald Howard, one whose “intuitions and sentences have led him deeper into previously uncharted regions of our psyche than any other contemporary novelist.” Isn’t it time the Swedish Academy took notice?
To kick off a new year of LOA LIVE, Howard joins Mark Osteen, editor of the LOA DeLillo edition, for a freewheeling conversation about the towering legacy-and still insufficiently acknowledged genius-of the author of White Noise, Libra, and Underworld, modern masterpieces that explore, with humor and an unassailable eye for the absurd, the dreams, dangers, and delusions of modern American life.
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[@valpergalit]

Amazing conversation! Thank you for putting this together, LOA. Hopefully we see more volumes of DeLillo and more talks like this one in the future!

[@kabokaisara5293]

I never thought language could be so poignant especially in writing about the post modern world I thought it was all in the past or the rural/countryside. As a 21 year old African man in college at the moment I am shocked he is not well known just among the establishments. I love this man and I only read and rereading Underworld an 800+ masterpiece about America but I see real people in there. I just can't put it down and have a hard time reading other authors because of him even Cormac's magnum opus well written though is not as capturing on the rhythmic scale to my ear can't wait to order Libra and Mao ll

[@bulldog3512]

These are some smart dudes!

[@Robertbrucelockhart]

I can believe DeLillo doesn’t outline his novels, all except Libra. There is no way any human could keep that narrative together without an outline.

[@bbbartolo]

My impression of DeLillo, after reading 2 of his last (incl. White Noise I read) was that he was a B+ writer. He hasn't really floated high enough over the known, or plumbed deep enough into it, to get us to question even our "woke" politics and social critiques. He hasn't shared enough of himself, or maybe knows how. I am a total highbrow when it comes to the Nobel. I would nominate Edward P. Jones instead, based only on his 3 volumes. Two of them are masterpieces. Popularity will come, or not, doesn't matter.