Great Minds of the 21st Century

These are some of the people whom i admire and envy because they are doing things that i would like to be capable of doing, whether in the arts or in the sciences.
Generation born in the 1980s:
  • Rajaa al-Sanei is a novelist from Saudi Arabia who has written "The Girls of Riyadh" (2005)
Generation born in the 1970s:
  • Olivia Block is a USA electroacoustic composer
  • Bruno Mantovani is a French composer who wrote the Concerto pour Violon et Turbulences (1999)
  • Greek physicist Fotini Markopoulou figured out (the age of 31) that General Relativity and Quantum Theory have something in common at the very mathematical level (they both use "categories with a noncartesian monoidal structure").
  • Kiran Desai is an Indian novelist who has written "Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard" (1998) and "The Inheritance of Loss" (2006)
  • Jun Yan is a Chinese composer of electronic and digital music
  • Zadie Smith is a Jamaican-British novelist who has written "White Teeth" (2000) and "On Beauty" (2005)
  • Minas Borboudakis is a Greek musician who has composed a series called "Chorochronos"
  • Koji Asano is a Japanese composer who engineered the monumental "The Last Shade of Evening Falls" (2000)
  • Elif Shafak is a Turkish novelist who has written "Pinhan/ The Sufi" (1998) and "Sehrin Aynalan/ Mirrors of the City" (2000)
  • Juan-Manuel de Prada is a Spanish novelist who wrote "Conos" (1995), "La Tempestad" (1997) and "La Vida Invisible" (2004)
  • Andres Neuman is an Argentinian poet who wrote "Metodos de la Noche" (1998), "Alfileres de Luz" (1999) and "El Tobogan" (2002)
  • Manuel-Jorge Marmelo is a Portuguese novelist who wrote "O Homem que Julgou Morrer de Amor" (1996), "As Mulheres Deviam Vir com Livro de Instrucoes" (1999) and "O Amor E Para os Parvos" (2000)
  • Ranya ElRamly is a Finnish novelist who wrote "Auringon Asema/ The Position of the Sun" (2002)
  • Andrus Kivirahk is an Estonian novelist who wrote "Rehepapp/ Old Barny" (2000), "Liblikas/ Butterfly" (1999), "Ivan Orava Malestused/ The Memoirs of Ivan Orav" (1995), "Pagari Piparkook/ Baker's Gingerbread" (1999),"Romeo ja Julia" (2003)
  • Karl-Martin Sinijarv is an Estonian poet who wrote "Kolmring" (1989), "Shadowand Pentagon" (1991), "Surway"(1992), "Kolmas Printsess" (2001)
  • Elo Viiding "Vee" is an Estonian poet who wrote "Telg/ Axis" (1990), "Laeka Lahedus/ The Casket's Closeness" (1993), "Volavalgel/ In the Light of Debt" (1995), "V" (1998), "Esimene Tahe/ First Wish" (2002)
  • Christopher Nolan is a USA film-maker who directed "Memento"
  • Jia Zhang-Ke is a Chinese film-maker who directed "Sanxia Haoren/ Still Life"
Generation born in the 1960s:
  • Alain Robert is a daredevil French climber who has climbed skyscrapers around the world without ropes
  • Eduardo Kac (Brazil, 1962) is a pioneer of bio-art
  • Gregory Colbert (Canada, 1960) is a photographer who has created the itinerant exhibition "Cendres et Neige"
  • Richard Flanagan is an Australian novelist who wrote "Death of a River Guide" (1996), "The Sound of One Hand Clapping" (1997) and "Gould's Book of Fish" (2002)
  • Simon Armitage is a British poet who wrote "The Dead Sea Poems" (1995), "Cloudcuckooland" (1997) and "Killing Time" (1999)
  • Olga Neuwirth is an Austrian musician who composed Bahlamms FEst (1999) and Construction in Space (2000)
  • Chang-rae Lee is a South Korea novelist who wrote "Native Speaker" (1995) and "Aloft" (2004)
  • Nadeem Aslam is a Pakistani novelist who wrote "Season of the Rainbirds" (1993) and "Maps for Lost Lovers" (2004)
  • David Mitchell is a British novelist who wrote "Number9dream" (2001), "Ghostwritten" (2001) and "Cloud Atlas" (2004)
  • Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian novelist who wrote "Breath Eyes Memory" (1994), "The Farming of the Bones" (1999) and "The Dew Breaker" (2004)
  • Amelie Nothomb is a French novelist who wrote "L'Hygiene de l'Assassin" (1992) and "Stupeur et Tremblements" (1999)
  • Allison Cameron is a Canadian musician who composed A Blank Sheet Of Metal (1987) and Gibbons Moon (1991)
  • Jay Kernis isi a USA musician who composed Quartet 1 (1990) and Quartet 2 (1997)
  • Itzik Galili (1961) is an Israeli choreographer who has become Europe's most innovative in his field
  • Haruko Sasaki (1969) is a Japanese painter who specializes in spiritual/cosmic drawings
  • Oswaldo Golijov is an Argentinian musician who composed Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind (1994) and La Pasion Segun San Marcos (2000)
  • Michael Torke is a USA musician who composed Color Music (1985), Music on the Floor (1992) and Rapture (1998)
  • Nicolas Bacri is a French musician who composed Sinfonia 3 (1988) and Sinfonia 4 (1996)
  • Matt Rogalsky is a Canadian musician who developed software to interact with live performers on traditional instruments
  • David Shea is a USA turntablist who legitimized the sampler as an instrument
  • Almudena Grandes is a Spanish novelist who wrote "Malena es un Nombre de Tango" (1994), "Atlas de GEografia Humana" (1998) and "Los Aires Dificiles" (2002)
  • Javier Cercas is a Spanish novelist who wrote "El Vientre de la Ballena" (1997) and "Soldados de Salamina" (2001)
  • Rodrigo Fresan is an Argentinian novelist who wrote "Esperanto" (1995), "La Velocidad de las Cosas" (1998) and "Mantra" (2002)
  • Jose-Leon Machado is a Portuguese novelist who wrote "O Guerreiro Decapitado" (1999), "Bracos Quebrados" (2003) and "O Construtor de Cidades" (2004)
  • Luisa Monteiro is a Portuguese novelist who wrote "Casa das Areias" (2000), "O Estranho Amavel" (2001) and "O Evangelho das Ras" (2002)
  • Horie Toshiyuki is a Japanese novelist who wrote "Oparavan" (1999) and "Yukinuma to Sono Shu-hen/ Yukinuma and Its Environs" (2004)
  • Erlend Loe is a Norwegian novelist who wrote "Naiv Super" (1996) and "L" (1999)
  • Aris Fioretos is a Swedish novelist who wrote "Stockholm Noir" (2000) and "Sanningen om Sasha Knisch/ The Truth about Sasha Knisch" (2002)
  • Goran Petrovic is a Serbian novelist who wrote "Atlas Opisan Nebom" (1993) and "Sitnicarnica kod Srecne Ruke/ Trifle-shop Lucky hand" (2000)
  • Oksana Zabuzhko is a Ukrainian poet who wrote "Travnevyj Inij" (1985) and "Piramida/ Pyramid" (1993)
  • Jachym Topol is a Czech poet who wrote "Miluju Te k Zblazneni/ I am Crazy About You" (1988), "V Utery Bude Valka/ On Tuesday There Will Be War" (1992) and "Sestra/ Sister" (1994)
  • Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu is a Mexican film-maker who directed "Amores Perros" (2000) and "21 Grams" (2003)
  • Michel Gondry is a USA film-maker who directed "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004)
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