One city, one author

[Diable Rouge]

To mark the centenary of Dubliners, which along with Ulysses, mean Joyce will invariably be the author automatically associated with the capital, it's worthwhile extending the exercise globally. Dickens fills the London bracket, even coining a noun towards his cityscape, and modern equivalents such as Smith and Ali lack universality. For Paris, Hugo is emblematic, and no-one can rival Borges in Buenos Aires, but some major cities lack a champion. For instance, Cervantes wrote prior to the founding of Madrid, no major Roman author has achieved international renown, and the major German authors were from the provinces (Lubeck, Danzig). Moscow must go to Tolstoy, owing to War and Peace, but which of Hughes, Greer, James or Carey can claim the Sydney laurels?

[San Bernardhinault]

One city, one author

Perhaps Philip Roth for (greater) New York, and Raymond Chandler for LA?

[Duncan Gardner]

One city, one author

Staying in Ireland Brian Moore for Belfast?

[G-Man]

One city, one author

For Cape Town it must be Richard Rive, a hugely fascinating man.

[laverte]

One city, one author

Rome — or at least the Roman bourgeoisie — has the prolific Alberto Moravia, author of Il conformista. His wife, Elsa Morante, wrote La storia, the epic Roman novel of the 20th century.

The Roman borgate has Pasolini.

[Fussbudget]

One city, one author

La Lanterne Rouge wrote: Perhaps Philip Roth for (greater) New York, and Raymond Chandler for LA?

Surely Paul Auster for New York?

[ad hoc]

One city, one author

Pamuk for Istanbul

[Lucia Lanigan]

One city, one author

So did Andrei Bely (I highly recommend him, but don't let that put you off).

Vienna: Robert Musil. It's all in there.

[Lucia Lanigan]

One city, one author

Fernando Pessoa's usually seen as Lisbon's main man.

[Kevin S]

One city, one author

Born in as well as associated with?

In which case:

Fiction: Douglas Adams
Non-fiction: John Maynard Keynes

[MsD]

One city, one author

Carnivorous Vulgaris wrote: Dostoyevsky nails St. Petersburg, no?

For me, yes, every time.

I haven't read the Bely, will do.

[Gangster Octopus]

One city, one author

Robert Rankin - Brentford

[gyp]

One city, one author

David Malouf for Brisbane. And Tim Winton for Perth. Probably Helen Garner for Melbourne.

[Lucia Lanigan]

One city, one author

Carnivorous Vulgaris wrote:

So did Andrei Bely (I highly recommend him, but don't let that put you off).

I saw a copy of that Bely book in a shop in Blackrock back when I was a kid and always regretted not picking it up. It's quite Joycean, from what I've heard.

It does unfold in what feels like real time, but the prose is very different to Joyce. It's not a stream of consciousness, but a style that often puts you in mind of decorative visual arts or musical composition - always surprising, often giddying, lots of fireworks. He was a theosophist, and there are peculiar mystical moments throughout, running alongside slapstick comedy. Very difficult to compare it to anything else.

[Toby Gymshorts]

One city, one author

Melvyn Bragg for Wigton.

(I'm not sure which bit of that is the bigger wind-up, to be honest.)

[Diable Rouge]

One city, one author

Ian Rankin conducts Rebus walking tours of Edinburgh, so he seems to be calling Welsh out. David Lodge for Brum, unless anyone else has attempted "Rummidge", and no-one has followed Frank O'Connor in depictions of Cork.

[Amor de Cosmos]

One city, one author

For better or (probably) worse, until someone else comes along, Doug Coupland's probably the most recognisable Vancouver based, author. The city is clearly his urban muse much of the time, though not always explicitly.

[S. aureus]

One city, one author

Armistead Maupin for San Francisco.

[ursus arctos]

One city, one author

Yes, though very much of a certain time (the 80s and early 90s).

New York has a number of people you could mention depending on era and milieu, including Washington Irving and Edith Wharton, but I'd recommend Joseph Mitchell, whose profiles of "ordinary" New Yorkers for the New Yorker are unparalleled.

[Lucia Lanigan]

One city, one author

Budapest: Gyula Krúdy.