Russell Hoban

Writer -- via the Guardian.Although he is referred to in the obit as a "cult writer," he is one of my favorite writers of all time and, I think, one of the best writers of the last century. First of all, he wrote the classic "Frances" series of children's books, as well as the brilliant "The Mouse and His Child." He could write in a wide variety of genres, and composed the novel "Turtle Diary" and most importantly "Riddley Walker," an insanely ambitious, complex and disturbing novel of the future with its own weird meta-English.