Originally posted by Sekabin
Interesting topic (although I've never heard anyone exclaim 'prodigious'! ;) )
I might...

However, surely the lack of 'world class authors' is more to do with the lack of good translators, and the subtle complexities of the Japanese language?
Well, do you know many Japanese authors ? People who arent interested in Japan usually don't know any Japanese writers, even if they like literature. In Japan, most people know the European classics : Shakespeare, Hugo, Cervantes, the Brothers Grimm, Andersen or Tolstoi, just to name a few in different countries. They also know Ancient writers or philosophers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle... But even me, with an interest in literature, can hardly name more than a few Japanese writers before Meiji. Most modern authors haven't made their way in encyclopedias in English yet (I checked a few online ones that are otherwise very complete).

No, you can find translations in English of most works nowadays. There are also lots of bilingual books, but once again almost always for Western authors translated in Japanese - and reading English in Japanese is losing half of it, you know... What's interesting is the old-fashioned tone, the richness of its language and words that aren't used anymore. It's untranslatable. I am just taking this example because it's more famous, but it's true for lots of authors in any languages.