Few would argue with the judgment of a Nicaraguan critic who recently asserted that he has become "one of the most distinguished figures in Spanish-American literature".
I am not denying that in some fields, notably literature, some of the most distinguished figures were clearly on the right - TS Eliot, Knut Hamsun, Ezra Pound, WB Yeats, Paul Claudel, Céline, Evelyn Waugh - but even in the armies of literature, the politically conscious right formed a modest regiment in the 1930s, except perhaps in France.
Gandhi, trying to devise a way of living ethically in the midst of the most violent century in history, now seems the most distinguished figure in this countercultural tradition; and if some part of his message rings true it is because we share his anxieties about the public life of our societies, which seems possessed of an irrational momentum all its own.
Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, one of South Africa's most distinguished literary figures and a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, has mounted a passionate defence of the printed book against the onslaught of technology.
The writer Carol Shields, who has died of cancer at the age of 68, did not start life as a Canadian, despite becoming one of the country's most distinguished literary figures; in fact, she was born and brought up in the same Chicago suburb as Ernest Hemingway.
Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor, one of Africa's most distinguished literary figures, was among the scores of people killed by Al Qaeda-aligned terrorists who attacked a busy shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, over the weekend.
Mark Twain has remained Missouri's most distinguished literary figure, world renowned for his immortalization of mid-19th-century life in Hannibal, Missouri, and along the Mississippi River in general.
By E. J. Kahn The New Yorker, March 29 , 1941P. 9 Talk story about Audrey Peppe, one of the two most distinguished feminine figure skaters native to N. Y. C., the other being her aunt Beatrix Loughran.
At six feet four inches, with graying hair and a craggily patrician middle-aged face, he was easily both the tallest and the most distinguished-looking figure in the room.
The London Review of Books has rebuffed some of Britain's most distinguished writers, academics and arts figures who accused the magazine of posting a racist blogpost comparing African migrants to baboons and black shopkeepers to rottweilers.
Toshusai Sharaku is not only one of the most distinguished but also one of the most mysterious figures of Japanese art.
