8. Cormac McCarthy
Celebrated novelist and playwright, Cormac McCarthy has to his credit novels that belong to the Western, Southern Gothic and Post-apocalyptic genres. His works have been adapted into films, the main one being No Country for Old Men which won four Academy Awards in 2007. Cormac has to his name the Pulitzer Prize for the year 2006 as well as several other awards including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, the U.S. National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.