Let us now praise two American authors with idiosyncratic voices

They stand distinct from all others, in my world.

Colson Whitehead leads my list: his first novel, "The Intuitionist," was breathtakingly original and everything he's touched on since, whether fiction or not , sparkles from a dusting of his magic.

Then comes Nicholson Baker,

whose "The Mezzanine" dazzled me then and confounds me still when I try to figure out how he did it.