It's not a recent piece, but an article titled "Who's the Voice of this Generation?" from a 2006 Time Magazine bears reading.
Written by Andrea Sachs, it looks at the current crop of writers out there and examines why none of them can without question lay claim to being the preeminent young writer of our times. As opposed to past generations where writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway plied their trade, today it's harder to say who speaks for whom. There are certainly great young writers like Jonathan Franzen (who wrote "The Corrections") and Curtis Sittenfeld (who had written "Prep" at the time of this story and has since published "American Wife", which I reviewed here), but not truly seminal authors.
It's an interesting topic that has to do with some very interesting and brilliant authors... none of whom have reached that proverbial "next level"... yet.
