Riffing off a Book Riot list that sought to define modern classics that were published between 1950 and at least twenty years prior, which at the time of that list was 1997. I shunted the year range forward to 1955-2002 in an attempt to maintain the same sense of the list in the current year. Anyway, no guarantee that all of these are classics. Just a collection of works that I can either personally approve of or have heard good 'quality literature' things about.
P.S. The lovely individual in the list image is none other than the magnificent Arundhati Roy, for anyone who wants to know.
P.P.S. Knowing the troll behaviors of Chad and Rosie, I'm going to assume books 1-6 actually have two less votes and 7-11 have one less than is represented. Nothing personal.
P.P.P.S. Go ahead and ignore the troll with a near 100%. I doubt they knew 75% of these authors existed in the first place, if that.