Publishing is full of rankings, from power lists to best-dressed lists to under-40 lists. The CULT100 is different. There is just one criterion for inclusion—but it’s a high bar.

To qualify, a candidate must be actively shaping and changing our culture in real time. The people on this list represent five generations and hail from the worlds of food, publishing, art, fashion, activism, and entertainment. To put this group together, CULTURED‘s editors leveraged the full strength of our network, tapping artists, writers, and cultural leaders to tell us who they look to when they want to feel challenged, hopeful, and inspired.

Some members of the CULT100 are household names; others have been working behind the scenes to make possible the cultural encounters that stop us in our tracks. In a time of binary thinking, the creators featured in this year’s list are embracing contradiction, bouncing willfully between disciplines, and refusing to take no for an answer. They have guts, vision, and a potent cocktail of realism and optimism. None of them is shying away from the anxiety of our moment. Instead, they are thinking big, sharing generously, and embodying courage. The good news is, their work makes us all a little bit braver, too.

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SHOHEI SHIGEMATSU
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KRIS BOWERS
CLAYTON CUBITT
Photography by CLAYTON CUBITT

KATIE KITAMURA

WRITER

The list of publications that hailed the writer's novel Audition, released in April, as one of this year’s most anticipated is nearly as long as the preview blurb itself. But after Kitamura’s compulsively readable Intimacies, who could blame them?

WHEN YOU WERE LITTLE, WHAT WERE YOU KNOWN FOR? I used to plan elaborate parties for my family—with menus and activities and games and prizes. I did this on a pretty regular basis. My parents and my older brother were forced to participate. Nobody else was invited. In retrospect, I can see that they were very good-humored about it.

WHO DO YOU CALL THE MOST? I avoid telephones as much as possible.

WHAT KEEPS YOU UP AT NIGHT? Extinction.

"A friend once said to me, 'Your books are in a minor key, but you are in a major key.' I think I’m more cheerful than people expect me to be."

NAME AN INFLUENCE OF YOURS THAT MIGHT SURPRISE PEOPLE. Agatha Christie. I read her novels over and over again as a child. I didn’t realize it until fairly recently, but that’s probably the reason why so many of my novels tip their hat to the mystery genre.

WHAT’S SOMETHING PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT YOU? A friend once said to me, "Your books are in a minor key, but you are in a major key." I think I’m more cheerful than people expect me to be.

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SHOHEI SHIGEMATSU
 Next
KRIS BOWERS