If an adult told you that J.K. Rowling was the greatest living writer, what would you say?

I would realise - if I didn't already know - that this adult reads very little. So it wouldn't be worth getting all agitated.

Her books are enormously enjoyable. They're good reads, with vivid descriptions and lots of humour, and as @Cogito says, she has done enormous and invaluable service to the cause of getting children to read.

But "great" writing? Absolutely not, and she would be the first to agree.

I wouldn't want to put a name to "the greatest living writer".

I would beg to differ.  Many of her ideas seem to have been derived from other sources, and although many great writers do that, she does it fairly clumsily.  All of her stories I've encountered begin with the death of an influential character or characters and explore the fallout from it.  This applies to 'The Casual Vacancy', the Strike series and Harry Potter.  I feel like she had one good story in the Harry Potter series and once that was gone the well was empty.  Philip Pullman, despite his own flaws, is a better writer.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. 

But in this case, I an somewhat agreeable, J.K. Rowling is a good writer.

That the adult in question had very little experience with good writing. 

thinks he doesnt know what hes on about , she was the best looking but no , theres plenty better than her , tolstoy , shakespeare , du mariar , se only wrote about witches , edith blight was better .

Harry Potter will remain famous, like Sherlock Holmes, Tom Sawyer, Anne of Green Gables, and other popular characters remain famous. 

That doesn't mean J.K. Rowling is the "greatest living writer".  It means that she is a good story writer. The characters and plots are well conceived and written. 

I haven't read any of her novels. And I don't read books that are targeted towards young children/adolescents. There was a time that I thought that the "Hardy Boys" author was the greatest. I was about 10 years old.

  I don't know who the "greatest" living writer is, but they would be writing for a f***ing ADULT audience.

No, I dont think so!.

If you told me that: I would say J.K.Rowling has an enormous amount of work to do before she even comes near to Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400), arguably the greatest living English writer of his day.

Only an idiot would describe ANY living writer the greatest of her/his day. 

Like statesmen, "The evil that men do lives long after them. The good is oft interred with their bones",

🥴

I agreed.

...when I was in the 5th grade.