Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character s…
Sir Tom Stoppard was a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights,…
William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's…
Umberto Eco was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel The Name of t…
Arthur David Waley was an esteemed English orientalist and sinologist, renowned for his translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry. He received numerous honours, including the Commander of the Order …
Murasaki Shikibu (Japanese: 紫式部), born around 978 in Heian-kyō (modern-day Kyoto), is widely celebrated as one of the most important and pioneering figures in Japanese literature. Though her real name…
Diaries and novels, such as The Immoralist (1902) and Lafcadio's Adventures (1914), of noted French writer André Gide examine alienation and the drive for individuality in an often disapprovin…
清少納言 in Japanese Sei Shonagon (c. 966 -1017) was a Japanese author and a court lady who served the Empress Teishi (Sadako) around the year 1000 during the middle Heian period. She is best known as the…
Works of Russian writer Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin include the verse novel Eugene Onegin (1831), the play Boris Godunov (1831), and many narrative and lyrical poems and short stories.
Born in Milan, Italy, Adler grew up in Danbury, Connecticut after her parents had fled Nazi Germany in 1933. After attending Bryn Mawr, The Sorbonne, and Harvard, she became a staff writer-reporter fo…
Heraclitus of Ephesus (Greek: Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος,c.535 – c.475 BCE) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguish…
Clarice Lispector was a Brazilian writer. Acclaimed internationally for her innovative novels and short stories, she was also a journalist. Born to a Jewish family in Podolia in Western Ukraine, she w…
Michitsuna no Haha (c.935-995) was a Heian period writer in Japan. Her true name is unknown to history. The term Michitsuna no Haha literally translates to Michitsuna's mother. She is a member of the …
Ono no Komachi (小野 小町?, c. 825 – c. 900) was a Japanese waka poet, one of the Rokkasen — the six best waka poets of the early Heian period. She was renowned for her unusual beauty, and Komachi is toda…
I grew up in a southern Ohio river town -- Portsmouth -- and that small town atmosphere has affected most of my writing. My mother, widowed when I was three years old, taught school for forty-nine yea…
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC was born into a wealthy banking family, the middle of 3 brothers. His Anglican mother and Jewish father separated when he was five. He had little subsequent contact …
Lady Nijō (後深草院二条 Go-Fukakusain no Nijō) (1258 – after 1307) was a Japanese historical figure. She was a concubine of Emperor Go-Fukakusa from 1271 to 1283, and later became a Buddhist nun. After year…
Lao Tzu (Chinese: 老子; pinyin: Lǎozǐ; Wade-Giles: Laosi; also Laozi, Lao Tse, Lao Tu, Lao-Tsu, Laotze, Laosi, Lao Zi, Laocius, Lao Ce, and other variations) was a mystic philosopher of ancient China, b…
Hanshan was a Buddhist monk, poet, and spiritual writer who lived during the Tang dynasty. Little is known about his life, including where and when he was born, or even whether he actually existed. In…
Bruna Dantas Lobato is a writer and translator. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Guernica, A Public Space, and The Common. She was awarded the 2023 National Book Award in Translation for Th…
