Marie NDiaye was born in Pithiviers, France, in 1967; spent her childhood with her French mother (her father was Senegalese); and studied linguistics at the Sorbonne. She started writing when she was …
Anne Hébert was a Canadian author and poet. She won Canada's top literary honor, the Governor General's Award, three times, twice for fiction and once for poetry.
Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil, best known by her pen name George Sand, was a French novelist, memoirist and journalist. One of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, being mor…
Works of Simone de Beauvoir, French writer, existentialist, and feminist, include The Second Sex in 1949 and The Coming of Age, a study in 1970 of views of different cultures on the old.
Milan Kundera (1 April 1929 – 11 July 2023) was a Czech and French novelist. He went into exile in France in 1975, acquiring citizenship in 1981. His Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979, but …
Eugène Ionesco, born Eugen Ionescu, was a Romanian playwright and dramatist; one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd. Beyond ridiculing the most banal situations, Ionesco's plays …
Work on the Encyclopédie (1751-1772), supreme accomplishment of French philosopher and writer Denis Diderot, epitomized the spirit of thought of Enlightenment; he also wrote novels, plays, critica…
French humanist François Rabelais wrote satirical attacks, most notably Pantagruel (1532) and Gargantua (1534), on medieval scholasticism and superstition.
Writings of Cuban author, musicologist, and diplomat Alejo Carpentier influenced the development of magical realism; his novels include El siglo de las luces! (1962) and The Kingdom of This Wor…
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1532-1592) was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance. Montaigne is known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. He became famous for his ef…
Paul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.
Claire de Duras left her native France for London during the French Revolution in 1789, and returned to France in 1808 as the Duchess of Duras. She maintained a famous literary salon in post-Revolutio…
Vladimir Sorokin (Владимир Сорокин, Vlagyimir Szorokin) was born in a small town outside of Moscow in 1955. He trained as an engineer at the Moscow Institute of Oil and Gas, but turned to art and writ…
The author of some twenty works of fiction and memoir, Annie Ernaux is considered by many to be France’s most important writer. In 2022, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She has also won…
Maryse Condé was a Guadeloupean, French language author of historical fiction, best known for her novel Segu. Maryse Condé was born as Maryse Boucolon at Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, the youngest of ei…
Ágota Kristóf was a Hungarian writer, who lived in Switzerland and wrote in French. Kristof received the European prize for French literature for The Notebook (1986). She won the 2001 Gottfried Keller…
Laurent Gaudé est un romancier et dramaturge français. Après avoir été nommé pour le Prix Concourt 2002 avec La mort du roi Tsongor, il a gagné ce prix en 2004 pour son roman Le Soleil des Scorta.
Germaine Guèvremont, born Grignon, was a Canadian writer who was a prominent figure in Quebec literature. Her novel The Outlander won the 1950 Governor General's Award for fiction.
Willem die Madocke maecte (c.1200–c.1250) ("William-who-made-the-Madoc") is the traditional designation of a 13th century Dutch poet who wrote Van den Vos Reinaerde, a version of the story of Reynard …
Cheikh Hamidou Kane (born 3 April 1928 in Matam) is a Senegalese writer best known for his prize-winning novel L'Aventure ambiguë (Ambiguous Adventure), about the interactions of western and African c…
Gabrielle Filteau-Chiba est traductrice et auteure. Gabrielle a quitté Montréal à la mi-vingtaine, il y a déjà cinq ans, tombant en amour avec la région du Kamouraska. La traductrice s’est installée al…
Books can be attributed to "Unknown" when the author or editor (as applicable) is not known and cannot be discovered. If at all possible, list at least one actual author or editor for a book instead o…