Donald Sewell Lopez, Jr. (born 1952) is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan, in the Department of Asian Languages and Cu…
Joan Didion was an American writer and journalist. She is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism along with Gay Talese, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe. Didion's career began in the 1950…
Stephen William Hawking was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between 1979 …
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac, known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.
Works, including the novel Things Fall Apart (1958), of Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe describe traditional African life in conflict with colonial rule and westernization.
Thích Nhất Hạnh was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist who then lived in southwest France where he was in exile for many years. Born Nguyễn Xuân Bảo, Thích Nhất Hạnh …
Neil deGrasse Tyson was born and raised in New York City where he was educated in the public schools clear through his graduation from the Bronx High School of Science. Tyson went on to earn his BA in…
Śāntideva was an North Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist monk associate with Nālandā monastery, who flourished somewhere between 685 and 763 CE. His two extant works are widely considered to be classics of exp…
Jamaica Kincaid is an Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer. She was born in St. John's, Antigua (part of the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda). She lives in No…
Suzuki Roshi was a Sōtō Zen monk and teacher who helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the United States, and is renowned for founding the first Buddhist monastery outside Asia (Tassajara Zen Mountain Cen…
László Krasznahorkai is a Hungarian novelist and screenwriter who is known for critically difficult and demanding novels, often labelled as postmodern, with dystopian and bleak melancholic themes. He …
Scott Snyder is the Eisner and Harvey Award winning writer on DC Comics Batman, Swamp Thing, and his original series for Vertigo, American Vampire. He is also the author of the short story collection,…
Pico Iyer is a British-born essayist and novelist of Indian descent. As an acclaimed travel writer, he began his career documenting a neglected aspect of travel -- the sometimes surreal disconnect bet…
Walpola Rahula (1907–1997) was a Buddhist monk, scholar and writer. He is one of the Sri Lankan intellectuals of the 20th century. In 1964, he became the Professor of History and Religions at Northwes…
According to tradition, Padmasambhava was incarnated as an eight-year-old child appearing in a lotus blossom floating in Lake Dhanakosha, in the kingdom of Uddiyana, traditionally identified with the …
Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche was born in Bhutan in 1961 and was recognised as the incarnation of Jamyang Khyentse Chokyi Lodro (1894-1959). From early childhood, he has studied with some of the …
Krishna Dvaipāyana Vyāsa, also known as Vyāsa or Veda-Vyāsa (वेदव्यास, the one who classified the Vedas into four parts) is a central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions. He is traditonally re…
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…
Benjamin Wood was born in 1981 and grew up in Merseyside. He is the author of five novels, the latest of which, SEASCRAPER, won the Nero Book Award for Fiction and was longlisted for the Booker Prize …
Rainn Dietrich Wilson is an American actor, comedian, podcaster, producer and writer. He is best known for his role as Dwight Schrute on the NBC sitcom The Office, for which he earned three consecutiv…
Dramas, such as The Seagull (1896, revised 1898), and including "A Dreary Story" (1889) of Russian writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, also Chekov, concern the inability of h…
Yoshida Kenkō (吉田 兼好, 1283? – 1350?) was a Japanese author and Buddhist monk. His most famous work is Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness), one of the most studied works of medieval Japanese literature.…
Karen Hao is an American journalist. Currently a freelancer for publications like The Atlantic and previously a foreign correspondent based in Hong Kong for The Wall Street Journal and senior artifici…
