John Ernst Steinbeck was an American writer. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception". …
Homer (Greek: Όμηρος born c. 8th century BC) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer …
Roman poet Virgil, also Vergil, originally Publius Vergilius Maro, composed the Aeneid, an epic telling after the sack of Troy of the wanderings of Aene…
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…
Euripides (Greek: Ευριπίδης) (ca. 480 BC–406 BC) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have sur…
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French ph…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. He began his career as a classical philol…
Works, including the novel Things Fall Apart (1958), of Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe describe traditional African life in conflict with colonial rule and westernization.
Snorri Sturluson (also spelled Snorre Sturlason) was an Icelandic historian, poet and politician. He was twice elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He was the author of the Pro…
Works of Irish poet Seamus Justin Heaney reflect landscape, culture, and political crises of his homeland and include the collections Wintering Out (1972) and Field Work (1979) as well as a tr…
Yōko Ogawa (小川 洋子) was born in Okayama, Okayama Prefecture, graduated from Waseda University, and lives in Ashiya. Since 1988, she has published more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction. Her n…
Jean Giono, the only son of a cobbler and a laundress, was one of France's greatest writers. His prodigious literary output included stories, essays, poetry, plays, film scripts, translations and over…
Lily King grew up in Massachusetts and received her B.A. in English Literature from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her M.A. in Creative Writing from Syracuse University. She has taug…
Putu Wijaya, whose real name is I Gusti Ngurah Putu Wijaya, is an Indonesian author who was born in Bali on 11 April 1944. He was the youngest of eight siblings (three of them from a different father)…
Works, such as the novels The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947), of Algerian-born French writer and philosopher Albert Camus concern the absurdity of the human condition; he won the Nobel …
Dante Alighieri, or simply Dante (May 14/June 13 1265 – September 13/14, 1321), is one of the greatest poets in the Italian language; with the story-teller, Boccaccio, and the poet, Petrarch, he forms…
Merlin is the author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underg…