Predrag Matvejević was born in Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the time part of The Kingdom of Yugoslavia) to a Croatian mother and a Ukrainian father. He was a writer and scholar who taught at uni…
Julian Patrick Barnes is an English writer. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 with The Sense of an Ending, having been shortlisted three times previously with Flaubert's Parrot, England, England, an…
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer. He is best known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in for Lafayette County where he spe…
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was born in Moscow to talented artists: his father a painter and illustrator of Tolstoy's works, his mother a well-known concert pianist. Though his parents were both Jewis…
A mystic lyricism and precise imagery often marked verse of German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, whose collections profoundly influenced 20th-century German literature and include The Book of Hours (19…
At the age of seven, António Lobo Antunes decided to be a writer but when he was 16, his father sent him to medical school - he is a psychiatrist. During this time he never stopped writing. By the end …
A leading Croatian writer and figure in the cultural life of both Yugoslav states, the Kingdom (1918-1941) and the Republic (from 1945, until his death in 1981). He has been often proclaimed as the gr…
Javier Marías was a Spanish novelist, translator, and columnist. His work has been translated into 42 languages. Born in Madrid, his father was the philosopher Julián Marías, who was briefly imprisone…
For most of his early adulthood, Bolaño was a vagabond, living at one time or another in Chile, Mexico, El Salvador, France and Spain. Bolaño moved to Europe in 1977, and finally made his way to Spain…
Born Kathrine Kressmann, she married Elliott Taylor in 1928. Her first and most famous book, "Address unknown", was initially published by Story magazine. As both the editor and her husband deemed the…
Cesare Pavese was born in a small town in which his father, an official, owned property. He attended school and later, university, in Turin. Denied an outlet for his creative powers by Fascist control…
Emmanuel Carrère is a French author, screenwriter, and director. He is the son of Louis Carrère d'Encausse and French historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse.
Olga Nawoja Tokarczuk is a Polish writer, activist, and public intellectual. She is one of the most critically acclaimed and successful authors of her generation in Poland. She was awarded the 2018 No…
Paul Auster was the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Bloodbath Nation, Baumgartner, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias…
A social psychologist, sociologist, and amateur physicist. He was the author of several works in which he expounded theories of national traits, racial superiority, herd behavior and crowd psychology.…
George Raymond Richard "R.R." Martin was born September 20, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey. His father was Raymond Collins Martin, a longshoreman, and his mother was Margaret Brady Martin. He has two si…
John Strelecky is the #1 Bestselling inspirational author of many books including; The Cafe on the Edge of the World, Return to the Why Cafe, What I've Learned, The Big Five for Life, The Big Five for…
Taha Hussein (Arabic: طه حسين) was among the most influential 20th-century Egyptian writers and intellectuals, and a leading figure of the Arab Renaissance and the modernist movement in the Arab world…
Jostein Gaarder is a Norwegian intellectual and author of several novels, short stories, and children's books. Gaarder often writes from the perspective of children, exploring their sense of wonder ab…
Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr was a French critic, journalist, and novelist. His brother Eugène was a talented engineer, and his aunt Carme Karr was a writer, journalist and suffragist in La Roche-Mabil…
Blecher's father was a successful Jewish merchant and the owner of a porcelain shop. Blecher attended primary and secondary school in Roman, Romania. After receiving his baccalaureat, Blecher left for…
Dubravka Ugrešić was a Yugoslav, Croatian and Dutch writer. She left Croatia in 1993 and was based in Amsterdam since 1996. She described herself as "post-Yugoslav, transnational, or, even more precis…
Naguib Mahfouz (Arabic author profile: نجيب محفوظ) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. He published over 50 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie scripts, and…
Édouard Louis is a French writer born October 30, 1992. Édouard Louis, born Eddy Bellegueule, grew up in Hallencourt (Somme) before entering theater class at the Lycée Madeleine Michelis in Amiens. Fr…
Because of the caliphs' patronage and his eagerness to establish himself and reach a wider audience, al-Jāḥiẓ stayed in Baghdad (and later Samarra), where he wrot…
