Johanna Spyri was a Swiss author of children's stories, best known for Heidi. Born Johanna Louise Heusser in the rural area of Hirzel, Switzerland, as a child she spent several summers in the area aro…
Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment upon the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots …
Arundhati Roy is an Indian writer who is also an activist who focuses on issues related to social justice and economic inequality. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Thin…
Julia Alvarez left the Dominican Republic for the United States in 1960 at the age of ten. She is the author of six novels, three books of nonfiction, three collections of poetry, and eleven books for…
Assia Djebar was born in Algeria to parents from the Berkani tribe of Dahra. She adopted the pen name Assia Djebar when her first novel, La Soif (Hunger) was published in 1957, in France where she was…
Malidoma Patrice Somé was from the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso, formerly Upper Volta, West Africa. "Malidoma," in his native language, means "be friend with the stranger." He was an initiated, gifted…
Spanish exiled Philippine reformer and writer José Rizal from 1892 to 1896 for his political novels, later arrested him, and executed him for sedition; his death helped to fuel an insurrection against…
Kapka Kassabova was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria in the 1970s and 1980s. Her family emigrated to New Zealand just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and she spent her late teens and twenties in …
Andrus Kivirähk is an Estonian journalist, playwright and novelist. His writing style can be called self-mocking and sarcastic with dark humour. His best known work "Rehepapp ehk November", a.k.a. "Re…
Born in Guyana in 1921 and based in England since 1959, Wilson Harris is one of the most original novelists and critics of the twentieth century. His writings, which include poems, numerous essays and…
Mariama Bâ (1929 – 1981) was a Senegalese author and feminist, who wrote in French. Born in Dakar, she was raised a Muslim, but at an early age came to criticise what she perceived as inequalities bet…
Lea Ypi is professor of political theory at London School of Economics, and adjunct associate professor of philosophy at the Australian National University, with expertise in Marxism and critical theo…
Abdulai Silá (also Silla, Sila; born 1 April 1958 in Catió), is a Guinea-Bissauan engineer, economist, social researcher and writer. He is the author of three novels: Eterna Paixão (1994), A Última Tr…
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…
Niviaq Korneliussen was born in 1990 in Nuuk and grew up in Nanortalik, a small town in Southern Greenland. She participated in 2012 in the short story competition Allatta! (let us write!) for young u…
MARIA REVA was born in Ukraine and grew up in Canada. She holds an MFA from the Michener Center at the University of Texas. Her fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, McSweeney's, Best American Short S…
Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu) was born in Nelson in 1982, raised in Waimangaroa and has returned there to live with her family. She worked as a reporter for The News in Westport.
Jean Bürlesk is a storyteller. He writes, he reads, he acts, he makes jokes nobody understands. He would sing and dance, but he has no sense of rhythm or melody. Sometimes he still sings and dances. A…
Lidija Hilje is a Croatian writer and book coach. After over ten years of trying cases before Croatian courts, she traded in her legal briefcase for a sharpened pencil, and has been writing and workin…
