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…
Mika Toimi Waltari was a Finnish historical novelist, best known for his magnum opus The Egyptian. Waltari was born in Helsinki and lost his father, a Lutheran pastor, at the age of five. As a boy, he …
Tove Jansson was born and died in Helsinki, Finland. As a Finnish citizen whose mother tongue was Swedish, she was part of the Swedish-speaking Finns minority. Thus, all her books were originally writ…
Hassel served in the Danish merchant navy till 1937, when he moved to Germany to join the army. He served with the second Panzer Division stationed at Eisenach and in 1939 was a tank driver during the…
Veijo Meri was a Finnish writer. Much of his work focused on war and its absurdity. The work is anti-war and has dark humor. Born in Viipuri (today Vyborg, Russia), Meri graduated from secondary school…
Elias Lönnrot was a Finnish philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for composing the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic compiled from national folklore.
Väinö Linna was one of the most influential Finnish authors of the 20th century. He shot to immediate literary fame with his third novel, Tuntematon sotilas (The Unknown Soldier, published in 1954), a…
A master of poetry, drama, and the novel, German writer and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe spent 50 years on his two-part dramatic poem Faust, published in 1808 and 1832, also conducted scie…
ENG: Aino Kallas' father was a remarkable researcher of folklore, and he died early during Aino's childhood. Aino was married to Oskar Kallas and they has three children, at the time she was still in …
Novels of Samuel Barclay Beckett, Irish writer, include Murphy in 1938 and Malone Dies in 1951; a wider audience know his absurdist plays, such as Waiting for Godot in 1952 and Krapp's …
William Seward Burroughs II, (also known by his pen name William Lee) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generatio…
Frans Emil Sillanpää was born on the 16th of September, 1888, at Ylä-Satakunta in the Hämeenkyrö Parish of Finland on a desolate croft of the same name. The cottage had been built by his parents, his …
