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It is 125 years today since Yasunari Kawabata was born.
Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer born in Osaka. He came from an educated, wealthy family, but he lost his parents at an early age and his only sibling, a sister, died when he was nine years old. These childhood traumas came to inform his writing. After growing up with his maternal grandfather in the countryside, Kawabata read English and Japanese literature at...
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It is 113 years today since Victor Canning was born.
Victor Canning was a British author of humorous adventure stories and thrillers. He was born in Plymouth, Devon. At the outbreak of the First World War, while his father was doing his military service, he went with his mother and siblings to live with his uncle in Calstock, a few miles north of Plymouth. This was where Canning fell in love with the English countryside, which features prominently...
Sample of Authors
Müller, Herta
1953 -
Herta Müller was born in the village of Nițchidorf in the Banat region of south-western Romania to parents from the G...
Further reading
Mahfouz, Naguib
1911 - 2006
Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo as the youngest child of five boys and two girls. His family was of Muslim middle-class...
Further reading
Fuentes, Carlos
1928 - 2012
Carlos Fuentes Macías is one of Mexico's most prominent authors, even though he was in fact born in Panama. His father, ...
Further reading
Lessing, Doris
1919 - 2013
The British author Doris May Lessing was born in Kermanshah in Persia (present-day Iran) and grew up in South Rhodesia...
Further reading