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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
Diski, Jenny
1947 - 2016
The British author Jenny Diski was born in London as Jenny Simmonds. She had a traumatic childhood with a father who...
Further reading
Sachs, Nelly
1891 - 1970
The poet and playwright Leonie (Nelly) Sachs grew up in a Jewish family in Berlin. Her father was a wealthy manufacturer...
Further reading
Thompson, Arthur Leonard Bell
1917 - 1975
Francis Clifford is the pseudonym of Arthur Leonard Bell Thompson, a major British author of crime fiction and spy...
Further reading
Oksanen, Sofi
1977 -
The Finnish author and playwright Sofi Oksanen had a major impact on the literary scene in the first decade of the 21st...
Further reading