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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
Kerouac, Jack
1922 - 1969
The American author Jack Kerouac was born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac in Lowell, Massachusetts. His parents were...
Further reading
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
1749 - 1832
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in Frankfurt am Main. His father, Johann Kaspar Goethe, who had left public service...
Further reading
Enzensberger, Hans Magnus
1929 - 2022
The German author and poet Hans Magnus Enzensberger was the oldest of four brothers born to middle-class parents in the...
Further reading
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
1792 - 1822
The English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in Sussex to a wealthy, aristocratic family. He went to Eton and Oxford, he...
Further reading