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It is 84 years today since Joseph Brodsky was born.
The Russian poet and essayist Joseph Brodsky was born to a Jewish family in Leningrad as Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky. His father was a journalist and a photographer in the Soviet Navy and his mother worked as an interpreter. He grew up on a communal housing estate where several families shared a bathroom and kitchen. Brodsky and his parents barely survived the German occupation of Leningrad,...
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It is 119 years today since Mikhail Sholokhov was born.
The Russian novelist and short story writer Mikhail Sholokhov was born in the village Veshenskaya (near Roston-on-Don) at the Don River. His father was a cattle trader, and his mother came from a family brought to the area as war prisoners by the Cossacks. She remained illiterate long into adulthood. Mikhail Sholokhov's schooling was interrupted by the war. Fifteen year old, he joined the...
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It is 96 years today since William Trevor was born.
William Trevor Cox was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork, the Republic of Ireland, as the son of a Protestant bank official. Because his father moved around a lot, Trevor grew up in provincial towns all over Ireland and attended many different schools, including St. Columba’s College where he studied art and sculpture under the well-known sculptor Oisin Kelly. As a Protestant living in Catholic I...
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It is 61 years today since Michael Chabon was born.
Jewish-American author born in Washington D.C. His father, Robert Chabon, was a paediatrician and a lawyer. His mother, Sharon, went to law school as a mature student, but his parents were divorced when Michael Chabon was eleven years old. It has affected him deeply. After the divorce, he mostly lived with his mother in Maryland, spending his school holidays with his father in Pittsburgh.
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It is 50 years today since Jens Lapidus was born.
Jens Lapidus grew up on the outskirts of Stockholm. His mother was a social worker and his father a journalist who, among other things, worked for an immigrant magazine. As a result, Lapidus became aware of how more marginalised people lived from a young age. He was a trouble-maker in secondary school; had it been today, he believes he would have been diagnosed with behavioural disorder. He went...
Sample of Authors
Twain, Mark
1835 - 1910
Pseudonym for the American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens. "Mark twain" is marine jargon for "two fathoms deep" and goes...
Further reading
Tey, Josephine
1896 - 1952
Josephine Tey (the author of popular mystery novels) and Gordon Daviot (a well-known English playwright between 1933 and...
Further reading
Mason, A.E.W.
1865 - 1948
Alfred Edward Woodley Mason was a British author born in London. He attended Dulwich College and Trinity College, Oxford,...
Further reading
Tzara, Tristan
1896 - 1963
Tristan Tzara was a French-Romanian poet born in the city of Moinesti, Romania, as Samuel Rosenstock. He began to use the...
Further reading