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It is 80 years today since Kjartan Fløgstad was born.
Norwegian author born in the industrial city of Sauda. He has worked at the smelting plant in Sauda and on a Norwegian cargo ship on which he travelled all over the world, especially South America. His experiences and impressions from this continent would later become highly significant to his work. (In 2004 Fløgstad received a Chilean arts award.) He briefly studied architecture at the ...
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It is 72 years today since Orhan Pamuk was born.
Turkish author, born and grew up in Istanbul, Nisantasi, in an affluent middle-class family. The father was a civil engineer, as was Orhan’s grandfather, who laid the foundations for the family’s fortune. After graduating from school – the secular American Robert College – Pamuk studied Architecture and Journalism. Until he was 22, he devoted himself to painting and dreamt of becoming an artist. T...
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It is 67 years today since Fred Vargas was born.
Fred Vargas is a pseudonym used by the French historian, archaeologist and crime writer Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau. "Vargas" was a character played by Ava Gardener in The Barefoot Contessa; the name was first used by Audoin-Rouzeau’s twin sister Joëlle, the visual artist Jo Vargas. Their father, Philippe Audoin-Rouzeau, was a journalist and a famous figure in surrealist circles. He was very part...
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It is 158 years today since E.W. Hornung was born.
The English teacher and journalist Ernest William Hornung (Willie to his family) was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law. If Sir Arthur was the father of Sherlock Holmes, the most famous fictional detective in the world, you could say that Hornung created the most famous crook, the gentleman thief A.J. Raffles. Like Holmes, Raffles has occasionally turned up in books by other authors.
H...
Sample of Authors
Kundera, Milan
1929 - 2023
The Czech author Milan Kundera was born in Brno where his father was a pianist and professor at the Academy of Music....
Further reading
Capote, Truman
1924 - 1984
Truman Capote was born in New Orleans as Truman Streckfus Persons. His father, Arch Persons, was a young chancer who later...
Further reading
Camilleri, Andrea
1925 - 2019
Italian author and theatre/film producer, born in the industrial town Porto Empedocle in Agrigento province on the south...
Further reading
Walcott, Derek
1930 - 2017
Derek Walcott was born in Castries on the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia. His father was a civil servant who painted and...
Further reading