Meny
  • 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...

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Sample of Authors

Författarporträtt av Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de

Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de
1547 - 1616

Spanish author, born in Alcalá de Henares. Although coming from a noble family, his father was a poor barber-surgeon. ...

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Författarporträtt av Wassmo, Herbjørg

Wassmo, Herbjørg
1942 -

Herbjørg Wassmo is one of Norway's most popular authors. She was born in Myre in northern Norway. She inherited her joy of ...

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Portrait of Thanasis Valtinos

Valtinos, Thanassis
1932 -

The Greek novelist and screenwriter Thanassis Valtinos was born in the village of Karatoulas, Arcadia, in the Peleponnese....

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Författarporträtt av Smith, Zadie

Smith, Zadie
1975 -

Zadie Smith, born Sadie Adeline Smith, grew up in Kilburn and Willesden Green, north-west London, with her two younger...

Further reading