-
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...
-
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
Hornung, E.W.
1866 - 1921
The English teacher and journalist Ernest William Hornung (Willie to his family) was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s b...
Further reading
Rifbjerg, Klaus
1931 - 2015
Danish author born to a middle-class family in Copenhagen. Both parents were teachers who read newspapers across the...
Further reading
Eriksson, Kjell
1953 -
The Swedish author and gardener Kjell Eriksson was born in Uppsala, Sweden and grew up in a working-class family on...
Further reading
Rendell, Ruth
1930 - 2015
The British crime writer Ruth Rendell was born in London as Ruth Barbara Graseman. Her mother was of Scandinavian origin...
Further reading