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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
Spain, Jo
1979 -
The Irish author Joanne ‘Jo’ Spain was born into a working-class family in the little notorious residential district of Bel...
Further reading
Walpole, Horace
1717 - 1797
The British author Horace Walpole was the youngest of the first Prime Minister’s, Sir Robert Walpole, three sons. Walpole’s p...
Further reading
Lesage, Alain René
1668 - 1747
Alain-René Lesage was a French playwright and novelist born in Bretagne. He read law in Paris and practiced briefly before ...
Further reading
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. ...
Further reading