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It is 184 years today since Thomas Hardy was born.
The English author Thomas Hardy was born in Stinsford near Dorchester in Dorset, the son of a stonemason and local builder. Hardy trained as an architect before moving to London when he was twenty-two years old. He returned to Dorset where he began to write his first novel. Hardy was interested in the writings of Charles Darwin and in naturalism. During his long life he became famous for his...
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It is 111 years today since Barbara Pym was born.
Barbara Mary Crampton Pym was born in Oswestry, Shropshire, near the Welsh border where she grew up with her younger sister Hilary. Her father was a lawyer and her mother the organist in the local church. Many of the vicars and lay clergy that visited their home later turned up in Pym's books. She was privately educated, first at a girl's school and later at boarding school. After reading...
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It is 75 years today since Ingrid Hedström was born.
TThe Swedish journalist and author Ingrid Hedström were born in Söderhamn in the central Swedish province of Hälsingland, and then moved to Avesta in nearby Dalarna when she was five years old. She is said to be one of the 1960’s so-called "welfare-state princesses", meaning that she was the first in her family to graduate from high school. She completed her final exam at Avesta Grammar School in...
Sample of Authors
Linna, Väinö
1920 - 1992
Finnish author born in Urjala as the seventh child in a working class family of ten children. His father, a butcher, died...
Further reading
Trosell, Aino
1949 -
Trosell is a Swedish writer, born in the town of Malung where she grew up in a blue-collar family. In 1967, Aino Trosell...
Further reading
Esterházy, Péter
1950 - 2016
The Hungarian author Péter Esterházy was born into one of Hungary's wealthiest and most influential aristocratic families. H...
Further reading
Melo, Patrícia
1962 -
The Brazilian dramaturge, journalist and author Patrícia Melo is an internationally renowned member of a generation of ...
Further reading