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  • It is 69 years today since Val McDermid was born.

    Val McDermid is a Scottish crime writer born in Kirkcaldy, Fife. She attended Kirkcaldy High School where she was among a group of pupils that participated in a controversial project for especially talented students based on IQ tests. When she was seventeen, she was the first student from a Scottish state school to be admitted to St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, where she graduated with a Bachelor o...

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Sample of Authors

Portrait of Chinua Achebe

Achebe, Chinua
1930 - 2013

Nigerian writer born in the Igbo town of Ogidi, South-East Nigeria. His parents, Isaiah Okafor Achebe and Janet Ileogbunam,...

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Portrait of Antonio Tabucchi

Tabucchi, Antonio
1943 - 2012

The Italian author, scholar, translator and journalist Antonio Tabucchi was born in Pisa where he also studied at...

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Portrait image of Dashiell Hammett

Hammett, Dashiell
1894 - 1961

American detective writer, born in St. Mary's County in Maryland. He grew up in Baltimore where his family moved when he...

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Portrait image of Herman Melville

Melville, Herman
1819 - 1891

American author born in New York. Melville came from a wealthy family, but when his merchant father went bankrupt, he was...

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