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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
Asturias, Miguel Angel
1899 - 1974
Miguel Angel Asturias was born in Guatemala City and grew up in the countryside. His father was a lawyer and his mother a...
Further reading
Hare, Cyril
1900 - 1958
Under the pseudonym Cyril Hare, the English jurist A.A. (Alfred Alexander) Gordon Clark is a prominent name in British...
Further reading
Steinbeck, John
1902 - 1968
American author and Nobel Prize winner born in Salinas in California. His mother was a teacher and his father worked in the...
Further reading
Mo Yan
1955 -
Pseudonym for Guan Moye, a Chinese author born to poor farmers in Gaomi, northeast Shandong province. His father only went...
Further reading