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  • It is 80 years today since Kjartan Fløgstad was born.

    Norwegian author born in the industrial city of Sauda. He has worked at the smelting plant in Sauda and on a Norwegian cargo ship on which he travelled all over the world, especially South America. His experiences and impressions from this continent would later become highly significant to his work. (In 2004 Fløgstad received a Chilean arts award.) He briefly studied architecture at the ...

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  • It is 72 years today since Orhan Pamuk was born.

    Turkish author, born and grew up in Istanbul, Nisantasi, in an affluent middle-class family. The father was a civil engineer, as was Orhan’s grandfather, who laid the foundations for the family’s fortune. After graduating from school – the secular American Robert College – Pamuk studied Architecture and Journalism. Until he was 22, he devoted himself to painting and dreamt of becoming an artist. T...

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  • It is 67 years today since Fred Vargas was born.

    Fred Vargas is a pseudonym used by the French historian, archaeologist and crime writer Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau. "Vargas" was a character played by Ava Gardener in The Barefoot Contessa; the name was first used by Audoin-Rouzeau’s twin sister Joëlle, the visual artist Jo Vargas. Their father, Philippe Audoin-Rouzeau, was a journalist and a famous figure in surrealist circles. He was very part...

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  • It is 158 years today since E.W. Hornung was born.

    The English teacher and journalist Ernest William Hornung (Willie to his family) was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law. If Sir Arthur was the father of Sherlock Holmes, the most famous fictional detective in the world, you could say that Hornung created the most famous crook, the gentleman thief A.J. Raffles. Like Holmes, Raffles has occasionally turned up in books by other authors.
    H...

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Sample of Authors

Portrait image of Alexander McCall Smith

McCall Smith, Alexander
1948 -

The British author Alexander McCall Smith – called Sandy by family and friends – was born in Bulawayo in the then British col...

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Författarporträtt av Oksanen, Sofi

Oksanen, Sofi
1977 -

The Finnish author and playwright Sofi Oksanen had a major impact on the literary scene in the first decade of the 21st...

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Författarporträtt av Wilson, Robert

Wilson, Robert
1957 -

The crime novelist Robert Wilson was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire. His father was a Royal Airforce fighter pilot, and the...

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Författarporträtt av Le Queux, William

Le Queux, William
1864 - 1927

One of the most remarkable, and most productive, British authors in the early 20th century was William Le Queux who wrote...

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