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It is 75 years today since Ken Follett was born.
British author and journalist born in Cardiff, Wales. Kenneth "Ken" Follett’s parents were active members of the church of the Plymouth Brethren, and as a child he was not allowed to watch television. Instead he read profusely; his first favourite author was Shakespeare. Follett graduated from University College London in 1970 and began to write about rock music for the Cardiff-based South Wales E...
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It is 87 years today since Hélène Cixous was born.
The French philosopher, scholar and author Hélène Cixous is a leading post-structuralist feminist scholar alongside Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva. Cixous was born in 1937 to a Jewish family in Oran, Algeria. Her father was a Sephardic Jew from a Moroccan background, his mother was a German refugee born in Osnabrück. Cixous came from a multi-lingual family that spoke German, French, Spanish, Ar...
Sample of Authors
Davies, Robertson
1913 - 1995
The Canadian author Roberson Davies was born in Thamesville, Ontario. His father, William Davies, had moved to Canada from...
Further reading
Morante, Elsa
1912 - 1985
The Italian author Elsa Morante was born in Rome, where she grew up in the poor working-class district of Testaccio. She...
Further reading
Wetering, Janwillem van de
1931 - 2008
Janwillem (actually Jan Willem) van de Wetering was a Dutch author born in Rotterdam to a merchant family. After graduating...
Further reading
Smith, Zadie
1975 -
Zadie Smith, born Sadie Adeline Smith, grew up in Kilburn and Willesden Green, north-west London, with her two younger...
Further reading