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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
Atkinson, Kate
1951 -
The British author Kate Atkinson was born in York, her father was a shopkeeper. She read English literature at Dundee...
Further reading
Alexievich, Svetlana
1948 -
Svetlana Alexievich was born in Ukraine three years after the Second World War. She grew up in a village in Belorussia...
Further reading
Francis, Dick
1920 - 2010
The British jockey and author Richard Stanley "Dick" Francis is famous worldwide both as a champion jockey – at one time j...
Further reading
Okri, Ben
1959 -
Ben Okri was born into the Urhobo tribe in Minna, Nigeria, as the son of Grace and Silver Okri, but he spent his early...
Further reading