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It is 184 years today since Thomas Hardy was born.
The English author Thomas Hardy was born in Stinsford near Dorchester in Dorset, the son of a stonemason and local builder. Hardy trained as an architect before moving to London when he was twenty-two years old. He returned to Dorset where he began to write his first novel. Hardy was interested in the writings of Charles Darwin and in naturalism. During his long life he became famous for his...
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It is 111 years today since Barbara Pym was born.
Barbara Mary Crampton Pym was born in Oswestry, Shropshire, near the Welsh border where she grew up with her younger sister Hilary. Her father was a lawyer and her mother the organist in the local church. Many of the vicars and lay clergy that visited their home later turned up in Pym's books. She was privately educated, first at a girl's school and later at boarding school. After reading...
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It is 75 years today since Ingrid Hedström was born.
TThe Swedish journalist and author Ingrid Hedström were born in Söderhamn in the central Swedish province of Hälsingland, and then moved to Avesta in nearby Dalarna when she was five years old. She is said to be one of the 1960’s so-called "welfare-state princesses", meaning that she was the first in her family to graduate from high school. She completed her final exam at Avesta Grammar School in...
Sample of Authors
McDermid, Val
1955 -
Val McDermid is a Scottish crime writer born in Kirkcaldy, Fife. She attended Kirkcaldy High School where she was among a...
Further reading
Simon, Claude
1913 - 2005
Claude Simon was born in Antananarivo, Madagascar, where his father was an officer in the French colonial army. After his...
Further reading
Lundberg, Ulla-Lena
1947 -
The Finnish-Swedish author Ulla-Lena Lundberg spent the first years of her life on the island of Kökar in the Åland a...
Further reading
Enzensberger, Hans Magnus
1929 - 2022
The German author and poet Hans Magnus Enzensberger was the oldest of four brothers born to middle-class parents in the...
Further reading