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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 Julian Symons

Symons, Julian
1912 - 1994

Julian Gustave Symons was a British author and critic born in London, where he spent part of his life. His mother was...

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Författarporträtt av Cortázar, Julio

Cortázar, Julio
1914 - 1984

Argentinian author, born in Brussels to Argentinian parents. His father was a diplomat. After the First World War the...

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Författarporträtt av Allende, Isabel

Allende, Isabel
1942 -

Isabel Allende was born in Lima, Peru, but she grew up in Chile. Her diplomat father left the family when Isabel was two...

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Författarporträtt av Darwish, Mahmoud

Darwish, Mahmoud
1941 - 2008

The Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish was born in the village of al-Birweh in Western Gallilee to a landowning family. His...

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