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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 Nicci French

French, Nicci
1958 -

Nicci French is the pseudonym of the husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard (born 1958) and Sean French (born 1959). They are...

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Portrait image of Halldór Laxness

Laxness, Halldór
1902 - 1998

Icelandic author born in Reykjavik as Halldór Guðjónsson. When he was three years old his parents, Guðjón Helgason and Sigr...

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Författarporträtt av Tolstoy, Leo

Tolstoy, Leo
1828 - 1910

Russian author, born at the estate of Yasnaya Polyana in Tula Province. Leo (Lev Nikolayevich) Tolstoy descended from an...

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Författarporträtt av Pirandello, Luigi

Pirandello, Luigi
1867 - 1936

Luigi Pirandello was one of the most influential playwrights of the 20th century and a central figure in Italian letters...

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