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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
Tucholsky, Kurt
1890 - 1935
The German author Kurt Tucholsky was born in the Moabit district of Berlin to a wealthy Jewish banking family. Despite...
Further reading
Mo Yan
1955 -
Pseudonym for Guan Moye, a Chinese author born to poor farmers in Gaomi, northeast Shandong province. His father only went...
Further reading
Keller, Gottfried
1819 - 1890
Gottfried Keller was born in Zurich, Switzerland. His father was a lathe-worker who died in 1824. Keller grew up in poverty...
Further reading
Innes, Michael
1906 - 1994
Michael Innes is the pen name adopted by John Innes Mackintosh Stewart, a British author and professor of literature at...
Further reading