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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
Guillou, Jan
1944 -
Swedish author and journalist, who was born in Södertälje and grew up in Saltsjöbaden. Jan Guillou, who has French ancestry (...
Further reading
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr
1918 - 2008
Russian author, born in Kislovodsk in the Caucasus and raised in Rostov. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn studied mathematics and...
Further reading
Ayraud, Pierre
1908 - 1998
Pierre Ayraud, who published his books under the pseudonym Thomas Narcejac, and Pierre Boileau are two of the best known...
Further reading
Goddard, Robert
1954 -
Robert Goddard is a popular, much-translated and lauded British thriller writer with an unusual and highly personal style....
Further reading