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It is 112 years today since Julian Symons was born.
Julian Gustave Symons was a British author and critic born in London, where he spent part of his life. His mother was English and his father a Russian Jew, a stern Victorian patriarch who gave his son little or no encouragement. Symons developed such a severe stammer in childhood that he was sent to a succession of state schools for retarded children. He was close to his twelve years older...
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It is 69 years today since Colm Tóibin was born.
Colm Tóibín is an Irish author and journalist who grew up in Enniscorthy in the south-west of Ireland as one of Bríd and Michael Tóibín's five children. His father was a teacher. Tóibín attended St Peter's College, Wexford, between 1970 and 1972 and graduated from University College Dublin in 1975. He became interested in Spain after reading Hemingway, and after graduation he immediately travel...
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It is 63 years today since Gianrico Carofiglio was born.
Gianrico Carofiglio is an Italian novelist and former judge born and raised in Bari, Apulia. After having passed his law degree, Carofiglio began to work as a prosecutor in Bari in 1986, and he soon became involved in fighting organised crime. He was part of a group of magistrates that tried to take down the local mafia, Sacra Corona, in Bari. It led to the incarceration of a large number of its...
Sample of Authors
Jonasson, Jonas
1961 -
Jonas Jonasson grew up "happy and untroubled" as Pär-Ola Jonasson in the Swedish town of Växjö in the 1960s. His father's na...
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Tournier, Michel
1924 - 2016
Michel Edouard Tournier was born in Paris. His parents met at the Sorbonne, where they both studied German. For this...
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Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat
1689 - 1755
French man of letters and political philosopher; after Voltaire the most important cultural influence in France and in...
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Melville, Herman
1819 - 1891
American author born in New York. Melville came from a wealthy family, but when his merchant father went bankrupt, he was...
Further reading