Meny
  • It is 75 years today since Ken Follett was born.

    British author and journalist born in Cardiff, Wales. Kenneth "Ken" Follett’s parents were active members of the church of the Plymouth Brethren, and as a child he was not allowed to watch television. Instead he read profusely; his first favourite author was Shakespeare. Follett graduated from University College London in 1970 and began to write about rock music for the Cardiff-based South Wales E...

    Further reading

  • It is 87 years today since Hélène Cixous was born.

    The French philosopher, scholar and author Hélène Cixous is a leading post-structuralist feminist scholar alongside Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva. Cixous was born in 1937 to a Jewish family in Oran, Algeria. Her father was a Sephardic Jew from a Moroccan background, his mother was a German refugee born in Osnabrück. Cixous came from a multi-lingual family that spoke German, French, Spanish, Ar...

    Further reading

Sample of Authors

Portrait of Ed McBain

McBain, Ed
1926 - 2005

Ed McBain is the best-known pen name for Evan Hunter, born Salvatore Alberto Lombino, a versatile and prolific American...

Further reading
Portrait of Mario Puzo

Puzo, Mario
1920 - 1999

Mario Gianluigi Puzo was an American author born in a slum known as Hell’s Kitchen on Manhattan, New York. His parents were b...

Further reading
Portrait of Megan Abbott

Abbott, Megan
1971 -

The American scholar and author Megan Abbott was born in Detroit and raised there and at Grosse Pointe, Michigan. She...

Further reading
Portrait image of Alexander McCall Smith

McCall Smith, Alexander
1948 -

The British author Alexander McCall Smith – called Sandy by family and friends – was born in Bulawayo in the then British col...

Further reading