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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
Ekelöf, Gunnar
1907 - 1968
Swedish poet, born in Stockholm where he grew up in an upper-class family. The father worked as a stockbroker, but was...
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Coetzee, J.M.
1940 -
J.M. (John Maxwell) Coetzee was born in Cape Town, South Africa. Although he is of Boer descent, the family spoke English...
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Wollstonecraft, Mary
1759 - 1797
The author and early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft was born in the district of Spitalfields, London. Because of her father's...
Further reading
Higgins, Jack
1929 - 2022
British/Irish – he had double citizenship – author and former teacher, born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He was christened Henry P...
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