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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
Ben Jelloun, Tahar
1944 -
Tahar Ben Jelloun was born in Fes, Marocco. When he was ten years old he moved with his family to Tangier where he attended...
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Morrison, Toni
1931 - 2019
American author born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, one of four siblings in a working class family in Lorain, Ohio. During the...
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Milosz, Czeslaw
1911 - 2004
Polish author and Nobel Prize laureate born and raised in the village of Šeteniai, Lithuania, the Russian Empire. His ...
Further reading
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