Meny
  • It is 80 years today since Kjartan Fløgstad was born.

    Norwegian author born in the industrial city of Sauda. He has worked at the smelting plant in Sauda and on a Norwegian cargo ship on which he travelled all over the world, especially South America. His experiences and impressions from this continent would later become highly significant to his work. (In 2004 Fløgstad received a Chilean arts award.) He briefly studied architecture at the ...

    Further reading

  • It is 72 years today since Orhan Pamuk was born.

    Turkish author, born and grew up in Istanbul, Nisantasi, in an affluent middle-class family. The father was a civil engineer, as was Orhan’s grandfather, who laid the foundations for the family’s fortune. After graduating from school – the secular American Robert College – Pamuk studied Architecture and Journalism. Until he was 22, he devoted himself to painting and dreamt of becoming an artist. T...

    Further reading

  • It is 67 years today since Fred Vargas was born.

    Fred Vargas is a pseudonym used by the French historian, archaeologist and crime writer Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau. "Vargas" was a character played by Ava Gardener in The Barefoot Contessa; the name was first used by Audoin-Rouzeau’s twin sister Joëlle, the visual artist Jo Vargas. Their father, Philippe Audoin-Rouzeau, was a journalist and a famous figure in surrealist circles. He was very part...

    Further reading

  • It is 158 years today since E.W. Hornung was born.

    The English teacher and journalist Ernest William Hornung (Willie to his family) was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law. If Sir Arthur was the father of Sherlock Holmes, the most famous fictional detective in the world, you could say that Hornung created the most famous crook, the gentleman thief A.J. Raffles. Like Holmes, Raffles has occasionally turned up in books by other authors.
    H...

    Further reading

Sample of Authors

Portrait of Ferdinand von Schirach

Schirach, Ferdinand von
1964 -

Ferdinand von Schirach is a German lawyer and author born in Munich to a wealthy Protestant family. He grew up in Munich...

Further reading
Portrait image of Herman Melville

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
Författarporträtt av Tolstoy, Leo

Tolstoy, Leo
1828 - 1910

Russian author, born at the estate of Yasnaya Polyana in Tula Province. Leo (Lev Nikolayevich) Tolstoy descended from an...

Further reading
Författarporträtt av Louÿs, Pierre

Louÿs, Pierre
1870 - 1925

Pierre Félix Louÿs was a French poet and novelist. He was born to a wealthy family in Ghent, Belgium, in somewhat unclear c...

Further reading