Vicente Pío Marcellino Cirilo Aleixandre y Merlo was born in Seville, but for fifty years, until his death, he famously lived in Madrid on Calle Velintonia 3. Aleixandre studied law and economics. He then worked for a major corporation until he was forced to resign in 1925 due to kidney failure. Confined to a life of stillness, he began to write and to form relationships with other poets of his ...

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Bernard Malamud was an American author born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family of Russian Jewish immigrants. The family owned a grocery store where Malamud helped out as a teenager. He attended City College, New York, and Columbia University, graduating with a Master of Arts in 1942. While still at university he taught at evening school and began to write – two of his short stories were p...

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English playwright and poet, born in Stratford-upon-Avon as the eldest son of the glove maker John Shakespeare and his wife Mary Arden. His mother was from the local aristocracy. Through successful business, the father managed to create a considerable fortune. He became an estate owner, and for some time he held the highest political office of the city. Around 1578, however, the fortune began to...

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