Classic Author Focus: Alan Paton

Alan Paton Alan Paton was a South African novelist and poet best known for Cry, The Beloved Country. He was also known as an early and important anti-apartheid activist. I found several mentions but was unable to find the attribution of a phrase applied to him as the man who "pulled up barbed wire fences …

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Classic Author Focus: Astrid Lindgren

Astrid Lindgren Astrid Lindgren was a Swedish writer best known for her Pippi Longstocking books. She was also a playwright and wrote more than 30 books for children. She is the fourth most translated children's literature writer. Many of Lindgren's children's books reflect her memories of growing up in Näs, Sweden. After school, Lindgren took …

Classic Author Focus: Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling Rudyard Kipling was a British poet, novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. He was born in British India, the location of many of his works. He is not as much in fashion these days, as a lot of his work celebrated British Imperialism, although he also wrote stories about British soldiers in India and …

Classic Author Focus: Angela Thirkell

Angela Thirkell Angela Thirkell had quite the pedigree. She was the daughter of John William Mackail, a Scottish Classical scholar, and Margaret Burne-Jones, who herself was the daughter of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones. She was a cousin of Rudyard Kipling, and her brother Denis Mackail, was also a novelist. Thirkell was educated at St. …

Classic Author Focus: Bessie Head

Bessie Head Although author Bessie Head was born in South Africa and lived there until she was nearly 30, she is considered Botswana's most influential writer. Her writings were concerned with the contradictions and values in pre- and postcolonial African society. Head had a damaging childhood. She was the daughter of a white woman, Bessie …

Classic Author Focus: Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield Katherine Mansfield was a New Zealand author who was considered a master of the short story form and one of the most influential and important Modernist authors. Her works explored anxiety, existentialism, and sexuality, and eventually developed a New Zealand identity. Mansfield was born in Thornton near Wellington to a socially prominent family. …

Classic Author Focus: Nikos Kazantzakis

Nikos Kazantzakis Nikos Kazantzakis was a Greek writer who was born in Heraklion, Crete, when it was claimed by the Ottoman Empire. At the time, Crete was revolting against the Ottomans, so Kazantzakis's parents had to flee with him for a while to the island of Naxos. Not much information is available about his younger …

Classic Author Focus: Miles Franklin

Miles Franklin Miles Franklin was an Australian writer and feminist who was determined to develop a uniquely Australian form of literature and whose success is measured by the Stella prize for the best Australian literature by a woman, established by her estate and named in her honor. (Her full name was Stella Maria Sarah Miles …

Classic Author Focus: Nellie Campobello

Nellie Campobello Nellie Campobello was a Mexican writer, ballet dancer, and choreographer. Her best known work is Carthucho, the only work by a woman novelist to document the Mexican Revolution. She was also a founder of the Mexico City Ballet and a director of the Mexican National School of Dance. The biographical articles I could …

Classic Author Focus: Isak Dinesen

Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) Isak Dinesen is the nom de plume of Danish writer Karen Blixen. She is best known for her memoir Out of Africa, about the years when she farmed a coffee plantation in Kenya, but she was mostly a short story writer and poet. Although Dinesen's family was among the Danish upper …

Classic Author Focus: Frans G. Bengtsson

Frans G. Bengtsson I wanted to write about Frans G. Bengtsson, because I so much enjoyed reading his book The Long Ships, an unexpectedly exuberant and funny novel about a Viking. However, this will be a short post, because there's not much information available online about him. Bengtsson was a Swedish novelist, essayist, poet, translator, …

Classic Author Focus: Flora Nwapa

Flora Nwapa Flora Nwapa has been called the mother of Nigerian writing, and she was the first African woman novelist to be published in English in Britain. She is best known for recreating the life and customs of the Igbo from a woman's viewpoint. She also worked with orphans and refugees who were displaced after …

Classic Author Focus: Dorothy B. Hughes

Dorothy B. Hughes I decided to write about Dorothy B. Hughes after reading her noir suspense novel In a Lonely Place. It is an excellent, dark novel that was made into a movie starring Humphrey Bogart in 1950, in which unfortunately they changed the ending. Sadly, Hughes's life wasn't as exciting as her novels. She …

Classic Author Focus: Kamala Markandaya

Kamala Markayanda One of the difficulties I've found with trying to introduce more female writers from cultures other than European is that once I've identified some of them, I can't find out anything about them. A classic example is Kamala Markandaya, who is cited as one of the best-known Indian authors. Yet, on all the …

Classic Author Focus: Tove Ditlevsen

Tove DitlevsenA writer in many genres, including poetry, Tove Ditlevsen was one of Denmark's most famous authors at the time of her death. Ditlevsen was born in a working class area of Copenhagen. She led a difficult life, and her work often reflects the loneliness of living in the poorer regions of the city. Not …

Classic Author Focus: Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka is identified as a German-speaking Bohemian writer because he was born and lived in Prague, now part of the Czech Republic but then the capital of Bohemia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He is considered one of the major figures of 20th century literature, writing works that combined realism and fantasy, surrealism and absurdism. …