Literature
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William Blake *XI 28 1757 — The Life You Give
William Blake, born Nov. 28, 1757, in London, England, is the engraver, artist, poet, and visionary, author of exquisite lyrics in Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794) and profound and difficult “prophecies,” such as Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), The First Book of Urizen (1794), Milton (1804[–?11]), and Jerusalem (1804[–?20]).…
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Stefan Zweig *XI 28 1881 — The Life You Give
Stefan Zweig, born November 28, 1881, Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire [now in Austria], is the writer who achieved distinction in several genres—poetry, essays, short stories, and dramas—most notably in his interpretations of imaginary and historical characters. Zweig was raised in Vienna. His first book, a volume of poetry, was published in 1901. He received a doctorate…
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Astrid Lindgren *XI 14 1907 — The Life You Give
Astrid Lindgren, born November 14, 1907, in Vimmerby, Sweden, is the influential writer of children’s books who created such memorable characters as Pippi Longstocking. Lindgren’s great popularity began in 1945 with the publication of Pippi Långstrump (Pippi Longstocking), the first of several books with Pippi as a main character. This strangely dressed girl living alone…
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky *XI 11 1821 — The Life You Give
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, born Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky, Dostoyevsky also spelled Dostoevsky, on November 11 [October 30, Old Style], 1821, Moscow, Russia, is the novelist and short-story writer whose psychological penetration into the darkest recesses of the human heart, together with his unsurpassed moments of illumination, had an immense influence on 20th-century fiction. Dostoyevsky is usually regarded…
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Friedrich von Schiller *XI 10 1759 — The Life You Give
Friedrich Schiller, born Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller, Nov. 10, 1759, in Marbach, Württemberg [Germany], is a leading dramatist, poet, and literary theorist, best remembered for such dramas as Die Räuber (1781; The Robbers), the Wallenstein trilogy (1800–01), Maria Stuart (1801), and Wilhelm Tell (1804). Friedrich Schiller was the second child of Lieut. Johann Kaspar Schiller…
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Albert Camus *XI 7 1913 — The Life You Give
Albert Camus, born November 7, 1913, in Mondovi, Algeria, is the novelist, essayist, and playwright, best known for such novels as L’Étranger (1942; The Stranger), La Peste (1947; The Plague), and La Chute (1956; The Fall) and for his work in leftist causes. He received the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature. Less than a year…
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Sylvia Plath *X 27 1932 — The Life You Give
Sylvia Plath (born October 27, 1932, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.—died February 11, 1963, London, England) was an American poet whose best-known works, such as the poems “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” and the novel The Bell Jar, starkly express a sense of alienation and self-destruction closely tied to her personal experiences and, by extension, the situation of…
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Oscar Wilde *X 16 1854 — The Life You Give
Oscar Wilde, born Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, October 16, 1854, Dublin, Ireland—died November 30, 1900, Paris, France), Irish wit, poet, and dramatist whose reputation rests on his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and on his comic masterpieces Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). He was a…
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Miguel de Cervantes *IX 29 1547 — The Life You Give
Miguel de Cervantes, born Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, September 29?, 1547, in Alcalá de Henares, Spain, is the novelist, playwright, and poet, the creator of Don Quixote (1605, 1615) and the most important and celebrated figure in Spanish literature. His novel Don Quixote has been translated, in full or in part, into more than 60…
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Javier Marías *IX 20 1951 – La Vida Que Das / The Life You Give
Escritor, ensayista, traductor y editor español, Javier Marías (1951-2022) era el cuarto de cinco hijos de una familia acomodada. Pasó su niñez e infancia en los Estados Unidos, donde su padre, el filósofo y miembro de la R.A.E. Julián Marías, encarcelado y represaliado por el régimen de Franco, era profesor de universidad. Allí vivió rodeado…
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe *VIII 28 1749 / The Life You Give
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, born August 28, 1749, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is the poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, critic, and amateur artist, considered the greatest German literary figure of the modern era. Goethe is the only German literary figure whose range and international standing equal those of Germany’s supreme philosophers (who…
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James Baldwin *VIII 2 1924 / The Life You Give
James Baldwin, born James Arthur Baldwin on August 2 1924 in New York, New York, is the essayist, novelist, and playwright whose eloquence and passion on the subject of race in America made him an important voice, particularly in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in the United States and, later, through much of western…
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Pablo Neruda *VII 11 1904 — La Vida Que Das / The Life You Give
See biography in English below El mundo de la literatura es grotescamente amplio, con una cantidad de autores que, a lo largo de los años, han aportado su pequeño grano de arena al mundo literario. Sin embargo, algunos son más reconocidos que otros por diversas razones, incluso para aquellas personas que no son muy allegadas…
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The Life You Give: Anne Frank *VI 12 1929
Anne Frank, born Annelies Marie Frank, June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, February/March 1945, is the girl whose diary of her family’s two years in hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands became a classic of war literature. Early in the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler, Anne’s father, Otto Frank (1889–1980), a…
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Thomas Mann *VI 6 1875 / The Life You Give
Thomas Mann, born June 6, 1875, in Lübeck, Germany, is the novelist and essayist whose early novels—Buddenbrooks (1900), Der Tod in Venedig (1912; Death in Venice), and Der Zauberberg (1924; The Magic Mountain)—earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. Early literary endeavoursMann’s father died in 1891, and Mann moved to Munich, a centre…














