writer
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Bertolt Brecht *II 10 1898 — The Life You Give
Bertolt Brecht, born Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, on February 10 1898, in Augsburg, Germany, is the poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer whose epic theatre departed from the conventions of theatrical illusion and developed the drama as a social and ideological forum for leftist causes. Until 1924 Brecht lived in Bavaria, where he was born, studied…
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William S. Burroughs *II 5 1914 — The Life You Give
The elder statesman of literature’s Beat Generation — and, by extension, of the American underground culture — few figures outside of the musical sphere exerted a greater influence over rock & roll than novelist William S. Burroughs. A provocative, controversial figure famed for his unique cut-up prose aesthetic, Burroughs lived the rock lifestyle years before…
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James Joyce *II 2 1882 — The Life You Give
James Joyce, born James Augustine Aloysius Joyce, on February 2, 1882, Dublin, Ireland, was the novelist noted for his experimental use of language and exploration of new literary methods in such large works of fiction as Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939). Early life Joyce, the eldest of 10 children in his family to survive…
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Virginia Woolf *I 25 1882 — The Life You Give
Virginia Woolf, born Adeline Virginia Stephen, on January 25, 1882, in London, England, is the writer whose novels, through their nonlinear approaches to narrative, exerted a major influence on the genre. While she is best known for her novels, especially Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927), Woolf also wrote pioneering essays on artistic…
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J. R. R. Tolkien *I 3 1892 — The Life You Give
J. R. R. Tolkien, born John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein, South Africa, is the writer and scholar who achieved fame with his children’s book The Hobbit (1937) and his richly inventive epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings (1954–55). At age four, Tolkien, with his mother and younger brother, settled near…
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Manuel Puig *XII 28 1932 — The Life You Give
Manuel Puig, born Juan Manuel Puig Delledonne on December 28 1932, in General Villegas, Argentina, is the novelist and motion-picture scriptwriter who achieved international acclaim with his novel El beso de la mujer araña (1976; Kiss of the Spider Woman, filmed 1985).Puig spent his childhood in a small village on the pampas, but moved at…
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Mark Twain *XI 30 1835 — The Life You Give
Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, on November 30, 1835, Florida, Missouri, U.S.A., is the humorist, journalist, lecturer, and novelist who acquired international fame for his travel narratives, especially The Innocents Abroad (1869), Roughing It (1872), and Life on the Mississippi (1883), and for his adventure stories of boyhood, especially The Adventures of Tom Sawyer…
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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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William Faulkner *IX 25 1897 — The Life You Give
William Faulkner (born September 25, 1897, New Albany, Mississippi, U.S.—died July 6, 1962, Byhalia, Mississippi) was an American novelist and short-story writer who was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature.Youth and early writingsAs the eldest of the four sons of Murry Cuthbert and Maud Butler Falkner, William Faulkner (as he later spelled his name)…
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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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Antoine de Saint-Exupéry *VI 29 1900 / The Life You Give
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, born Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupéry, June 29, 1900, in Lyon, France, is the aviator and writer whose works are the unique testimony of a pilot and a warrior who looked at adventure and danger with a poet’s eyes. His fable Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) has become a modern classic. Saint-Exupéry came…
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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…
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Rosario Castellanos *V 25 1925 — The Life You Give / La Vida Que Das
Rosario Castellanos, born May 25, 1925, in Mexico City, Mexico, is the novelist, short-story writer, poet, essayist, and diplomat who was probably the most important Mexican woman writer of the 20th century. Her 1950 master’s thesis, Sobre cultura femenina (“On Feminine Culture”), became a turning point for modern Mexican women writers, who found in it…
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Maya Angelou *IV 4 1928 / The Life You Give
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson, on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., is the poet, memoirist, and actress whose several volumes of autobiography explore the themes of economic, racial, and sexual oppression. Although born in St. Louis, Angelou spent much of her childhood in the care of her paternal grandmother in rural…
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Bertolt Brecht *II 10 1898 / The Life You Give
Bertolt Brecht, born Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, on February 10 1898, in Augsburg, Germany, is the poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer whose epic theatre departed from the conventions of theatrical illusion and developed the drama as a social and ideological forum for leftist causes. Until 1924 Brecht lived in Bavaria, where he was born, studied…













