Curated category
Modernist writers
- F. Scott FitzgeraldFrancis Scott Key Fitzgerald arrived in the world on the 24th of September 1896. He was born into a middle-class Catholic family in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
- George OrwellEric Arthur Blair arrived in the world on the 25th of June 1903 within a house in Motihari, Bengal Presidency. His family belonged to what he called the…
- Ernest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was born on the 21st of July 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois. He grew up as the second of six children to Clarence Edmonds Hemingway and…
- André BretonAndré Robert Breton was born on the 19th of February 1896 in Tinchebray, a small town in Normandy. His father Louis-Justin worked as a policeman while his…
- William FaulknerWilliam Cuthbert Faulkner was born on the 25th of September 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi. He grew up in Oxford, a town where his family lived for most of…
- James JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born on the 2nd of February 1882 at 41 Brighton Square, Rathgar, Dublin, and died 58 years later in Zurich after surgery…
- Joseph ConradOn the 3rd of December 1857, a boy named Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski drew his first breath in Berdychiv, Ukraine. The region belonged to the Russian…
- Albert CamusAlbert Camus was born on the 7th of November 1913 in Mondovi, a working-class town in French Algeria, to a mother who was deaf and illiterate and a father he…
- Dylan ThomasDylan Marlais Thomas entered the world on the 27th of October 1914 inside a red-brick semi-detached house at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive in Swansea.
- André GideAndré Paul Guillaume Gide was born in Paris on the 22nd of November 1869 into a middle-class Protestant family. His father Jean Paul Guillaume Gide served as…
- Franz KafkaFranz Kafka entered the world on the 3rd of July 1883 in a cramped apartment near the Old Town Square of Prague. His father Hermann ran a haberdashery store…
- Hermann HesseHermann Karl Hesse was born on the 2nd of July 1877 in the Black Forest town of Calw. His grandparents had served as missionaries in India under the Basel…
- Samuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was born on the 13th of April 1906 in the Dublin suburb of Foxrock. His parents were both thirty-five years old when he arrived, and…
- Karel ČapekKarel Čapek was born on the 9th of January 1890 in the village of Malé Svatoňovice. This small settlement sat within the rugged hills of the Bohemian…
- Louis-Ferdinand CélineLouis-Ferdinand Céline was born Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches on the 27th of May 1894 in Courbevoie, a suburb just outside Paris.
- Andrei BelyBoris Nikolaevich Bugaev entered the world in Moscow on the 26th of August 1880. His father Nikolai Bugaev stood as a founder of the Moscow school of…
- Luigi PirandelloLuigi Pirandello was born on the 28th of June 1867 in Girgenti, now known as Agrigento. He grew up near the poor suburb of Porto Empedocle within an…
- Mikhail BulgakovMikhail Bulgakov was born on the 15th of May 1891 in Kiev, then part of the Russian Empire. He grew up at 28 Vozdvishenskaya Street as the oldest of seven…
- Leopoldo LugonesLeopoldo Antonio Lugones Argüello entered the world on the 13th of June 1874 in Villa de María del Río Seco. This city sat within Córdoba Province, a region…
- Boris PasternakBoris Pasternak was born on the 30th of May 1890 in Moscow into a wealthy Jewish family. His father Leonid Pasternak worked as a post-Impressionist painter…
- Maxim GorkyAlexei Maximovich Peshkov adopted the pseudonym Maxim Gorky in 1892. The name meant bitter, reflecting his simmering anger about life in Russia and a…
- Miguel de UnamunoMiguel de Unamuno y Jugo was born on the 29th of September 1864 in Bilbao, a bustling port city within the Basque Country.