Meny
  • It is 86 years today since Joyce Carol Oates was born.

    American author, born into a Protestant working-class family in the little town of Lockport in the western part of the state of New York. The family had a difficult economic situation and she spent most of her childhood and adolescence with her paternal grandparents on a farm in Erie. As a child, she liked to read and write; she got her first book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, from her g...

    Further reading

  • It is 67 years today since Alexandra Marinina was born.

    Alexandra Marinina is the pseudonym of Marina Anatolyevna Alekseyeva, a Russian author born in Lviv, western Ukraine. Her father, who died in 1973, was a police officer and her mother a lawyer. When she was still young, the family moved to Leningrad (now St.Petersburg) and then to Moscow. She attended an English-language school in Leningrad, and the Rimsky-Korsakov conservatory in Moscow. She...

    Further reading

Sample of Authors

Portrait of Robert Barnard

Barnard, Robert
1936 - 2013

Robert Barnard was an English crime writer and scholar of international fame. He was born in Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex. In...

Further reading
Portrait image of Mika Waltari

Waltari, Mika
1908 - 1979

The Finnish author Mika Waltari is considered one of the foremost Nordic authors of the 20th century. Many of his books are...

Further reading
Portrait image of Eduardo Mendoza

Mendoza, Eduardo
1943 -

Eduardo Mendoza Garriga is a Spanish author who lives in Barcelona. His father was a lawyer and his mother a housewife. He...

Further reading
Portrait of Chester Himes

Himes, Chester
1909 - 1984

Chester Bomar Himes was among the foremost Afro-American authors, especially in terms of the way he wrote about racism in...

Further reading