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Portrait of Norman Mailer Photo: Ray Howard /AP Photo/TT (1969)

Sample of authors

Mailer, Norman

The American author, journalist and public debater Norman (in reality Nachem Malek) Mailer was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, but grew up in Brooklyn. In social terms he came from the Jewish lower middle class. After obtaining a degree in engineering at the University of Harvard, he participated during the final phase of the Second World War in the battles in the Pacific Ocean, among other...

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Literary figures

Mma Makutsi

Gender: Female

She struggles with her poor skin and unflattering spectacles, but Mma Grace Makutsi has impressively high grades from her secretarial course and is a lady with skin on her nose and a sharp tongue. In Alexander McCall Smith’s suite of novels about The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Botswana’s capital Gaborone, Mma Makutsi is first employed, but after a while becomes a part-owner of the agency. S...

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