Literary Birthdays

By John Jenkins

Nov 1: French poet and critic Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636; d.1711), an influential neoclassical critic; Stephen Crane, New Jersey-born novelist, reporter, and poet (1871; d.1900), author of The Red Badge of Courage (1895); Sholem Asch (1880), Polish-born Yiddish American novelist and playwright; Hermann Broch (1886), Austrian novelist; Louisiana-born (Chicago-raised) African-American poet, artist, and art teacher Margaret Taylor Burroughs (1917); Palestinian/American (born Jerusalem) Edward Said (1935), music critic for The Nation and political essayist; Virginia-born Southern writer Lee Smith (1944)

Nov. 2: Barbey D'Aurevilly (1808; d.1889), French drama and literary critic, novelist, and short story writer, whose masterpiece is considered to be Les Diaboliques (1874; The She-Devils); Odysseus Elytis (1911), Greek poet and 1979 Nobel prize winner; Jamaican-born U.S. novelist and poet Michelle Cliff (1946), whose novels are concerned with social and political issues

Nov 3: Lucan (39 A.D.), Spanish/Latin poet, author of Bellum Civile; Massachusetts-born William Cullen Bryant (1794; d.1878), American romantic poet, editor, and lawyer, he penned the poem "Thanatopsis"; French novelist Andre Malraux (1901); Australian aboriginal poet and writer Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920; nee Kath Walker); Florida playwright Terrence McNally (1939)

Nov. 4: Eden Phillpotts, British novelist, poet, and playwright (1862); Ciro Alegria (1909), Peruvian novelist

Nov. 5: London-born poet, dramatist, and translator James Elroy Flecker (1884); Will Durant (1885), Massachusetts-born writer and historian, who with his wife, Ariel, authored the 11-volume Story of Civilization; Connecticut native Thomas Flanagan (1923; d.2002), who wrote an acclaimed Irish historical trilogy; Los Angeles-born novelist and memoirist Geoffrey Wolff (1937); Irish novelist Tom Phelan (1940); playwright and actor Sam Shepard (1943), born in Illinois

Nov. 6: Thomas Kyd (baptized this date, 1558), English dramatist; Colley Cibber (1671), English dramatist and poet, rewriter of Richard III; Colorado-born New Yorker founder Harold Ross (1892); James Jones (1921), Illinois novelist and author of From Here To Eternity

Nov. 7: Albert Camus (1913; d.1960), French existentialist essayist, novelist, journalist (born Algeria), awarded 1957 Nobel in Literature, well-known for novels L'Etranger (1942; The Stranger) and La Peste (1947; The Plague); Iowa-born Rafael A. Lafferty, science fiction writer and Hugo winner (1914; d.2002)

Nov. 8: Bram Stoker (1847), Irish creator of Dracula; Margaret Mitchell (1900), author of Gone with the Wind; Peter Weiss (1916), German/Swedish (born near Berlin) novelist, dramatist, film director, and painter; Japanese/English Booker Prize winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro (1954)

Nov. 9: Ivan Turgenev (1818), Russian novelist, poet and playwright; Anne Sexton (1928), Massachusetts poet and suicide

Nov. 10: Irish novelist, poet, and dramatist Oliver Goldsmith (1728; d.1774), well-known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1764) and his comedic drama She Stoops to Conquer (1773); German poet, lyricist, and playwright [Johann Christoph] Friedrich von Schiller (1759); [Nicholas] Vachel Lindsay (1879), U.S. poet; novelist J[ohn] P[hillips] Marquand (1893), born Delaware; military and police novelist, New Jersey native William E. Butterworth III (1929), aka WEB Griffin

Nov. 11: Russian novelist Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821; d.1881), whose novels include Crime and Punishment (1866) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880); novelist Howard Fast (1914); modern American writer Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922); Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes (1928)

Nov. 12: NYC-born nonfiction writer Tracy Kidder (1945), author of House and Among Schoolchildren

Nov. 13: Besides Robert Louis Stevenson, above: Massachusetts-born crime writer and columnist George V[incent] Higgins (1939)

Nov. 14: Danish poet Adam G[ottlob] Oehlenschläger (1779; English text of poem "There Is A Charming Land"); Swedish children's writer and Pippi Longstocking creator Astrid Lindgren (1907); Minnesota-born journalist Harrison [Evans] Salisbury (1908), non-fiction author and Pulitzer Prize winner for international reporting; Scottish poet Norman Alexander MacCaig (1910); Ohio-born humorist and libertarian P[atrick] J[ake] O'Rourke (1947)

Nov. 15: German poet, dramatist, novelist, and 1912 Nobelist Gerhart Hauptmann (1862; d.1946); St. Louis poet and 1951 Pulitzer Prize winner Marianne Moore (1887); English biographer and art critic Sacheverell Sitwell (1897); British novelist Tim Pears (1956); British writer of darkly comic novels Tibor Fischer (1959)

Nov. 16: Pulitzer Prize winning, Pittsburgh-born playwright and journalist George S[imon] Kaufman (1889); Armenian/English writer (born Bulgaria) Michael Arlen (1895), aka Dikran Kuyumjian, author of An American Verdict; prolific Australian children's book writer Colin [Milton] Thiele (1920), two-time winner of the Australian Children's Book Award; Portuguese playwright, novelist, short story writer José Saramago, Nobel Prize winner in 1998 (1922); NYC-native Julian Thompson (1927), author of young-adult novels; Nigerian fiction writer, essayist, and poet [Albert] Chinua[lumogu] Achebe (1930), whose first novel was Things Fall Apart

Nov. 17: Joost van Den Vondel (1587), German/Dutch poet and dramatist; Mississippi-born novelist, Civil War historian, and longtime correspondent of Walker Percy, Shelby Foote (1916)

Nov. 18: British humorist and dramatist, the lyrical half of the Gilbert & Sullivan team, Sir William [Schwenck] Gilbert (1836; d.1911); Clarence Day (1874), NYC writer, author of Life with Father; Savannah-born Academy-Award-winning lyricist Johnny Mercer (1909), who wrote "Moon River," "Come Rain or Come Shine," and "Days of Wine and Roses," among many others; Canadian novelist, poet, and short-story writer Margaret Atwood (1939)

Nov. 19: Allen Tate (1899), U.S. poet

Nov. 20: English poet Thomas Chatterton (1752; d.1770), who wrote "Song From Aella" and poisoned himself before he was 18; Selma Lagerlöf (1858), Swedish novelist and winner of 1909 Nobel in Literature; South African novelist, short-story writer, and Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer (1923)

Nov. 21: French philosopher and Candide writer Voltaire (born Francois-Marie Arouet; 1694); journalist, columnist, and author Jim Bishop (1907), wrote The Day Kennedy Was Shot; NYC-born feminist novelist Marilyn French (1929), who wrote The Women's Room; English actress, short-story writer, and novelist Beryl Bainbridge (1933)

Nov. 22: Besides George Eliot (see above), French poet and translator (born Cuba) José Maria de Hérédia (1842; d.1905), whose sonnets evoke the sensuous imagery of the Caribbean; English novelist George [Robert] Gissing (1857; d.1903), whose bitter novels of social realism examined poverty's deleterious effect on the character; French novelist and poet André [Paul Guillaume] Gide (1869; d.1951), awarded the 1947 Nobel prize for literature

Nov. 23: Irish mystery novelist, journalist, and Edgar Award winner Shaun Herron (1912); Romanian poet Paul Celan (1920); Kentucky-raised African American gothic novelist, poet, and short story writer Gayl Jones (1949)

Nov. 24: Besides Laurence Sterne (see above), French poet Charles D'Orléans (1394; d.1465) aka Charles, Duke of Orléans, who wrote chansons, ballades, and rondeaux in French, Latin, and English; Dutch philosopher, author, and lens-grinder Benedict [Baruch] de Spinoza (1632); Italian journalist and author Carlo Collodi (1826), aka Carlo Lorenzini, who created Pinocchio; Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849), writer of The Secret Garden; Garson Kanin (1912), American playwright, producer, and friend of Katharine Hepburn's

Nov. 25: Lope Felix de Vega (1562), Spanish dramatist and poet; Ohio-born novelist Helen Hooven Santmyer (1895), author of the best-selling her novel ....And Ladies of the Club; English playwright Shelagh Delaney (1939)

Nov. 26: English pre-Romantic poet, hymnist, translator, and letter-writer William Cowper (1731; d.1800), who co-wrote the Olney Hymns; Romanian/French playwright Eugene Ionesco (1909)

Nov. 27: Tennessee-born novelist and poet James Agee (1909), who wrote A Death in the Family; Gail Sheehy (1937), author of the Passages books

Nov. 28: English cleric and author of the moralistic Pilgrim's Progress (part I-1678; part II-1684), John Bunyan (1628; d.1688); visionary and revolutionary English poet and painter William Blake (1757; d.1827), well-known for Songs of Innocence (1789), Songs of Experience (1794), and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c.1790); Nikolai Nekrasov (1821), Russian poet and journalist; Russian poet and dramatist Alexander Alexandrovich Blok (1880; d.1921), most famous for The Twelve (1912), which welcomes the Revolution; German (born Vienna, Austria) poet, translator, biographer, short-story writer, and novelist Stefan Zweig (1881); Italian novelist, journalist, and short-story writer Alberto Moravia (1907), nee Alberto Pincherle; Brooklyn native, African American dramatist, poet, novelist, and longtime Howard University drama professor Owen [Vincent] Dodson (1914; d. 1983); Nebraska-born African American poet and novelist Lance Jeffers (1919; d.1985), whose poetry concerned black endurance in the face of white oppression Zimbabwe-born South African poet Dennis Brutus (1924; also called John Bruin); Pennsylvania-born novelist and mystery writer Rita Mae Brown (1944), author of Rubyfruit Jungle and the Sneaky Pie mysteries

Nov. 29: Venezuelan poet and scholar Andrés Bello (1781; d.1865); Louisa May Alcott (1832), Pennsylvania-born author of Little Women and Little Men; C. S. Lewis (1898), English essayist, children's writer, and Christian apologist; Carlo Levi (1902), Italian painter and novelist; NYC-born Madeleine L'Engle (1918), novelist, and author of children's classics and non-fiction works; Boston native, novelist, and short-story writer Sue Miller (1943)

Nov. 30: [Sir] Phillip Sidney (1554), English poet; English satirist Jonathan Swift (1667), author of A Modest Proposal and Gulliver's Travels; American humorist Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens (1835); American (French-born) writer of critical and historical studies Jacques Barzun (1907); Kansas-born photographer, novelist, autobiographer, essayist, composer, and film producer Gordon [Alexander Buchanan] Parks (1912), whose 1963 novel The Learning Tree was made into a movie in 1968; Chicago-born playwright, screenwriter and director David Mamet (1947)


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