They Into Whose Oeuvre I Must Further Delve

1. Franz Kafka

Writer | Le procès

Franz Kafka was born into a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Austrian Empire, in 1883. His father, Hermann Kafka, was a business owner and a domestic tyrant, frequently abusing his son. Kafka later admitted to his father, "My writing was all about you...". He believed that his father broke ...

2. Denis Johnson

Writer | Stars at Noon

Denis Johnson, the acclaimed novelist, short story writer, poet and playwright, was born in Munich in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 and raised in Tokyo, Manila, and Washington, D.C., the son of a U.S. State Department employee. A chronicler of substance abusers living at the margins of ...

3. Heinrich von Kleist

Writer | Der zerbrochene Krug

Heinrich von Kleist was born on the 18th of October, 1777 in Frankfurt/Oder (Germany) as the son of a priest. His father died when Heinrich was 11 so he had to earn some money early. He managed to go to the High School until 15, but was forced then to join the Prussian army in their war in the west...

4. Herman Melville

Writer | The Enigma of Benito Cereno

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. Although his ...

5. John Barth

Self | Genesis: A Living Conversation

6. Nikolay Gogol

Writer | Burnt Hickory

Nikolai (Mykola) Gogol was a Russian humorist, dramatist, and novelist of Ukrainian origin. His ancestors were bearing the name of Gogol-Janovsky and claimed belonging to the upper class Polish Szlachta. Gogol's father, a Ukrainian writer living on his old family estate, had five other children. He...

7. Laurence Sterne

Writer | A Cock and Bull Story

Laurence Sterne was born on November 24, 1713 in Clonmel, Kingdom of Ireland [now County Tipperary, Republic of Ireland]. Laurence was a writer, known for Tristram Shandy (2005), Famous Gossips (1965) and Camera Three (1955). Laurence was married to Elizabeth Lumley. Laurence died on March 18, 1768...

8. Thomas Bernhard

Writer | Dramuscules de Thomas Bernhard

Thomas Bernhard was born on February 9, 1931 in Heerlen, Limburg, Netherlands. He was a writer, known for Dramuscules de Thomas Bernhard (2007), Television Theater (1953) and Maîtres anciens - Comédie (2022). He died on February 12, 1989 in Gmunden, Austria.

9. Stephen Crane

Writer | The Red Badge of Courage: A Soldier's Tale

Stephen Crane was the 14th child of parents who were both writers. Descended from a line of soldiers and clergymen (his father, Rev. Jonathan T. Crane, was a Methodist minister), Crane inherited from his forebearers the obsessive subject of war, stoical compassion and, particularly in his poetry, a...

10. Flannery O'Connor

Writer | A Good Man Is Hard to Find

Flannery O'Connor was born on March 25, 1925 in Savannah, Georgia, USA. She was a writer, known for A Good Man Is Hard to Find, The Violent Bear It Away and Katafalk (1990). She died on August 3, 1964 in Milledgeville, Georgia, USA.

11. Edith Wharton

Writer | The Age of Innocence

Edith Wharton (née Jones) was an American novelist and short story writer from New York City. She had insider knowledge of New York's upper class, which she realistically portrayed in her works. In 1921, Wharton became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She won the award for her...

12. Knut Hamsun

Writer | Poslední radost

Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun was born to a poor family and sent to live with an uncle, a commercial fisherman. He grew up without any formal schooling. Hamsun left Norway for the U.S. twice: once in 1882, and again in 1886. Each time he stayed in the U.S. for two years, holding various jobs ...

13. Anton Chekhov

Writer | Kis Uykusu

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in 1860, the third of six children to a family of a grocer, in Taganrog, Russia, a southern seaport and resort on the Azov Sea. His father, a 3rd-rank Member of the Merchant's Guild, was a religious fanatic and a tyrant who used his children as slaves. Young Chekhov...

14. Robert Louis Stevenson

Writer | Muppet Treasure Island

Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer from Edinburgh. His most popular works include the pirate-themed adventure novel "Treasure Island" (1883), the poetry collection "A Child's Garden of Verses" (1885), the Gothic horror novella "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr ...

15. Ernest Hemingway

Writer | To Have and Have Not

Ernest Hemingway was an American writer who won the Pulitzer Prize (1953) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (1954) for his novel The Old Man and the Sea, which was made into a 1958 film The Old Man and the Sea (1958).

He was born into the hands of his physician father. He was the second of six ...

16. Nathaniel Hawthorne

Writer | Graves and Goblins

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist, dark romantic, and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that town. Hawthorne entered Bowdoin College in 1821, was elected to Phi ...

17. Marcel Proust

Writer | Un amour de Swann

Marcel Proust was a French intellectual, author and critic, best known for his seven-volume fiction 'In search of Lost Time'. He coined the term "involuntary memory", which became also known as "Proust effect" in modern psychology.

He was born Valentin Louis Georges Eugéne Marcel Proust, on July 10, ...

18. Samuel Beckett

Writer | Beckett Directs Beckett: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett is an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator.

A resident of Paris for most of his life, he wrote in both French and English.

Beckett's work offers a bleak, tragi-comic outlook on human existence, often coupled with black comedy ...

19. Georges Simenon

Writer | Maigret tend un piège

Georges Simenon was a Belgian novelist, writing in the French language. He published nearly 500 different novels, and a large number of short stories. He became internationally famous for creating the French police detective Jules Maigret, as the protagonist in a celebrated series of mystery novels...

20. Lev Tolstoy

Writer | Anna Karenina

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828, in his ancestral estate Yasnaya Polyana, South of Moscow, Russia. He was the fourth of five children in a wealthy family of Russian landed Gentry. His parents died when he was a child, and he was brought up by his elder brothers and ...

21. Philip Roth

Writer | The Human Stain

Philip Roth was born on March 18, 1933 in Newark, New Jersey, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for The Human Stain (2003), The Plot Against America (2020) and American Pastoral (2016). He was married to Claire Bloom and Margaret Elna (Martinson) Williams. He died on May 22, 2018 in ...