Authors of Great Literature

Authors of great literature that teaches, elevates, inspires and ennobles mankind.

• Authors - alphabetical index, wikisource

Selected authors by activity period:

BCE

• Homer, Ὅμηρος Homēros (8th Century BCE) Author of the Iliad and the Odyssey; revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet.
• BCE) Ancient Greek tragedian. Of his plays: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Persians The Persians; The Suppliants (Aeschylus); Oresteia.
• BCE) Ancient Greek tragedian. Of his plays: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_the_King Oedipus the King; Antigone; Philoctetes (Sophocles); Ajax (Sophocles).
• Euripides, Εὐριπίδης (c. 480 BCE – 406 BCE) Ancient Greek tragedian. Of his plays: Medea; Electra (Euripides); The Trojan Women.
• Aristophanes Ἀριστοφάνης, ca. 446 BCE – ca. 386 BCE) Comic playwright of ancient Athens. Also known as the Father of Comedy and the Prince of Ancient Comedy. Of his plays: The Acharnians; The Knights; The Clouds; The Peace.
• Cato the Elder Marcus Porcius Cato (234 BCE – 149 BCE) Roman statesman and writer. Wrote the first Latin history of Rome and of other Italian cities and was the first Roman statesman to put his political speeches in writing as a means of influencing public opinion. His De Agri Cultura (On Agriculture) is the oldest surviving work of Latin prose.
• Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BCE – 43 BCE) Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, orator, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. Considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. In Verrem, Catiline Orations, Philippics, De Officiis.
• Virgil (70 BCE – 19 BCE) Classical Roman poet. Best known for the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid.
• Quintus Horatius Flaccus "Horace" (65 BCE – 8 BCE) Roman poet, he was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. Noteable works: Odes, Satires, "Satirical poems", Ars Poetica, "The art of poetry".
• Publius Ovidius Naso, "Ovid" (43 BCE – 17) Roman poet, wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. Ranked alongside Virgil and Horace as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature.

0 to 1000 CE

• Seneca (c. 1 BCE – 65 CE) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature.
• Publius Papinius Statius (ca. 45 – ca. 96) was a Roman poet of the 1st century. His famous works: Thebaid, a collection of occasional poetry, the Silvae, and the Achilleid.
• Plutarch, Plutarchus, Πλούταρχος (c. 46 – 120 CE) Greek and Roman historian, essayist and pre-eminent biographer of the day. Known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia.
• Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (c. 56 – c. 117 CE) Senator and historian of the Roman Empire. His two major works — the Annals and the Histories, and other writings De Origine et situ Germanorum, De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae.
• Saint Jerome (c. 347 – 420) Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. Best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate), and his list of writings is extensive.
• [http://www.geni.com/people/Sharon-Chevalier/594), of Myrina (Mysia), Greek poet and the principal historian of part of the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian I between 552 and 558. His famous works: Cyclus, (The Circle) - compilation of "modern" (in Justinian's day) poems and epigrams which Agathias edited, and in which he included about 100 of his own productions. Historiæ - a sequel to Procopius' (public) history of Justinian's reign.
• Li Bai, 李白 (701 – 762) Major Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty poetry period. Has been regarded as one of the greatest Chinese poets.
• Du Fu (杜甫) (712 – 770) Prominent Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty. Along with Li Bai (Li Bo), he is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets.

1000 to 1500 CE

• Omar Khayyám عمر خیام c (1048 – 1131) Persian polymath: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet. He also wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, music, climatology and theology. He is believed to have written about a thousand four-line verses or rubaiyat (quatrains).
• Guillaume 'le Troubadour' d'Aquitaine, IX Duc d'Aquitaine et VII Comte de Poitou (Oct. 22, 1071 – Feb. 10, 1126) William's greatest legacy to history was not as a crusader warrior but as a troubadour — a lyric poet employing the Romance vernacular language called Provençal or Occitan. He was the earliest troubadour whose work survives.
• [http://www.geni.com/people/Tanya-Loh/8 – 1204) The preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. He worked as a rabbi, physician, and philosopher in Spain, Morocco and Egypt.
• Saxo "cognomine Longus" Grammaticus (1150 - c.1220) Danish historian and writer.
• Shota Rustaveli შოთა რუსთაველი (c.1172 – c.1216) Georgian poet of the 12th century, and one of the greatest contributors to Georgian literature.
• Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī جلال‌الدین محمد بلخى - Rumi (1207 – 1273) Persian Muslim poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic. Works: Masnavi, Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, Fihi Ma Fihi.
• Dante (1265 – Sep. 14, 1321) Italian poet, also called "The Supreme Poet" (il Sommo Poeta), "Father of the Italian language". Divine Comedy.
• Petrarca - Petrarch (Jul. 20, 1304 – Jul. 19,1374) Italian scholar, poet and an early Renaissance humanists, often called the "Father of Humanism". Il Canzoniere.
• Boccaccio (1313 – Dec. 21, 1375) Italian author and poet, a Renaissance humanist and the author of notable works including The Decameron & On Famous Women.
• Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343 – 1400) English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat. The Canterbury Tales.
• François Villon (c. 1431 – after 5 January 1463) French poet, thief, and vagabond. Best known for his Testaments and his Ballade des Pendus ("The Ballad of Yesterday's Belles"), written while in prison.

XVI Century

• Thomas More (c. Feb. 7, 1476 – c. Jan. 7, 1535) English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist.
• Sir Thomas Wyatt (c.1503 – 1542) Poet of King Henry VIII, "father of the English sonnet."
• Nostradamus (Dec. 14, 1503 – Jul. 2, 1566), French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide. He is best known for his book Les Propheties (The Prophecies).
• Luís Vaz de Camões (c. 1524 -- 1580). Considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet.
• Jan Kochanowski (c.1530 – 1584) Regarded as the Greatest Polish - Slavic poet prior to the 19th century.
• Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (c. Sept. 29, 1547 – Apr. 22, 1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern European novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written.
• William Shakespeare (Apr. 23, 1564 – Apr. 23, 1616) English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.
• Christopher Marlowe
• Ben Jonson

XVII Century

• Emilia Lanier Bassano (1569 – 1645) English poet. Best known for "Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum"
• Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft (1581-1647) Dutch historian, poet and playwright. the most prominent Dutch annual literature award is named after P.C. Hooft.
• Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679) Dutch poet and playwright, considered the most prominent Dutch poet and playwright of the 17th century.
• Ivan Đivo Gundulić (1589-1638) Most renowned and celebrated Croatian writer and poet of the Baroque Period.
• Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) French dramatist, called “the founder of French tragedy”.
• John Milton (Dec. 9, 1608 – 1674) English poet, best known for his blank verse epic "Paradise Lost".
• Anne Bradstreet (1612 - 1672) English-American writer, the first notable American poet, and the first woman to be published in Colonial America.

XVIII Century

• François Marie Arouet dit "Voltaire" (Nov. 21, 1694 – May 30, 1778) French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher.
• Robert Burns (Jan. 25, 1759 – Jul. 21, 1796) Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland.
• Sir Walter Scott (Aug. 15, 1771 – Sep. 21, 1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time.

XIX Century

• Jane Austen (Dec. 16, 1775 – Jul. 18, 1817) English novelist of romantic fiction. One of the most widely read writers in English literature.
• Wilhelm Grimm (Feb. 24, 1786 – Dec. 16, 1859) Best known as editors of the German Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales.
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Feb. 27, 1807 – Mar. 24, 1882) American poet. Paul Revere's Ride, The Song of Hiawatha, Evangelin.
• Lord Byron (Jan. 22, 1788 – Apr. 19, 1824) One of the greatest British poets and a leading figure in Romanticism.
• Percy Bysshe Shelley (Aug. 4, 1792 – Jul. 8, 1822) Major English Romantic poet and is regarded among the finest lyric poets in the English language.
• Heinrich Heine (Dec. 13, 1797 – Feb. 17, 1856) One of the most significant German poets of the 19th century; journalist, essayist, and literary critic.
• Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Пу́шкин] (Jun. 6 [O.S. May 26] 1799 – Feb. 10 [O.S. January 29] 1837 1799) The greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature.
• Honoré de Balzac (May 20, 1799 – Aug. 18, 1850) French novelist and playwright.
• Alexandre Dumas (Jul. 24, 1802 – Dec. 5, 1870) French writer. One of the most widely read French authors in the world. The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, The Vicomte de Bragelonne.
• Victor Hugo (26 Feb. 26, 1802 – May 22, 1885) French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist. Les Misérables, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
• George Sand (Jul. 1, 1804 – Jun. 8, 1876) French novelist and memoirist.
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Mar. 6, 1806 – Jun. 26, 1861) A most prominent poets of the Victorian era.
• Robert Browning (May 7, 1812 – Dec. 12, 1889) English poet and playwright. One of the foremost Victorian poets.
• Edgar Allen Poe (Jan. 19, 1809 – Oct. 7, 1849) American writer, poet, editor and literary critic.
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Aug. 6, 1809 – Oct. 6, 1892) One of the most popular English poets.
• Harriet Beecher Stowe (Jun. 14, 1811 – Jul. 1, 1896) Author of novels, poetry, essays, & non-fiction books. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
• Charles Dickens (Feb. 7, 1812 – Jun. 9, 1870) The most popular English novelist of the Victorian era, and one of the most popular of all time.
• Михаил Юрьевич Лермонтов, Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (Oct. 3, 1814 – Jul. 15,1841), Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus".
• Charlotte Bronte (Apr. 21, 1816 – Mar. 31, 1855) Eldest of the English trio of sibling poets and novelists.
• Christian Mommsen (Nov. 30, 1817 – Nov. 1, 1903) German historian and writer; his masterpiece - "The History of Rome". Nobel Prize in Literature 1902.
• Emily Jane Bronte (Jul. 30, 1818 – Dec. 19, 1848) One of the a English trio of sibling poets and novelists.
• Herman Melville (Aug. 1, 1819 – Sep. 28, 1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. Best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd.
• Ann Bronte (Jan. 17, 1820 – May 18, 1849) Youngest and least talented of the a English trio of sibling poets and novelists.
• George Eliot (Nov. 22, 1819 – Dec. 22, 1880) English novelist, journalist and translator, a leading writer of the Victorian era.
• Lewis Wallace (Apr. 10, 1827 – Feb. 15, 1905) American lawyer, governor, Union general in the American Civil War, statesman and author. Best remembered for his historical novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
• Jules Verne (Feb. 8, 1828 – Mar. 24, 1905) French author; pioneered the science-fiction genre.
• Henrik Ibsen (Mar. 20, 1828 – May 23, 1906) Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet; "the god father" of modern drama.
• Count Lyev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Лeв Никола́евич Толсто́й (Sep. 9 [O.S. August 28] 1828 – Nov. 20 [O.S. November 7] 1910) Russian writer, considered to be the world's greatest novelist. War and Peace and Anna Karenina
• Lewis Carroll (Jan. 27, 1832 – Jan. 14, 1898) English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• Mark Twain (Nov. 30, 1835 – Apr. 21, 1910) Considered to be "the father of American literature" and the "greatest American humorist of his age."
• Karl May (Feb. 25, 1842 – Mar. 30, 1912) Popular German writer, noted mainly for adventure novels set in the American Old West, (best known for the characters of Winnetou and Old Shatterhand).
• Henryk Sienkiewicz (May 5, 1846 – Nov. 15, 1916 1846) Polish journalist & writer. With Fire and Sword, The Deluge, Fire in the Steppe & Quo Vadis. Nobel Prize in Literature, 1905.
• Robert Louis Stevenson (Nov. 13, 1850 – Dec. 3, 1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
• Mary De Morgan (Feb. 20, 1850 – 1907) English writer and the author of Fairy Tales.
• Oscar Wild (Oct. 16, 1854 – Nov. 30, 1900) Irish writer, poet, wit, and prominent aesthete.
• O. Henry (Sep. 11, 1862 – Jun. 5, 1910) American writer famous for his short stories.
• Jack London (Jan. 12, 1876 – Nov. 22, 1916) American author, journalist, and social activist. White Fang, Call of the Wild.
• João Baptista da Silva Leitão de Almeida Garrett, Viscount of Almeida Garrett (Porto, 4 de fevereiro de 1799 — Lisboa, 9 de dezembro de 1854) He is considered to be the introducer of the Romanticism in Portugal. He is regarded as one of history's greatest romantics and a true revolutionary and humanist.
• Victor Segalen (14 January 1878 – 21 May 1919) was a French naval doctor, ethnographer, archeologist, writer, poet, explorer, art-theorist, linguist and literary critic.
• Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage (September 15, 1765 – December 21, 1805) was a Portuguese Neoclassic poet, writing under the pen name Elmano Sadino.

XX Century

Nobel Prizes in Literature

• 1901: Sully Prudhomme (1839 – 1907) French poet and essayist. Sully Prudhomme.
• 1902: Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (1817 – 1903) German historian and writer; his masterpiece - "The History of Rome".
• 1903: Bjørnstjerne Martinus Bjørnson (1832 – 1910) Norwegian writer.
• 1904: Frédéric Mistral (1830–1914) French writer and lexicographer of the Occitan language (jointly).
• 1904: José Echegaray y Eizaguirre (1832–1916) Spanish civil engineer, mathematician, statesman, and a leading Spanish dramatist (jointly).
• 1905: Henryk Sienkiewicz (May 5, 1846 – Nov. 15,1916) Polish journalist & writer.
• 1906: Giosuè Carducci (Jul. 27, 1835 – Feb. 16, 1907) Regarded as the national poet of modern Italy.
• 1907: Rudyard Kipling (Dec. 30, 1865 – Jan.18, 1936) English poet, short-story writer, and novelist. Best known for: The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), the short story, The Man Who Would Be King (1888); the poems, Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), The White Man's Burden (1899) and If— (1910).
• 1908: Rudolf Christoph Eucken (1846 – 1926) German philosopher.
• 1909: Selma Lagerlöf (Nov. 20, 1858 – Mar. 16, 1940) Swedish author. Known for her children's book The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgerssons.
• 1910: Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse (1830 – 1914) German writer and translator.
• 1911: count Maurice Polydore Marie Bernhard Maeterlinck (Aug. 29, 1862 – May 6, 1949) Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French.
• 1912: Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann (1862 – 1946) was a German dramatist and novelist.
• 1913: Rabindranath Tagore (May 7, 1861 – Aug. 7, 1941) Bengali poet, novelist, musician, painter and playwright.
• 1915: Romain Rolland (Jan. 29, 1866 – Dec. 30, 1944) French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and mystic.
• 1916: Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam (1859 – 1940) Swedish poet and novelist.
• 1917: Karl Adolph Gjellerup (1857 – 1919) Danish poet and novelist.
• 1917: Henrik Pontoppidan (1857 – 1943) Danish writer.
• 1919: Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler (1845 – 1924) Swiss Poet.
• 1920: Knut Hamsun (Aug. 4, 1859 – Feb. 19, 1952) Norwegian author. Was praised as Norway's soul.
• 1921: Anatole France, born François-Anatole Thibault (Apr. 16, 1844 – Oct. 12, 1924) French poet, journalist, and novelist.
• 1922: Jacinto Benavente y Benavente (1866 – 1954) Spanish dramatists.
• 1923: William Butler Yeats (Jun.13, 1865 – Jun.28, 1939) Irish poet and dramatist.
• 1924: Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont (1867 – 1925) Polish Novelist.
• 1925: George Bernard Shaw (Jul. 26, 1856 – Nov. 2, 1950) Irish playwright.
• 1926: Grazia Deledda (1871 – 1936) Italian novelist and short story writer.
• 1927: Henri Bergson (Oct. 18, 1859 – Jan. 4, 1941) French philosopher.
• 1928: Sigrid Undset (1882-1949) Norwegian novelist.
• 1929: Thomas Mann (Jun. 6, 1875 – Aug. 12, 1955) German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist and essayist.
• 1930: Sinclair Lewis (Feb. 7, 1885 – Jan. 10, 1951) American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright.
• 1931: Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1864 – 1931) Swedish poet.
• 1932: John Galsworthy (1867 – 1933) English novelist and playwright, The Forsyte Saga".
• 1933: Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (1870 – 1953) Russian writer.
• 1934: Luigi Pirandello (1867 – 1936) Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer.
• 1936: Eugene O'Neill (Oct. 16, 1888 – Nov. 17, 1953) American playwright.
• 1937: Roger Martin du Gard (1881 – 1958) French author, his novel-cycle Les Thibault".
• 1938: Pearl S. Buck (Jun. 26, 1892 – Mar. 6, 1973) also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu, 賽珍珠. American writer (until 1934 in China). Her best known novel was The Good Earth.
• 1939: Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1888 – 1964) Finnish writer.
• 1944: Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1873 – 1950) Danish writer.
• 1945: Gabriela Mistral (1889 – 1957) Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist who was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 1946: Hermann Hesse (Jul. 2, 1877 – Aug. 9, 1962) German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game (also known as Magister Ludi).
• 1947: André Paul Guillaume Gide (Nov. 22, 1869 – Feb. 19,1951) French author.
• 1948: Thomas Eliot (Sep. 26, 1888 – Jan. 4, 1965) American-born English poet, playwright, and literary critic, arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century.
• 1949: William Faulkner (Sept. 25, 1897 – Jul. 6, 1962) American novelist and short story writer. One of the most influential writers of the 20th century.
• 1950: Earl (Bertrand Arthur William) Russell (May 18, 1872 – Feb. 2, 1970) British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, pacifist, and social critic.
• 1951: Pär Fabian Lagerkvist (May 23, 1891 – Jul. 11, 1974) Swedish author.
• 1952: François Mauriac (Oct. 11, 1885 – Sep. 1, 1970) French author.
• 1953: Sir Winston Churchill KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Nov. 30, 1874 – Jan. 24, 1965) A noted statesman, orator, soldier, historian, writer, and artist.
• 1954: Ernest Hemingway (Jul. 21, 1899 — Jul. 2, 1961) American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist.
• 1955: Halldór Kiljan Laxness born Guðjónsson (1902 – 1998) Icelandic writer of poetry, newspaper articles, plays, travelogues, short stories, and novels.
• 1956: Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón (1881 – 1958) Spanish poet and prolific writer.
• 1957: Albert Camus (Nov. 7, 1913 – Jan. 4, 1960) French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century.
• 1958: Boris Pasternak Борис Пастернак (Jan. 29, 1890 – May 30, 1960) Russian language poet, novelist, and translator of Goethe and Shakespeare. Best known for the anthology My Sister Life and Doctor Zhivago.
• 1959: Salvatore Quasimodo (1901 – 1968) Italian author and poet.
• 1960: Saint-John Perse (1887 – 1975) French poet and diplomat.
• 1961: Ivo Andrić (1892 – 1975) Yugoslav novelist and short story writer.
• 1962: John Steinbeck (Feb. 27, 1902 — Dec. 20, 1968) American writer.
• 1963: Giorgos Seferis (1900 – 1971) Greek poet and diplomat,
• 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre (Jun. 21, 1905 – Apr. 15, 1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. Refused the Nobel Prize.
• 1965: Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov (May 24, 1905 – Feb.21, 1984) Russian novelist. His most famous novel Tikhi Don (And Quiet Flows the Don).
• 1966: ש"י עגנון Shmuel (Shai) Agnon (Jul. 17, 1888 – Feb. 17, 1970) One of the central figures of modern Hebrew fiction (jointly).
• 1966: Nelly Sachs (Dec. 10, 1891 – May 12, 1970) Jewish German poet and playwright (jointly).
• 1967: Miguel Asturias (Oct. 19, 1899 – Jun. 9, 1974) Guatemalan poet, novelist, playwright, journalist and diplomat.
• 1968: Yasunari Kawabata (1899 – 1972) Japanese short story writer and novelist.
• 1969: Samuel Barclay Beckett (Apr. 13, 1906 – Dec. 22, 1989) Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet.
• 1970: Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (Dec. 11, 1918 – Aug. 3, 2008) Russian and Soviet novelist, dramatist, and historian. Notable work: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The First Circle, The Cancer Ward, The Gulag Archipelago, The Red Wheel.
• 1971: Pablo Neruda (Jul. 12, 1904 – Sep. 23, 1973) Chilean poet and politician. Known for Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair, surrealist poems, historical epics, and overtly political manifestos.
• 1972: Heinrich Theodor Böll (1917 – 1985) One of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers.
• 1973: Patrick Victor Martindale White (1912 – 1990) Australian novelist, short story writer, and playwright.
• 1974: Eyvind Johnson (1900 – 1976) Swedish writer, (jointly).
• 1974: Harry Martinson (1904 – 1978) Swedish sailor, author and poet, (jointly).
• 1975: Eugenio Montale (1896 – 1981) Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator.
• 1976: Saul Bellow (Jun. 10, 1915 – Apr. 5, 2005) Canadian-born American writer. Awarded also the Pulitzer Prize & the National Medal of Arts.
• 1977: Vicente Pío Marcelino Cirilo Aleixandre y Merlo (1898 – 1984) Spanish poet.
• 1978: Isaac Bashevis Singer (Jul. 14, 1902 – Jul. 24, 1991) Polish Jewish American author noted for his short stories.
• 1979: Odysseus Elytis (1911 – 1996) Greek poet.
• 1980: Czesław Miłosz (1911 – 2004) Polish poet, prose writer and translator, of Lithuanian origin and subsequent American citizenship. His famous novel The Captive Mind Polish: Zniewolony umysł).
• 1981: Elias Canetti Елиас Канети (1905 – 1994) Bulgarian-born novelist and non-fiction writer of Sephardi Jewish ancestry who wrote in German.
• 1982: Gabriel Garcia Marquez (b. March 6, 1927) Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo.
• 1983: sir William Gerald Golding (1911 – 1993) British novelist, poet and playwright.
• 1984: Jaroslav Seifert (1901 – 1986) Czech writer, poet and journalist.
• 1985: Claude Simon (1913 – 2005) French novelist.
• 1986: Akinwande Oluwole -Wole- Soyinka (b. 1934) Nigerian writer, poet and playwright.
• 1986: Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE (b. 1928) Romanian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1986.
• 1987: Joseph Brodsky (1940 – 1996) Russian poet and essayist.
• 1988: نجيب محفوظ Naguib Mahfouz (Dec. 11, 1911 – Aug. 30, 2006) Egyptian writer.
• 1989: Camilo José, Manuel Juan Ramón Francisco de Jerónimo, Cela y Trulock (1916 – 2002) Spanish novelist and short story writer.
• 1990: Octavio Paz (1914 – 1998) Mexican writer, poet, diplomat.
• 1991: Nadine Gordimer (born 1923) South African writer, political activist.
• 1992: Derek Alton Walcott (b. 1930) Saint Lucian poet, playwright, writer and visual artist.
• 1993: Toni Morrison (b. 1931) American author and editor.
• 1994: Kenzaburo Ōe (b. 1935) Japanese author and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature.
• 1995: Seamus Heaney (b. 1939) Irish poet, writer and lecturer.
• 1996: Wisława Szymborska (b. 1923) Polish poet, essayist and translator.
• 1997: Dario Fo (b. 1926) Italian satirist, playwright, theater director, actor and composer.
• 1998: Jose Saramago (1922 – 2010) Portuguese novelist, playwright, journalist.
• 1999: Günter Grass (b. Oct. 16, 1927) German Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Sculptor, Graphic Designer, Painter. Best known novel The Tin Drum.
• 2000: Gao Xingjian 高行健 (born 1940) Chinese-born novelist, playwright, critic, and painter.
• 2001: Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (born 1932) Indo-Trinidadian-British writer.
• 2002: Imre Kertész (b. 1929) Hungarian Jewish author.
• 2003: John Maxwell Coetzee (b. 1940) South Africa born Australian novelist, literary critic and translator.
• 2004: Elfriede Jelinek (b. 1946) Austrian playwright and novelist. Did not accept the prize in person.
• 2005: Harold Pinter, CH, CBE (Oct. 10, 1930 - Dec. 24, 2008) English playwright, screenwriter, actor, theatre director, poet, left-wing political activist and cricket enthusiast.
• 2006: Ferit Orhan Pamuk (b. 1952) Turkish novelist.
• 2007: Doris Lessing (b. 1919) British Novelist and writer. Her novels include 'The Grass is Singing', 'The Golden Notebook' and five novels collectively known as 'Canopus in Argos'.
• 2008: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (b. 1940) French & Mauritian novelist, short stories author, essayist and translator.
• 2009: Herta Müller (b. 1953) Romanian-born German novelist, poet and essayist.
• 2010: Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa (b. 1936) Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, . Best known novels: 'The Time of the Hero', 'The Green House', and the monumental 'Conversation in the Cathedral'.
• 2011: Tomas Tranströmer (b. 1931) Swedish writer, poet and translator.
• 2012: Mo Yan, 莫言 (b. 1955) Chinese novelist and short story writer, "who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary".

Other Writers (with Geni profiles)

• Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867 – 1957) American author, wrote the Little House (on the Praire) series of children's books.
• Amy Lawrence Lowell (1874 — 1925) American poet of the imagist school who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926.
• William Somerset Maugham (Jan. 25, 1874 – Dec. 16, 1965) English author, novelist and playwright. Best known novels: Of Human Bondage, The Razor's Edge and The Moon and Sixpence.
• Edgar Rice Burroughs (Sep. 21, 1875 – Mar. 19, 1950) American author. Famous novels: Tarzan of the Apes, John Carter of Mars.
• Jack London (Jan. 12, 1876 – Nov. 22, 1916) American author, journalist, and social activist. White Fang, Call of the Wild.
• Damon Runyon (Oct. 4, 1880 – Dec. 10, 1946) American newspaperman and author. Best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era.
• Stefan Zweig (Nov. 28, 1881 – Feb. 23, 1942) Austrian Jewish novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer.
• James Joyce (Feb. 2, 1882 – Jan. 13, 1941) Irish novelist considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century. Best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work, the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939).
• Karen von Blixen-Finecke, Isak Dinesen (1885 – 1962), Danish author also known under her pen name Isak Dinesen. Best known, at least in English, for "Out of Africa".
• Jean Cocteau (Jul. 5, 1889 – Oct. 11, 1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager, playwright, artist and filmmaker.
• Fernando Pessoa (June 13, 1888 - November 30, 1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic and translator, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language. He also wrote in and translated from English and French.
• Elwyn Brooks Andy White (1899 – 1985) American writer. Famous for the children novels "Charlotte's Web" and "Stuart Little".
• רחל המשוררת Rachel the Poetess (1890 – 1931) Superb Lyric poet (in Hebrew). First Jewish woman poet in Palestine to receive recognition in a genre that was comprised solely of men. Poems by Rachel have been translated to English, German, Czech, Polish, Esperanto, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian, Basque and Slovak.
• Aldous Leonard Huxley (Jul. 26, 1894 – Nov. 22, 1963) English-American writer and philosopher.
• Bertolt Brecht (Feb. 10, 1898 – Aug. 14, 1956) German poet, playwright, and theatre director.
• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Jul. 29, 1900 – Jul. 31, 1944) French writer and aviator. Best remembered for The Little Prince, Night Flight and Wind, Sand and Stars.
• George Orwell (Jun 25, 1903 – Jan. 21, 1950) British author best known for his antitotalitarian satires Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).
• Arthur Miller (Oct. 17, 1915 – Feb. 10, 2005) American playwright and essayist. A prominent figure in American theatre and cinema for over 61 years, writing a wide variety of dramas, including celebrated plays such as The Crucible, A View from the Bridge, All My Sons, and Death of a Salesman, which are studied and performed worldwide.
• Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (Dec. 16, 1917 – Mar. 19, 2008) British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist.
• Isaac Asimov (Jan. 2, 1920 – Apr. 6, 1992) American author, one of the three grand masters of science fiction.
• Ray Bradbury (b. 1920) American speculative fiction author.
• James Dickey (1923 — 1997) American poet and author.
• Adin Steinsaltz (b. 1937) Time magazine praised as a "once-in-a-millennium scholar". Israeli noted rabbi, scholar, philosopher, social critic and author.
• Amos Oz (b. Jan. 1, 1939) The best-known living novelist in Israel.
• Isabel Allende Liona (b. 1942) Chilean American writer. She has been called "the world’s most widely read Spanish-language author". Best known for The House of the Spirits (La casa de los espíritus) (1982) and City of the Beasts (La ciudad de las bestias).
• J. K. Rowling (b. Jul. 31, 1965) British author best known as the creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series.
• Eça de Queiroz (1845 - 1900) Is generally considered to be the greatest Portuguese writer in the realist style.

Other Writers

• Norman Mailer
• Norman Kingsley Mailer (1923 - 2007) was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter and film director. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Book Award once. In 2005 he received the lifetime 'Medal for distinguished contribution to American Letters. He wrote over 40 books and published 11 novels over a fifty year span.
• James Baldwin
• John Champlin Gardner, Jr. (1933 – 1982) was an American novelist, essayist, literary critic and university professor. He is perhaps most noted for his novel Grendel, a retelling of the Beowulf myth from the monster's point of view (wikipedia.com), but his masterpeice was The Sunlight Dialogues. The Kings Indian, and The Wreckage of Agathon are also noteworthy.
• Vladimir Nabokov (1899 - 1977) "was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov's first nine novels were in Russian. He then rose to international prominence as a writer of English prose. He also made contributions to entomology and had a serious interest in chess problems. Nabokov's Lolita (1955) is frequently cited as among his most important novels and is his most widely known, exhibiting the love of intricate word play and synesthetic detail that characterised all his works. The novel was ranked at No. 4 in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels. Pale Fire (1962) was ranked at No. 53 on the same list. His memoir, Speak, Memory, was listed No. 8 on the Modern Library nonfiction list." (wikipedia.org)
• Richard Brautigan - check the link for a list of all his books, but don't miss Confederate General at Big Sur, an intergeneration LOL.
• Maurice Sendak, Maurice Sendak, the renowned children's author whose books captivated generations of kids and simultaneously scared their parents. Sendak wrote and illustrated more than 50 children's books--including "Where the Wild Things Are," his most famous, published in 1963.