Anniversaries, 13 April
Samuel Beckett
The Irishman Samuel Beckett is one of the most influential authors of the 20th century and a prominent figure within literary and dramatic absurdism. He was born in a wealthy Protestant family in Dublin. The death of his father in 1933, and also his contradictory and problematic relationship to his mother, became decisive for his life view. His years as a youth he has depicted in More Pricks Than Kicks (1934).
After language studies at Dublin's Trinity College, Beckett lived a vagabondish...
Anniversaries, 13 April
Seamus Heaney
The Irish poet, essayist and translator Seamus Justin Heaney was born at Mossbawn Farm near Castledawson, County Derry, Northern Ireland and brought up in a Roman Catholic family as the oldest of nine siblings. His father was a farmer and cattle dealer. Heaney won a scholarship at St. Columb's College, a boarding school situated in Derry, where he learned Greek and Latin. He then read English language and literature at Queen's University, Belfast, he qualified as a teacher at St. Joseph's...
Anniversaries, 13 April
Tim Krabbé
Hans Maarten Timotheus Krabbé was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where he still lives. His father, Maarten Krabbé, and his grandfather Hendrik Maarten Krabbé where both well-known painters; his mother, Margreet Reiss, was a translator and author of travel books. Tim Krabbé’s brothers are the actor Jeroen Krabbé and the multimedia artist Mirko Krabbé. Krabbé was raised by his mother after his parents’ divorce when he was 13 years old. His father, with whom he did not get on, continued to liv...
Anniversaries, 13 April
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio
French author, born and raised in Nice. His parents were British citizens with roots in Bretagne and in Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Since 1978, the author is a French-Mauritian citizen. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the father was working as a British army surgeon in Nigeria and found himself all of a sudden completely cut off from his family, which had taken up residence in Nice. He was not reunited with his family until 1948 when his wife took their two sons, the author and his...
Anniversaries, 13 April
Eudora Welty
Eudora Alice Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi as the oldest of three children. Her father, Christian Webb Welty, worked at an insurance company and was interested in technology and mechanics. Her mother, Mary Chestina, was a teacher, and she encouraged her children to read from an early age. Inspired by her father, Welty often included technological symbols in her stories.
She was educated at the Mississippi State College for girls in Columbus between 1925 and 1927 and at the University...
Anniversaries, 13 April
Bill Pronzini
The extremely prolific American author William John "Bill" Pronzini is the prize-winning author of over a hundred works of detective fiction, science fiction, western fiction, thrillers and horror fiction. He is also a renowned expert within these fields, and as such he has edited some hundred anthologies and short story collections by other authors. He has also published a large number of articles and prefaces and he owns a large library including an extensive collection of pulp fiction. He...
Photo: Bettmann / Getty Images (1943)
Sample of authors
Gardner, Erle Stanley
Erle Stanley Gardner was an American author and lawyer born in Malden, Massachusetts. His father was a mining engineer who worked across the continent, and Erle Stanley Gardner grew up in places as far apart as Yukon, Oregon and California. He attended Palo Alto High School until 1909 and then Valparaiso University, Indiana. He was a keen boxer as a young man, and some legal complications...