This week we celebrate authors of the past and present who had birthdays in the month of April. Check them out below.
Top Row (L-R): Charlotte Brontë, Washington Irving, Harper Lee, William Shakespeare, Henry James, Robert Penn Warren Bottom Row (L-R): Émile Zola, Nick Hornby, Nell Freudenberger, Anthony Trollope, Alistair MacLean, Thornton Wilder
Émile Zola
(April 2, 1840 – September 29, 1902)
Zola was a French writer, the most well-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902.
Washington Irving
(April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859)
Irving was an American author, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories Rip Van Winkle (1819) and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820).
Henry James
(April 15, 1843 – February 28, 1916)
James was an American-British writer who spent most of his writing career in Britain. He is regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism.
Thornton Wilder
(April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975)
Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes—for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and for the two plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth.
Nick Hornby
(April 17, 1957 – Present)
Hornby is an English novelist, essayist, lyricist, and screenwriter. He is best known for his novels High Fidelity and About a Boy. Hornby’s work frequently touches upon music, sport, and the aimless and obsessive natures of his protagonists. His books have sold more than 5 million copies worldwide as of 2009
Charlotte Brontë
(April 21, 1816 – March 31, 1855)
Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels have become classics of English literature. She first published her works (including her best known novel, Jane Eyre) under the pen name Currer Bell.
Alistair MacLean
(April 21, 1922 – February 2, 1987)
MacLean was a Scottish novelist who wrote popular thrillers and adventure stories.
Nell Freudenberger
(April 21, 1975 – Present)
Freudenberger is an American novelist who has written book reviews for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vogue and The Nation.
Anthony Trollope
(April 24, 1815 – December 6, 1882)
Trollope was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era.
Robert Penn Warren
(April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989)
Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel for his novel All the King’s Men (1946) and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1958 and 1979.
William Shakespeare
(April 23-26, 1564 – April 23, 1616)
Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon”.
Harper Lee
(April 28, 1926 – Present)
Lee is an American novelist widely known for her 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning To Kill a Mockingbird which deals with the racism she observed as a child in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. Though Lee only published this single book for half a century, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to literature.
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