Katherine Anne Porter Biography[edit] Katherine Anne Porter, born as Callie Russell Porter in Indian Creek, Texas,[3] was the fourth of five children of Harrison Boone Porter and Mary Alice (Jones) Porter. Her family tree can be traced back to American frontiersman Daniel Boone, and the writer O. In 1892, when Porter was two years old, Porter's mother died two months after giving birth to her last child. After her grandmother's death, the family lived in several towns in Texas and Louisiana, staying with relatives or living in rented rooms. In 1906, at age sixteen, Porter left home and married John Henry Koontz, in Lufkin, Texas the son of a wealthy Texas ranching family, and subsequently converted to Koontz's religion, Roman Catholicism.[5] Koontz was physically abusive; once while drunk, he threw her down the stairs, breaking her ankle. Also in 1915, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent the following two years in sanatoria, where she decided to become a writer. Awards and honors[edit] Works[edit]
James Joyce Joyce was born into a middle class family in Dublin, where he excelled as a student at the Jesuit schools Clongowes and Belvedere, then at University College Dublin. In his early twenties he emigrated permanently to continental Europe, living in Trieste, Paris and Zurich. Though most of his adult life was spent abroad, Joyce's fictional universe does not extend far beyond Dublin, and is populated largely by characters who closely resemble family members, enemies and friends from his time there; Ulysses in particular is set with precision in the streets and alleyways of the city. Shortly after the publication of Ulysses he elucidated this preoccupation somewhat, saying, "For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. Biography[edit] 1882–1904: Dublin[edit] Joyce's birth and baptismal certificate In 1891 Joyce wrote a poem on the death of Charles Stewart Parnell. Joyce at age six, 1888 Joyce in 1915
E. E. Cummings Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e e cummings (in the style of some of his poems—see name and capitalization, below), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. His body of work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings. He is remembered as an eminent voice of 20th century poetry. Life[edit] i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes From "i thank You God for most this amazing" (1950) Early years[edit] Edward Estlin Cummings was born into a Unitarian family, son of Edward Cummings and Rebecca Haswell Clarke. The war years[edit] They were imprisoned with other detainees in a large room. Grave of E.
William Faulkner Biography[edit] Faulkner was born William Cuthbert Falkner in New Albany, Mississippi, the first of four sons of Murry Cuthbert Falkner (August 17, 1870 – August 7, 1932) and Maud Butler (November 27, 1871 – October 19, 1960).[3] He had three younger brothers: Murry Charles "Jack" Falkner (June 26, 1899 – December 24, 1975), author John Falkner (September 24, 1901 – March 28, 1963) and Dean Swift Falkner (August 15, 1907 – November 10, 1935). Faulkner was born and raised in the state of Mississippi, which had a great influence on him, as did the history and culture of the American South altogether. His family, particularly his mother Maud, his maternal grandmother Lelia Butler, and Caroline Barr (the black woman who raised him from infancy) crucially influenced the development of Faulkner's artistic imagination. As a schoolchild, Faulkner had much success early on. Faulkner also spent much of his boyhood listening to stories told to him by his elders. Personal life[edit] Death[edit]
Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski;[1]:11–12 Berdichev, Imperial Russia, 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924, Bishopsbourne, Kent, England) was a Polish author who wrote in English after settling in England. He was granted British nationality in 1886, but always considered himself a Pole.[note 1] Conrad is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in English,[2] though he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties (and always with a marked accent). He wrote stories and novels, often with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an indifferent universe. While some of his works have a strain of romanticism, his works are viewed as modernist literature. Early life[edit] Nowy Świat 47, Warsaw, where three-year-old Conrad lived with his parents in 1861 Though the vast majority of the area's inhabitants were Ukrainians, the land was almost completely owned by the Polish szlachta (nobility) that Conrad's parents belonged to.
Franz Kafka Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In his lifetime, most of the population of Prague spoke Czech, and the division between Czech- and German-speaking people was a tangible reality, as both groups were strengthening their national identity. The Jewish community often found itself in between the two sentiments, naturally raising questions about a place to which one belongs. Kafka himself was fluent in both languages, considering German his mother tongue. Kafka trained as a lawyer and after completing his legal education, obtained employment with an insurance company. Life[edit] Family[edit] Plaque marking the birthplace of Franz Kafka in Prague. The Kafka family had a servant girl living with them in a cramped apartment. Education[edit] Employment[edit] Former home of the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute. Private life[edit] Kafka had an active sex life. Miss FB.
Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (/ˈbɛkɪt/; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, who lived in Paris for most of his adult life and wrote in both English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour. Beckett is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century.[2] He is considered one of the last modernists. As an inspiration to many later writers, he is also sometimes considered one of the first postmodernists. He is one of the key writers in what Martin Esslin called the "Theatre of the Absurd". His work became increasingly minimalist in his later career. Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation".[3] He was elected Saoi of Aosdána in 1984. Life and career[edit] Early life and education[edit]
F. Scott Fitzgerald Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigmatic writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.[1] Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s. He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby (his most famous), and Tender Is the Night. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, was published posthumously. Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with age and despair. Life and career[edit] Born in 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to an upper-middle-class family, Fitzgerald was named after his famous second cousin, three times removed, Francis Scott Key,[2] but was referred to by the familiar moniker Scott Fitzgerald. Zelda Fitzgerald[edit] "The Jazz Age"[edit] F.
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (/ˈwʊlf/; nee Stephen; 25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941) was an English writer, and one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century. During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929), with its famous dictum, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." Woolf suffered from severe bouts of mental illness throughout her life, thought to have been the result of what is now termed bipolar disorder,[1] and committed suicide by drowning in 1941 at the age of 59. Early life[edit] Woolf was educated by her parents in their literate and well-connected household at 22 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington. Bloomsbury[edit] Work[edit]