Literature

The people behind books, poems, and plays.

People in Literature

325 profiles

Novelist

Jane Austen

Writing Pride and Prejudice and Emma.

Novelist

Charles Dickens

Writing Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol.

Novelist

Toni Morrison

Writing Beloved and winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Writer

Maya Angelou

Writing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Poet

Rabindranath Tagore

Writing Gitanjali and songs that became two national anthems.

Writer

George Orwell

Writing Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Writer

J. R. R. Tolkien

Creating Middle-earth in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Writer

Jack London

Writing The Call of the Wild and White Fang.

Writer

A. A. Milne

Creating Winnie-the-Pooh and the Hundred Acre Wood.

Poet

Lord Byron

Writing Don Juan and embodying the rebellious Romantic poet.

Writer

Virginia Woolf

Writing Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and A Room of One’s Own.

Writer

Jules Verne

Writing Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas and Around the World in Eighty Days.

Writer

Alice Walker

Writing The Color Purple.

Playwright

Bertolt Brecht

Writing Mother Courage and developing epic theatre.

Writer

Victor Hugo

Writing Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

Writer

John Steinbeck

Writing The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men.

Writer

Dr. Seuss

Creating The Cat in the Hat, the Grinch and Green Eggs and Ham.

Writer

Gabriel García Márquez

Writing One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Writer

Douglas Adams

Creating The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Writer

Jack Kerouac

Writing On the Road and becoming a central Beat writer.

Writer

Hans Christian Andersen

Writing fairy tales including The Little Mermaid and The Ugly Duckling.

Poet

Seamus Heaney

Writing poetry rooted in Irish rural life, history and moral conflict.

Novelist

Charlotte Brontë

Writing Jane Eyre, a novel centred on a woman’s independence and inner life.

Novelist

Harper Lee

Writing To Kill a Mockingbird.

Playwright

J. M. Barrie

Creating Peter Pan, the boy who would not grow up.

Writer

Arthur Conan Doyle

Creating Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.

Poet

Walt Whitman

Writing Leaves of Grass and expanding American free verse.

Writer

Thomas Hardy

Writing Tess of the d’Urbervilles and novels set in a changing rural Wessex.

Poet

Alexander Pushkin

Writing Eugene Onegin and helping shape modern Russian literature.

Poet

W. B. Yeats

Writing major Irish poetry and helping establish the Abbey Theatre.

Writer

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Writing the antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Novelist

Pearl S. Buck

Writing The Good Earth and portraying rural Chinese life for international readers.

Writer

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Writing and illustrating The Little Prince.

Writer

Franz Kafka

Writing The Metamorphosis and The Trial.

Writer

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Writing The Scarlet Letter.

Writer

Wole Soyinka

Writing Death and the King’s Horseman and winning Africa’s first literature Nobel.

Writer

Alexandre Dumas fils

Writing The Lady of the Camellias, the source of La traviata.

Writer

Beatrix Potter

Creating Peter Rabbit and his illustrated animal world.

Writer

J. K. Rowling

Creating Harry Potter and the wizarding world.

Writer

Herman Melville

Writing Moby-Dick and its obsessive hunt for a white whale.

Writer

James Baldwin

Writing incisively about race, identity and belonging in America.

Writer

Enid Blyton

Creating the Famous Five, Noddy and generations of children’s adventures.

Writer

H. P. Lovecraft

Imagining cosmic horror and the Cthulhu mythos.

Writer

Jorge Luis Borges

Creating labyrinths, imaginary books and philosophical short stories.

Writer

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Writing Faust and The Sorrows of Young Werther.

Writer

Mary Shelley

Writing Frankenstein and its unsettling question of a creator’s responsibility.

Writer

Leo Tolstoy

Writing War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

Writer

D. H. Lawrence

Writing Sons and Lovers and Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

Writer

Roald Dahl

Creating Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda and The BFG.

Writer

Agatha Christie

Creating Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and ingenious murder mysteries.

Writer

William Golding

Writing Lord of the Flies.

Writer

H. G. Wells

Imagining time travel, alien invasion and invisible men.

Writer

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Writing The Great Gatsby and the promises of the Jazz Age.

Writer

Truman Capote

Writing Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood.

Writer

Gore Vidal

Writing sharp political essays and novels that re-examined American history, power and sexuality.

Novelist

R. K. Narayan

Creating Malgudi, the fictional Indian town at the heart of Swami and Friends and The Guide.

Writer

P. G. Wodehouse

Creating Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, with comic plots powered by exquisite sentences and social misunderstandings.

Playwright

Oscar Wilde

Writing The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray, with wit that exposes social hypocrisy.

Playwright

Arthur Miller

Writing Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, dramas about private failure and public pressure.

Novelist

John le Carré

Writing morally complicated spy novels, including The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Novelist

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Writing Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, novels of guilt, faith and moral conflict.

Novelist

Chinua Achebe

Writing Things Fall Apart, a landmark novel of Igbo life and colonial disruption.

Writer

Margaret Atwood

Writing The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopia about women living under a religious dictatorship.

Writer

Arundhati Roy

Writing the Booker-winning The God of Small Things and outspoken political essays.

Poet

William Blake

Creating visionary poems and images, including The Tyger and Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

Writer

C. S. Lewis

Creating The Chronicles of Narnia and writing influential explanations of Christian belief.

Writer

Rudyard Kipling

Writing The Jungle Book, Kim and the Just So Stories.

Playwright

William Shakespeare

Writing Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and other enduring plays.

Novelist

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Writing Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah.

Poet

Rumi

Writing the Masnavi and devotional poetry associated with Sufi thought.

Writer

Stephen King

Writing horror and suspense novels including Carrie, The Shining and It.

Writer

Haruki Murakami

Writing surreal novels including Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore and 1Q84.

Writer

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Writing major Kenyan novels and arguing for literature in African languages.

Writer

Abdulrazak Gurnah

Writing novels about colonialism, displacement and the lives of people caught between cultures.

Writer

Han Kang

Writing The Vegetarian and Human Acts, exploring violence, memory and human vulnerability.

Writer

Naguib Mahfouz

Writing the Cairo Trilogy and becoming the first Arabic-language Nobel literature laureate.

Writer

Kazuo Ishiguro

Writing The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go.

Writer

Orhan Pamuk

Writing My Name Is Red and exploring Istanbul’s layered identities.

Writer

Isabel Allende

Writing The House of the Spirits and stories shaped by family, exile and women’s lives.

Poet

Mahmoud Darwish

Giving poetic voice to Palestinian displacement, memory and belonging.

Writer

Kalidasa

Writing Sanskrit poetry and plays including Shakuntala and Meghaduta.

Writer

Salman Rushdie

Writing Midnight’s Children and becoming a prominent figure in debates over literary freedom.

Writer

James Joyce

Transforming the modern novel with Ulysses.

Writer

Miguel de Cervantes

Writing Don Quixote, a landmark in the development of the novel.

Writer

Witi Ihimaera

Bringing Māori lives and perspectives into internationally read fiction.

Poet

Judith Wright

Writing about Australian landscapes while confronting dispossession and environmental loss.

Writer

Zora Neale Hurston

Writing Their Eyes Were Watching God and documenting Black folklore.

Writer

Paulo Coelho

Writing The Alchemist, a widely translated novel about pursuing a personal calling.

Writer

Patricia Grace

Writing Māori lives and community relationships into modern New Zealand literature.

Writer

Octavia E. Butler

Using speculative fiction to examine power, survival and dependence.

Writer

Premchand

Writing Hindi and Urdu fiction about rural life, inequality and moral choices.

Writer

José Saramago

Writing philosophical novels including Blindness and winning the 1998 literature Nobel.

Writer

Murasaki Shikibu

Writing The Tale of Genji, a landmark of narrative fiction.

Writer

Mario Vargas Llosa

Writing major Latin American novels and winning the 2010 literature Nobel.

Writer

Nawal El Saadawi

Challenging patriarchy through fiction, medicine and public advocacy.

Writer

Leslie Marmon Silko

Writing Ceremony, a landmark novel of contemporary Native American literature.

Writer

Mia Couto

Writing Sleepwalking Land and reshaping Portuguese through Mozambican storytelling.

Writer

José Eduardo Agualusa

Reimagining Angolan history in novels such as A General Theory of Oblivion.

Writer

Tsitsi Dangarembga

Writing Nervous Conditions, a landmark novel about a Zimbabwean girl’s education.

Writer

Damon Galgut

Winning the Booker Prize for The Promise.

Poet

Nizar Qabbani

Writing widely loved Arabic poetry about love, freedom and political failure.

Poet

Forough Farrokhzad

Giving modern Persian poetry an intimate, independent female voice.

Poet

Pablo Neruda

Writing Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair and the epic Canto General.

Poet

Gabriela Mistral

Becoming the first Latin American writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Poet

Octavio Paz

Writing The Labyrinth of Solitude and the long poem Sunstone.

Writer

Alice Munro

Turning small-town lives into intricate short stories with the scope of novels.

Novelist

Doris Lessing

Writing The Golden Notebook and fiction about women, politics and social division.

Novelist

Nadine Gordimer

Writing novels that exposed apartheid’s effects on private lives.

Novelist

J. M. Coetzee

Writing Waiting for the Barbarians and the Booker-winning novels Life & Times of Michael K and Disgrace.

Novelist

V. S. Naipaul

Writing A House for Mr Biswas and searching accounts of colonial and postcolonial life.

Novelist

Mo Yan

Writing Red Sorghum and novels blending Chinese rural life, history and fantastical storytelling.

Writer

Gao Xingjian

Writing Soul Mountain and experimental drama that crossed Chinese and European traditions.

Novelist

Kenzaburō Ōe

Writing A Personal Matter and fiction confronting war, disability and responsibility.

Novelist

Yasunari Kawabata

Writing Snow Country and becoming Japan’s first Nobel laureate in literature.

Poet

Wisława Szymborska

Writing precise, ironic poems that find large questions in ordinary situations.

Poet

Czesław Miłosz

Writing The Captive Mind and poetry shaped by war, exile and moral reflection.

Novelist

Olga Tokarczuk

Writing Flights and The Books of Jacob, novels that cross borders of history and identity.

Novelist

Herta Müller

Writing about surveillance, displacement and daily life under dictatorship.

Novelist

Patrick Modiano

Writing novels that reconstruct lost identities and memories of occupied Paris.

Writer

Annie Ernaux

Writing The Years and autobiographical books connecting private memory with class and social history.

Playwright

Jon Fosse

Writing spare plays and the novel sequence Septology in Norwegian Nynorsk.

Poet

Louise Glück

Writing The Wild Iris and intimate poetry shaped by myth, family and loss.

Writer

Svetlana Alexievich

Creating books from eyewitness voices about war, Chernobyl and the Soviet aftermath.

Novelist

Selma Lagerlöf

Writing The Wonderful Adventures of Nils and becoming the first woman to win the literature Nobel.

Novelist

Sigrid Undset

Writing Kristin Lavransdatter, an expansive portrait of a woman’s life in medieval Norway.

Novelist

Grazia Deledda

Bringing Sardinian lives and moral conflicts into internationally recognised fiction.

Playwright

Luigi Pirandello

Writing Six Characters in Search of an Author and plays that question identity and reality.

Novelist

Ernest Hemingway

Writing The Old Man and the Sea and shaping a spare, understated style of fiction.

Novelist

Thomas Mann

Writing Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain and Death in Venice.

Writer

Heinrich Böll

Writing unsparing portraits of postwar Germany, including The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum.

Writer

Elias Canetti

Exploring collective behaviour in Crowds and Power and obsession in Auto-da-Fé.

Writer

André Gide

Writing The Immoralist and The Counterfeiters while questioning social and moral conventions.

Novelist

Miguel Ángel Asturias

Writing The President and Men of Maize, bringing dictatorship and Maya traditions into major fiction.

Novelist

Alejo Carpentier

Writing The Kingdom of This World and developing the idea of the marvellous real.

Novelist

Carlos Fuentes

Writing The Death of Artemio Cruz and helping lead the Latin American literary Boom.

Novelist

Jorge Amado

Writing widely translated novels of Bahia, including Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon.

Novelist

Graciliano Ramos

Writing Vidas Secas, a spare portrait of a family struggling through drought and poverty.

Novelist

João Guimarães Rosa

Writing Grande Sertão: Veredas and reinventing literary Portuguese through backlands speech.

Writer

Elena Poniatowska

Recording overlooked Mexican lives and the testimony of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre.

Writer

Elena Garro

Writing Los recuerdos del porvenir and plays that unsettle ordinary ideas of time.

Novelist

Laura Esquivel

Writing Like Water for Chocolate, where cooking carries emotions into the lives of others.

Novelist

Roberto Bolaño

Writing The Savage Detectives and 2666, novels of literary obsession and violence.

Novelist

Manuel Puig

Writing Kiss of the Spider Woman and novels shaped by cinema, conversation and popular culture.

Writer

Eduardo Galeano

Writing Open Veins of Latin America and Memory of Fire.

Writer

Édouard Glissant

Writing Poetics of Relation and exploring how cultures transform through contact.

Writer

Jacques Roumain

Writing Masters of the Dew, a major Haitian novel about solidarity and survival.

Writer

Dany Laferrière

Writing The Enigma of the Return and an autobiographical body of work spanning Haiti and North America.

Writer

Jamaica Kincaid

Writing Annie John and A Small Place, exploring family, colonialism and belonging.

Writer

Sam Selvon

Writing The Lonely Londoners in a Caribbean voice that transformed the English-language novel.

Writer

George Lamming

Writing In the Castle of My Skin and examining Caribbean identity after colonialism.

Writer

Ama Ata Aidoo

Writing The Dilemma of a Ghost and Changes, exploring African women’s lives.

Writer

Abdourahman Waberi

Writing Transit and In the United States of Africa about migration and global inequality.

Writer

Ferdinand Oyono

The novelist whose Houseboy exposed colonial racism through the diary of a young African servant.

Writer

Mariama Bâ

The author of So Long a Letter, a landmark novel about women, marriage and independence in Senegal.

Writer

Aminata Sow Fall

The Senegalese novelist whose The Beggars’ Strike turns social exclusion into sharp satire.

Writer

Chigozie Obioma

The novelist whose The Fishermen and An Orchestra of Minorities were both shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Writer

Helon Habila

The novelist whose Oil on Water explores lives damaged by conflict and pollution in the Niger Delta.

Writer

Ben Okri

The Booker-winning author of The Famished Road, where a spirit-child moves between visible and invisible worlds.

Writer

Maaza Mengiste

Reclaiming Ethiopian histories through Beneath the Lion’s Gaze and The Shadow King.

Writer

Nuruddin Farah

Exploring dictatorship, family and exile through novels such as From a Crooked Rib and Maps.

Writer

Léonora Miano

Writing award-winning fiction about African histories and lives between cultures.

Writer

Véronique Tadjo

Writing across poetry, fiction and children’s books about African lives and memory.

Writer

Yvonne Vera

Writing lyrical novels about women’s lives and Zimbabwe’s difficult history.

Writer

Aminatta Forna

Writing The Memory of Love and exploring the personal aftermath of war.

Writer

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Reworking Ugandan history and Ganda oral traditions in contemporary fiction.

Novelist

Abdullah Hussain

Writing Udaas Naslain, a landmark Urdu novel about upheaval, class and Partition.

Writer

Ismat Chughtai

Writing candid Urdu fiction about women, class and desire, including Lihaaf.

Writer

Saadat Hasan Manto

Writing uncompromising Urdu stories about Partition and people pushed to society’s margins.

Writer

Bapsi Sidhwa

Exploring Partition through the novel Ice-Candy-Man, also known as Cracking India.

Novelist

Kamila Shamsie

Writing Home Fire, the Women’s Prize-winning novel about family, citizenship and divided loyalties.

Novelist

Mohammed Hanif

Writing the political satire A Case of Exploding Mangoes.

Novelist

Vikram Seth

Writing A Suitable Boy and the verse novel The Golden Gate.

Novelist

Amitav Ghosh

Writing the Ibis trilogy about empire, migration and the opium trade.

Writer

Kiran Desai

Winning the Booker Prize for The Inheritance of Loss.

Writer

Rohinton Mistry

Writing A Fine Balance, an expansive novel about ordinary lives during India’s Emergency.

Writer

Aravind Adiga

Winning the Booker Prize with his debut novel The White Tiger.

Novelist

Perumal Murugan

Writing Tamil novels such as One Part Woman and Pyre about caste, intimacy and rural life.

Writer

P. Sivakami

Writing Tamil Dalit-feminist fiction that examines caste and patriarchal power.

Writer

Mahasweta Devi

Writing about marginalised communities in novels including Mother of 1084 and Aranyer Adhikar.

Writer

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay

Writing Devdas and Srikanta, stories of love and social pressure in Bengal.

Writer

Kalki Krishnamurthy

Writing Ponniyin Selvan and other influential Tamil historical novels.

Writer

Jayakanthan

Writing Tamil fiction that confronted social prejudice and the lives of marginalised people.

Writer

U. R. Ananthamurthy

Challenging caste and tradition in the Kannada novel Samskara.

Writer

Vaikom Muhammad Basheer

Writing Malayalam stories in the lively language of everyday people.

Writer

O. V. Vijayan

Transforming Malayalam fiction with The Legends of Khasak.

Writer

Girish Karnad

Reworking history and myth into major modern Kannada plays.

Writer

Vijay Tendulkar

Writing Marathi plays that confront violence, patriarchy and political power.

Playwright

Habib Tanvir

Bringing Chhattisgarhi performers and traditions into modern Indian theatre.

Poet

Lalleshwari

Composing the Kashmiri mystical verses known as vakhs.

Poet

Tukaram

Composing Marathi devotional abhangas that challenge pride and social hierarchy.

Poet

Kabir

Creating devotional poetry that challenges religious division and empty ritual.

Playwright

Athol Fugard

Dramatising apartheid’s human consequences in plays such as Blood Knot.

Playwright

Wajdi Mouawad

Writing Incendies, a family mystery shaped by war and inherited trauma.

Writer

Earl Lovelace

Writing novels deeply rooted in Trinidadian life and language.

Writer

Ayi Kwei Armah

Examining postcolonial society in The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born.

Writer

Petina Gappah

Writing Zimbabwean lives in An Elegy for Easterly.

Writer

Merlinda Bobis

Combining Philippine storytelling with migrant experience across fiction and performance.

Poet

Bishnu Dey

Helping shape modern Bengali poetry.

Writer

Kiran Nagarkar

Writing acclaimed fiction in both Marathi and English.

Writer

Ceridwen Dovey

Writing Blood Kin and the imaginative stories of Only the Animals.

Writer

Amiya Bhushan Majumdar

Writing distinctive Bengali prose including Rajnagar.

Poet

Breyten Breytenbach

Writing dissident Afrikaans poetry and opposing apartheid.

Poet

Subhash Mukhopadhyay

Bringing a direct political voice to modern Bengali poetry.

Writer

Moraa Gitaa

Writing Kenyan fiction about people at society’s margins.

Writer

Nirad C. Chaudhuri

Writing The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian.

Novelist

Lisa McInerney

Writing the Women’s Prize-winning novel The Glorious Heresies.

Writer

Esther David

Exploring Indian Jewish life in Book of Rachel and other fiction.

Writer

C. S. Chellappa

Writing Vaadivasal and founding the Tamil literary magazine Ezhuthu.

Writer

Alexander Nderitu

Publishing digital fiction and writing Kenyan stage plays.

Writer

P. Sri Acharya

Writing Tamil literary studies and a prize-winning biography of Ramanuja.

Novelist

Yael van der Wouden

Writing The Safekeep, winner of the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Writer

Samaresh Basu

Writing Bengali fiction about work, politics and desire.

Poet

Bharathidasan

Using Tamil poetry to argue for social equality and rationalism.

Novelist

George Yaraq

Writing the Lebanese civil-war novel Guard of the Dead.

Writer

Irenosen Okojie

Writing speculative fiction including the Caine Prize-winning Grace Jones.

Novelist

Susanna Clarke

Creating the imagined worlds of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and Piranesi.

Writer

Mamang Dai

Writing The Black Hill and recording Arunachal Pradesh’s stories.

Novelist

Ahmed Mourad

Writing the Egyptian thrillers Vertigo and The Blue Elephant.

Novelist

Eimear McBride

Writing A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing.

Playwright

Yussef El Guindi

Writing Back of the Throat and plays about immigrant experience.

Writer

Mabel Pagano

Writing Argentine fiction including Martes del final.

Writer

Abi Daré

Writing The Girl with the Louding Voice.

Writer

Andrea Levy

Exploring Britain and Jamaica in Small Island and The Long Song.

Writer

P. Lankesh

Writing in Kannada and founding Lankesh Patrike.

Writer

A. Srinivasa Raghavan

Writing the Tamil poetry collection Vellai Paravai.

Writer

Rebeka Njau

Writing The Scar and Ripples in the Pool.

Writer

Carlos Gardini

Writing Argentine science fiction and translating English-language literature into Spanish.

Writer

Moti Nandi

Bringing competitive sport into Bengali fiction.

Writer

Natasha Bowen

Writing the West African-inspired fantasy Skin of the Sea.

Writer

Pola Oloixarac

Writing Savage Theories and the literary satire Mona.

Novelist

Stephen Buoro

Writing The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa.

Writer

Ahmed Taymour

Collecting Arabic manuscripts and documenting literary and popular traditions.

Writer

J. Rodolfo Wilcock

Writing experimental fiction and poetry in Spanish and Italian.

Novelist

Kate Grenville

Writing The Secret River and The Idea of Perfection.

Poet

Shakti Chattopadhyay

Writing modern Bengali poetry including Jete Pari Kintu Keno Jabo.

Writer

Thi. Ka. Sivasankaran

Writing Tamil literary criticism and encouraging new writers through Thamarai.

Novelist

Mulk Raj Anand

Writing Untouchable and depicting social exclusion in Indian English fiction.

Novelist

Sahar Mandour

Writing 32 and novels about life in Beirut.

Writer

Taha Hussein

Modernising Arabic literary criticism and advocating broader education.

Novelist

Margaret Ogola

Tracing four generations of Kenyan women in The River and the Source.

Novelist

Raja Rao

Writing Kanthapura and The Serpent and the Rope.

Writer

Sunil Gangopadhyay

Writing Those Days and creating the Bengali adventurer Kakababu.

Novelist

M. V. Venkatram

Writing the Tamil novel Kathukal.

Poet

Dom Moraes

Winning the Hawthornden Prize for A Beginning.

Novelist

Widad Sakakini

Writing Arwa bint al-khutub and short fiction about women’s lives.

Poet

Binoy Majumdar

Writing Phire Esho, Chaka and poetry shaped by scientific imagery.

Poet

Kahlil Gibran

Writing The Prophet.

Writer

Nabaneeta Dev Sen

Writing Bengali poetry, fiction, travelogues and essays.

Writer

G. N. Devy

Documenting India’s languages and writing After Amnesia.

Novelist

Ali Smith

Writing inventive fiction including How to Be Both and the Seasonal Quartet.

Novelist

Maggie O'Farrell

Writing Hamnet and I Am, I Am, I Am.

Poet

Jayanta Mahapatra

Writing Relationship and A Rain of Rites.

Writer

Jurji Zaydan

Founding Al-Hilal and popularising Arab history through historical novels.

Novelist

Anne Michaels

Writing The Winter Vault and Held.

Writer

José Rizal

Writing Noli Me Tángere and El filibusterismo.

Novelist

Linda Grant

Writing fiction about memory, belonging and family history.

Novelist

Arun Joshi

Writing The Strange Case of Billy Biswas and The Last Labyrinth.

Novelist

Naomi Alderman

Writing The Power and stories for interactive games.

Writer

Mi. Pa. Somasundaram

Writing the Tamil travelogue Akkarai Cheemayil Arumadhangal.

Writer

A. S. Gnanasambandan

Writing Tamil literary criticism on Kamban and devotional literature.

Poet

A. K. Ramanujan

Writing poetry and translating classical Tamil and Kannada literature.

Writer

C. S. Lakshmi

Writing Tamil fiction as Ambai and documenting women’s lives.

Writer

V. V. Ganeshananthan

Writing Brotherless Night and Love Marriage.

Writer

Tayari Jones

Writing An American Marriage and Silver Sparrow.

Writer

Ann Patchett

Writing Bel Canto and co-founding Parnassus Books.

Historian

Rai San'yō

Writing the Japanese historical work Nihon Gaishi.

Writer

Doha Assy

Writing Egyptian fiction and researching cultural heritage.

Writer

Aziz Nesin

Satirising bureaucracy and inequality in Turkish literature.

Writer

Jessica Hagedorn

Writing Dogeaters and creating multimedia performance work.

Novelist

Akilan

Tamil novels including Vengayin Mainthan and Chitra Pavai

Novelist

Bimal Kar

Bengali fiction including the novel Asamay

Novelist

Jabbour Douaihy

Arabic novels exploring Lebanese lives and divisions

Poet

Mu. Metha

Modern Tamil poetry and film lyrics

Writer

Ruskin Bond

Stories of childhood and life in India’s Himalayan foothills

Writer

Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye

Coming to Birth and writing about Kenyan life

Writer

Rajshekhar Basu

Bengali satire as Parashuram and the dictionary Chalantika

Playwright

Neil Simon

Writing The Odd Couple and Lost in Yonkers

Novelist

Emily Nasrallah

Lebanese fiction about village life, migration and war

Novelist

Helen Dunmore

Writing A Spell of Winter and The Siege

Writer

R. P. Sethu Pillai

Tamil scholarship and the essay collection Tamil Inbam

Writer

Jacqueline Kahanoff

Essays on Levantine identity and coexistence

Writer

Sandipan Chattopadhyay

Experimental Bengali fiction and the Hungry Generation

Writer

Aadhavan Sundaram

Tamil fiction under the pen name Aadhavan

Poet

Keki N. Daruwalla

Indian English poetry including The Keeper of the Dead

Writer

Verrier Elwin

Anthropological writing and advocacy concerning India’s tribal communities.

Writer

Lope K. Santos

Writing Banaag at Sikat and advancing Tagalog grammar.

Writer

Annada Shankar Ray

Bengali poetry, essays and the travel diary Pathe Prabase.

Writer

Fatima Sharafeddine

Arabic books for children and young adults.

Writer

Atin Bandyopadhyay

Bengali fiction shaped by Partition and displacement.

Poet

Shankha Ghosh

Bengali poetry, literary criticism and scholarship on Tagore.

Writer

Carol Shields

Writing The Stone Diaries and attentive portraits of ordinary lives.

Writer

Thoppil Mohamed Meeran

Tamil novels including the award-winning Saivu Narkali.

Writer

Ali Ahmad Bakathir

Arabic verse drama and historical fiction.

Writer

A. M. Homes

Darkly comic novels and stories about American family life.

Writer

Ramapada Chowdhury

Bengali fiction and decades of literary editing.

Writer

Prapanchan

Tamil fiction including the historical novel Vaanam Vasappadum.

Poet

Nirendranath Chakravarty

Bengali poetry including Ulanga Raja and literary work for younger readers.

Writer

Asenath Bole Odaga

Kenyan-language publishing and stories rooted in children’s lives.

Novelist

Ruth Ozeki

Fiction connecting personal lives, environmental questions and time.

Novelist

Poomani

Tamil fiction about the black-soil countryside.

Novelist

Madeline Miller

Retelling Greek myth through The Song of Achilles and Circe.

Writer

Vannadasan

Tamil short stories and poetry under the name Kalyanji.

Novelist

Lionel Shriver

We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Poet

Puviarasu

Tamil poetry and translations of world literature.

Writer

Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay

Bengali novels including Ganadebata and Arogya Niketan.

Writer

Namita Gokhale

Novels and co-founding the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Writer

Tony Mochama

Kenyan poetry, journalism and young-adult fiction.

Writer

Sankar

Writing Chowringhee and stories of urban Bengali life.

Writer

Essam Yousef

The novel A Quarter Gram and television programme Al Abakera.

Writer

Gita Krishnankutty

Translating Malayalam literature into English.

Poet

Dale Wimbrow

Writing “The Man in the Glass”, originally titled “The Guy in the Glass”.

Writer

Alberto Gerchunoff

Writing The Jewish Gauchos of the Pampas.

Writer

Syed Mustafa Siraj

Writing Aleek Manush and creating detective Colonel Niladri Sarkar.

Novelist

Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay

Writing Bengali fiction including Ghunpoka and the Shabor detective stories.

Writer

Ki. Va. Jagannathan

Interpreting Tamil literature and editing Kalaimagal.

Novelist

Juan José Saer

Building a connected fictional world around Argentina’s Santa Fe region.

Writer

Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri

Interpreting the Mahabharata, Ramayana and Puranas in Bengali.

Novelist

Lola Akande

Writing What It Takes and Suitors Are Scarce in Lagos.

Poet

Tamilanban

Writing the Sahitya Akademi-winning Vanakkam Valluva.

Novelist

Ezzat el Kamhawi

Writing House of the Wolf

Writer

F. Sionil José

The Rosales Saga’s portrait of class and colonialism in the Philippines.

Writer

Miguel Syjuco

The prize-winning debut novel Ilustrado.

Writer

Prafulla Roy

Bengali fiction about migration and marginalised lives.

Poet

S. Abdul Rahman

Tamil poetry including the Sahitya Akademi-winning Aalapanai.

Writer

Temsüla Ao

Stories and ethnographic writing rooted in Naga experience.