Clarice Lispector (December 10, 1920 — December 9, 1977) was one of the foremost Brazilian writers of her generation. Most famous for her novels and short stories, almost all of which experiment with form and language, she was also a journalist and wrote several high-profile columns for national newspapers.
Her works have been internationally acclaimed and widely translated, and she has often been placed alongside writers such as Virginia Woolf and James Joyce.
Born Chaya Pinkhasivna Lispector, Clarice Lispector was a Ukraine native. Her parents, Mania and Pinkhas Lispector were Jewish emigrants fleeing from the Russian pogroms. Mania gave birth to Clarice as the family made their way to Europe, and from there, to South America.
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Marguerite Henry (April 13, 1902 — November 26, 1977), was a beloved American author of animal stories for children. She authored more than fifty children’s books throughout, capturing especially the dreams and fantasies of horse-loving children everywhere.
Many of Marguerite Henry’s books are based on true stories of horses (and occasionally other animals), and have since been translated into twelve languages. Her best-known novels are Misty of Chincoteague (the basis for the 1961 movie Misty) and its sequels.
King of the Wind (1948) is another of her most popular novels, recognized as “the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children,” by the American Library Association. Both it and Misty of Chincoteague won the highest accolade a children’s book can garner, the Newbery Medal Award; King of the Wind won the Young Reader’s Choice Award in 1951 as well.
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The extraordinary feminist and Beat generation poet Diane di Prima (August 6, 1934 – October 5, 2020) was an active participant in the cultural and political movements of the last half of the twentieth century. She embodied the awareness of a poet’s sensibility required for these political fights to evolve. Photo at right: Estate of Diane di Prima.
Di Prima wrote the poem following when she was named as the San Francisco Poet Laureate in 2009. In eight seemingly simple lines, she brings the credo of her life’s visionary work: Read More→
Leonora Carrington (April 6, 1917 – May 25, 2011, born Mary Leonora Carrington) was a British-born artist and writer who lived much of her life in Mexico City. Most famous for her surrealist paintings and artwork, and her prominence in the Surrealist group of the 1930s, she was also an accomplished author who published short stories, a memoir, and a novel.
One of Leonora’s recent biographers, Joanna Moorhead (also a distant relative on Leonora’s mother’s side of the family), wrote: “The key to Leonora was that she was a rebel, and a rebel to the very core of her being.” Even in early childhood, Leonora did not conform. Read More→
Famed for Anna and the King of Siam (1944), which inspired a variety of adaptations, including the musical “The King and I,” American writer Margaret Landon (September 7, 1903 – December 4, 1993) spent more than a decade studying Siam (now Thailand) and a lifetime writing about it.
Anna and the King of Siam was Margaret Landon’s crowning achievement. It sold over one million copies and has been translated into more than twenty languages. Based on the true story of Anna Leonowens, who served as governess to the King Mongkut, in the 19th century, it introduced Western readers to a world of Asian culture. Read More→
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