Friday, October 10, 2014

October Literary Birthdays


Fall is in full swing! Let’s celebrate authors who were born in October. Here is our list of October literary birthdays:

Oscar Wilde (October 16, 1854 - November 30, 1900)
“Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde Irish wit, poet, and dramatist whose reputation rests on his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and on his comic masterpieces Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest. He was a spokesman for the late 19th-century Aesthetic movement in England, which advocated art for art’s sake, and he was the object of celebrated civil and criminal suits involving homosexuality and ending in his imprisonment (1895–97).”

Gore Vidal (October 3, 1925- July 31, 2012)

“Gore Vidal, original name Eugene Luther Gore Vidal, Jr., prolific American novelist, playwright, and essayist, noted for his irreverent and intellectually adroit novels is the author of multiple novels, including Burr, The City and the Pillar, and Myra Breckinridge.”

Thomas Keneally (born October 7, 1935)

“Thomas Keneally is an Australian novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982 which was inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor. The book would later be adapted to Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.”

P.G. Wodehouse (October 15, 1881 - February 14, 1975)

“Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse is English-born comic novelist, short-story writer, lyricist, and playwright, best known as the creator of Jeeves (Jeeves and Wooster novels), the supreme “gentleman’s gentleman.” He wrote more than 90 books and more than 20 film scripts and collaborated on more than 30 plays and musical comedies.”

Anne Rice (born October 4, 1941)

"Anne Rice, American author who is best known for her The Vampire Chronicles. Rice was christened Howard Allen O’Brien but hated her first name so much that she changed it to Anne in the first grade. The city of New Orleans, with its elaborate cemeteries and Vodou heritage, was an ideal place to grow up amid a family of imaginative storytelling Irish Catholics. "

Mario Puzo (October 15, 1920 – July 2, 1999)

“Mario Puzo was born into an immigrant family, the son of a railway trackman. The discovery of public libraries, and the world of literature, led Puzo in the direction of writing. Puzo’s breakthrough came in 1969 with The Godfather, his novel about the mafia, corruption, violence, and honour. The novel stayed on US best-seller lists for sixty-seven weeks. Puzo's book had a deep impact on American society through its film adaptation.”

Günter Grass (born October 16, 1927)

“Günter Grass, in full Günter Wilhelm Grass, German poet, novelist, playwright, sculptor, and printmaker who, with his extraordinary first novel Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum), became the literary spokesman for the German generation that grew up in the Nazi era and survived the war. In 1999 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.”

No comments:

Post a Comment