1511 – Giorgio Vasari, Italian writer, historian, painter, and architect who wrote Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, considered the ideological foundation of art-history writing; he was also the first to use the term “Renaissance” in print.
1818 – Emily Brontë, English author and poet whose only novel, Wuthering Heights, published under the name Ellis Bell, is considered a classic of English literature; her sisters Ann and Charlotte are also key literary figures.
1827 – Susan Shelby Magoffin, American writer whose diary, written as she traveled along the Santa Fe Trail in the late 1840s, has been used extensively by historians as a source for information about the lives of the pioneers.
1859 – Julia Frankau, bestselling English novelist and nonfiction author who often wrote under the name Frank Danby; her first novel was controversial because of its satirical portrayal of London Jews and Jewish life and its discussion of euthanasia; she also wrote three nonfiction books about engraving.
1889 – Rosa Borja de Ycaza, Ecuadorian writer, composer, poet, sociologist, essayist, dramatist, and activist for women’s rights and the rights of workers.
1889 – Dorothy Violet Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington (also known as Lady Gerald Wellesley), English author, poet, and literary editor.
1904 – Salvador Novo, influential Mexican poet, playwright, translator, and essayist.
1912 – Anne Ridler, English poet, writer, librettist, and editor.
1913 – Nankichi Niimi, Japanese teacher, writer, and children’s author who was sometimes known as the Hans Christian Andersen of Japan.
1918 – Auður Sveinsdóttir Laxness, Icelandic writer and craftswoman, credited with influencing the design and popularity of the Icelandic Lopapeysa sweater during the mid-20th century; as a writer, she sometimes collaborated with her husband, Nobel Literature laureate Halldór Laxness.
1924 – José Antonio Villarreal, Mexican-American novelist whose books concern Chicano life in the American Southwest; he has been called the “pivotal transitional link between ‘Mexican American’ and ‘Chicano’ literature”, both because of his strengths as a novelist and because of his rediscovery of Latino literature in the 1970s
1931 – Dominique Lapierre, French novelist, memoirist, biographer, history writer, investigative journalist, and world traveler, best known in the U.S. for his collaborations with Larry Collins.
1945 – Patrick Modiano, Nobel Prize-winning French novelist, praised “for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation.”
1946 – Barbara Kopple, two-time Academy Award-winning American documentary filmmaker and television director.
1958 – Pattukkottai Prabakar, Indian Tamil writer of crime novels and thrillers who is also a screenwriter for television and movies.
1958 – Claudia Schreiber, German journalist, author, screenwriter, and television presenter.
1960 – Marcus Pfister, Swiss children’s author and illustrator best known for his bestselling Rainbow Fish books.
1962 – Lavinia Greenlaw, award-winning English poet and novelist.
1967 – Ann Brashares, American author of novels for teens and adults, best known for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and its sequels.
1975 – Cherie Priest, American author and blogger who writes in the genres of Southern gothic, horror, and steampunk.
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