1802 – Nikolaus Lenau (born Nikolaus Niembsch von Strehlenau), Hungarian/German/Austrian poet who is considered Austria’s greatest modern lyric poet.
1906 – Vishram Bedekar, Indian Marathi-language author, poet, screenwriter, and film director.
1939 – Danièle Djamila Amrane-Minne, French writer, poet, professor, feminist activist, and combatant in the Algerian War; she was one of the few European women convicted for assisting the National Liberation Front during the Algerian War. Her PhD dissertation on the participation of Algerian women in the war, based on interviews with 88 women between 1978 and 1986; was published as a book, Des femmes dans la guerre d’Algérie, which was the basis for the film Algeria: Women at War.
1948 – Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, British writer of romance and mystery novels who has sometimes used the Jane Austen-inspired pseudonyms Emma Woodhouse and Elizabeth Bennett.
1960 – George Packer, National Book Award-winning American journalist, essayist, nonfiction author, and playwright who specializes in U.S. history and foreign policy.
1961 – Tom Perrotta, American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and Oscar-nominated screenwriter.
1963 – Valerie Plame (full name Valerie Elise Plame Wilson), American spy and author of spy novels who was the subject of the 2003 Plame affair, in which her identity as a CIA agent was leaked and published by Robert Novak of the Washington Post; no one was formally charged. She wrote a memoir detailing her career and the events leading up to her resignation from the CIA; she has subsequently written several spy novels.
1967 – Amélie Nothomb (Baroness Fabienne-Claire Nothomb), prolific bestselling Belgian novelist.
1973 – Kamila Shamsie, award-winning Pakistani novelist and short-story writer who is best known for her book Home Fire.
