1724 – Saviour Bernard, Maltese medical practitioner, scientist, author, and major philosopher.
1832 – Louisa May Alcott, American author, short-story writer, children’s writer, feminist, and abolitionist best known for her semi-autobiographical novel Little Women; she also wrote one of the earliest works of detective fiction.
1855 – August Kitzberg, Estonian playwright, short-story author, and memoirist; his early works consisted of comedies and humorous stories of village life; later, his plays developed a component of social criticism.
1895 – Hamid Ullah Afsar, Indian Urdu poet and writer.
1898 – C.S. Lewis, English writer, children’s novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, and Christian apologist; he is best known for his books in the Chronicles of Narnia series.
1902 – Carlo Levi, Italian novelist and painter.
1905 – Vasily Grossman, Ukrainian-born Soviet writer, journalist, novelist, short-story writer, war correspondent, and screenwriter who originally trained as an engineer and was called Vasya the Chemist because of his diligence as a student; as a war correspondent during World War II he wrote firsthand accounts of battles and eyewitness reports of a extermination camp that were among the earliest journalistic accounts of a Nazi death camp. His major literary works were censored by the authorities as anti-Soviet; his book manuscripts were published only after his death, after they were smuggled out of the Soviet Union.
1912 – Ai Xia, Chinese left-wing silent film actress and screenwriter whose suicide inspired Cai Chusheng’s classic film New Women, starring Ruan Lingyu, who also killed herself soon after the release of the film.
1914 – Elanor Perry, Emmy Award-winning American screenwriter and author.
1917 – Gopal Singh, Indian writer, poet, translator, biographer, lexicographer, philosopher, mystic, and politician
1918 – Madeleine L’Engle, Newbery Medal-winning American author of fiction, poetry, a play, autobiographies, and young-adult books, including her best known novel, A Wrinkle in Time; her works tend to take place in settings that are mostly realistic, but with some some fantasy elements, and many of her books draw on a multigenerational cast of related characters.
1934 – Willie Morris, American writer and editor.
1933 – David R. Reuben, psychiatrist who is best known for writing Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (but Were Afraid To Ask).
1943 – Sue Miller, bestselling American novelist, short-story writer, and memoirist; some of her work has been adapted for film.
1948 – George Szirtes, Hungarian poet and translator.
1953 – Jacqueline French, prolific, award-winning Australian author of children’s books, novels for adults, picture books, history, fantasy, and historical fiction; she is also an author of numerous books on ecology, gardening, pest control, wombats, other wildlife, and hens. She is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines, and has presented gardening segments on television.
1956 – Leo Laporte, American podcaster, broadcaster, and author.
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