December 30 Writer Birthdays

1190 – Ibn Abi’l-Hadid, Iraqi poet, historian, theologian, and Muslim Scholar.

1815 – Betty Paoli (born Barbara Elisabeth Glück), Austrian author, poet, art and theater critic, translator, and journalist who was a companion of Princess Maria Anna Schwarzenberg.

1865 – Rudyard Kipling, Nobel Prize-winning English author best known for his tales of India.

1876 – Mustafa Lutfi el-Manfaluti, Egyptian writer, poet, and translator who memorized the Quran before the age of twelve and grew up to write many well-known books, short stories, and articles.

1883 – Marie Gevers, award-winning Belgian writer, poet, translator, children’s writer whose work extolled a love of family and heritage and an interest in the lives of ordinary people; she was the first woman elected to the Royal Academy of French Language and Literature in Belgium.

1897 – Alfredo Bracchi, Italian lyricist and scriptwriter..

1910 – Paul Bowles, American expatriate author, short-story writer, travel writer, and composer who spent much of his career in Morocco.

1912 – Pasha Angelina, Ukrainian Soviet writer, autobiographer, and agricultural worker who was one of the first female tractor operators in the USSR and who became a symbol of the technically educated female Soviet worker.

1917 – Yun Dong-ju, Chinese-born Korean poet known for his lyric poetry and his resistance poetry.

1922 – Jane Langton, American children’s writer, whose book The Fledgling was a Newbery Honor book.

1923 – Sara Lidman, one of the most important Swedish novelists of the 20th century; her works focused on political subjects, with a socialist tendency.

1928 – Raisa Soltamuradovna Akhmatova, internationally recognized Chechen poet.

1928 – Shabnam Romani, Indian-born Pakistani Urdu poet, columnist, and literary magazine editor whose real name was Mirza Azeem Baig Chughtai.

1929 – Lucien Xavier Michel-Andrianarahinjaka, Malagasy writer, poet, and politician, best known for his work involving the oral tradition of several Malagasy ethnic groups.

1943 – Julia Briggs, British biographer, writer, and professor, best known for her book Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life.

1943 – Mercer Mayer, prolific American children’s author and illustrator best known for his Little Critter and Little Monster series of books.

1946 – Patti Smith, American singer-songwriter and poet who was an influential member of the early New York punk scene.

1947 – James Kahn, American writer best known for his novelizations of films.

1950 – Sharon “Safiya” Henderson-Holmes, award-winning African-American poet and professor.

1950 – Lewis Shiner, American writer of science fiction, cyberpunk, and fantasy.

1952 – Melissa Fay Greene, American author of nonfiction books.

1961 – Douglas Coupland, Canadian novelist.

1961 – Sean Hannity, American conservative political commentator.

1963 – Chandler Burr, American journalist, author, and museum curator.

1966 – Akosua Gyamama Busia, Ghanaian actress, screenwriter, novelist, film director, and songwriter; she is best known for playing the sister of Whoopi Goldberg’s character in the film, The Color Purple.

1976 – Celia Walden, French-born British writer, journalist, novelist, columnist, critic, and memoirist.

1989 – Madzitatiguru (pen name for Tendekai Philemon Tati, award-winning Zimbabwean poet, writer, spoken word artist, musician, and comedian.