November 1 Writer Birthdays

1661 – Florent Carton (aka Dancourt), French actor and playwright who was best known for his comedies.

1769 – Garlieb Helwig Merkel, Baltic German writer and activist who was forced into exile after he wrote a book that described the life of peasants and the atrocities of German landowners.

1871 – Stephen Crane, U.S. war correspondent, novelist, short-story writer, and poet who pioneered the use of psychological realism in fiction.

1880 – Sholem Asch, Polish-born Jewish novelist, dramatist, and essayist who wrote in Yiddish.

1886 – Hermann Broch, Nobel Prize-nominated Austrian novelist of the Modernist movement.

1886 – Sakutarō Hagiwara (萩原 朔太郎), Japanese poet, essayist, and literary critic who is credited with liberating Japanese free verse from traditional rules; he is considered the father of modern colloquial poetry in Japan.

1892 – Mabel Leigh Hunt, two-time Newbery Honor-winning U.S. librarian and children’s author.

1895 – David Jones, modernist British poet, writer, essayist, painter, illustrator, and engraver; both T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden considered him to be a poet of major importance.

1896 – Edmund Blunden, English poet, author, and critic who wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose.

1897 – Naomi Mitchison, Scottish novelist, poet, science-fiction author, linguist, and nurse.

1898 – Rose Antonia Maria Valland, French art historian and author who was a member of the French Resistance, a captain in the French military, and one of the most decorated women in French history; she secretly recorded details of Nazi plundering and saved thousands of works of art.

1915 – Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (also known as Margaret Taylor Goss, Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs, and Margaret T.G. Burroughs), U.S. visual artist, writer, poet, educator, and arts organizer who co-founded the Ebony Museum of Chicago, now the DuSable Museum of African American History.

1923 – Gordon R. Dickson, Canadian science-fiction author best known for his space opera.

1926 – Hilary Knight, U.S. writer and artist who wrote nine books and illustrated more than fifty; he is best known as the illustrator of the Eloise books.

1938 – Nicholasa Mohr – U.S. novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and young-adult author whose work focuses on growing up in U.S. Puerto Rican communities and the difficulties faced by Puerto Rican women in the U.S.; one of the best known Puerto Rican American authors, she has been a finalist for the National Book Award.

1948 – Natividad del Belén Preciado González (known as Nativel Preciado), award-winning Spanish writer, author, biographer, journalist, and opinion columnist.

1954 – H.G. Bissinger, Pulitzer Prize-winning U.S. journalist and author.

1954 – Jamal Naji, award-winning Jordanian novelist, screenwriter, and short-story writer, of Palestinian origins; he was born in a refugee camp in the West Bank and moved to Jordan in his teens.

1956 – Mariana Codrut, Romanian poet, essayist, novelist, short-story writer, and journalist.

1959 – Susanna Mary Clarke, Hugo Award-winning English novelist and short-story author best known for her bestselling debut novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, an alternative history set in a magical England and written in the style of 19th century authors.

1960 – Jennifer Mary Bornholdt, award-winning New Zealand poet, editor, anthologist, and children’s book author.

1961 – Louise Gunvor Catharina Lagercrantz Boije af Gennäs (born Boije af Gennäs), Swedish writer, bestselling novelist, and feminist who is co-creator of Rederiet, the longest-running Swedish soap opera in history. Her semi-autobiographical novel Stjärnor utan svindel (Stars Without Vertigo) is based on the author’s relationship with the prominent feminist Mian Lodalen.

1962 – Kamaria S. Muntu (born Tracey De Sandra Martin), African-American feminist poet, writer, literary magazine editor, and arts activist.

1963 – Samar Deb, Indian Bengali writer, poet, novelist, essayist, and activist whose forceful idioms and revolutionary content challenge traditional assumptions in Bengali literature.

1963 – Rayhana Obermeyer (also known as simply, Rayhana), Algerian playwright, writer, actress, comedian, and film director.

1964 – Rieko Saibara, award-winning Japanese manga artist and writer, game writer, and short-story writer.

1972 – Alessandra Silvestri-Levy, Brazilian art historian, art writer, curator, biographer, diplomat and human rights activist who became the Princess of Bismarck and the French Ambassador to Cuba.

1974 – Daniel Umpiérrez (also known as Dani Umpi), Uruguayan writer, artist, photographer, and musician.

1978 – Jessica Valenti, U.S. nonfiction author, editor, memoirist, columnist, and feminist blogger whose work explores women’s issues.

1983 – Sofía Fernández Castañón, award-winning Spanish poet, writer, audiovisual producer, and politician who has worked in print, television, and radio.