April 25 Writer Birthdays

1529 – Franciscus Patricius, Venetian writer, poet, philosopher, translator, scientist, fairy-tale writer, erotic writer, literary theorist, and university teacher of Croatian descent; he was known as a defender of Platonism and an opponent of Aristotelianism. In Croatia, he is called Franjo Petriš or Frane Petric (sometimes Petris, Petriševic, or Petricevic).

1556 – François Béroalde de Verville, French novelist, poet, writer, and intellectual.

1566 – Juan Rodríguez Freyle (also written as Juan Rodríguez Freile), Colombian writer whose major work, El Carnero, is a collection of stories, anecdotes, and rumors about the early days of colonial Colombia and the demise of the Muisca Confederation; it is still a key source of information on the 16th-century colonial period in Colombia.

1653 – Benedetto Pamphili, Italian cardinal, writer, composer, librettist, librarian, Catholic Cardinal, and patron of the arts.

1818 – Carl August Reinhardt (also referred to as Karl Reinhardt), German author, illustrator, painter, graphic artist, and caricaturist.

1827 – João Cardoso de Meneses e Sousa, Baron of Paranapiacaba, Brazilian writer, lawyer, poet, politician, journalist, and linguist.

1831 – Marie Bonaparte-Wyse (full name Marie-Lætitia de Solms née Bonaparte-Wyse), French author, journalist, and literary hostess; as a journalist, she contributed to Le Constitutionnel under the pen name Baron de Stock. She was the great niece of Emperor Napoleon I.

1833 – Marko Miljanov Popovic, Montenegrin Brda chieftain, general, and writer who became well known for his descriptions of Montenegrin society.

1835 – Emma Scarr Booth, British-born U.S. author, poet, composer, and songwriter.

1838 – Mary Torrans Lathrap, American poet, preacher, suffragist, temperance proponent, and social reformer; she has been called “The Daniel Webster of Prohibition.”

1852 – Leopoldo Alas (also known by the pen name, Clarín). Spanish Realist novelist, writer, jurist, poet, lawyer, university teacher, journalist, literary critic, and professor.

1873 – Walter De La Mare, English poet, novelist, and short-story writer best remembered for his children’s stories and ghost stories.

1892 – Maud Hart Lovelace, U.S. author best known for her historical novels and for her Betsy-Tacy series for children.

1899 – Grace Rasp-Nuri, Turkish Cypriot-German novelist for children and adults whose work was sometimes autobiographical.

1906 – Pudhumaipithan (pseudonym of C. Viruthachalam), controversial Indian writer who was one of the most influential and revolutionary writers of Tamil fiction; his works were characterized by social satire, progressive thinking, and outspoken criticism of accepted conventions.

1906 – Sally Salminen, prolific and award-winning Finnish novelist, autobiographer, and nonfiction writer who was a three-time Nobel Prize nominee.

1914 – Ross Lockridge Jr., U.S. writer whose only novel, the bestselling Raintree County, was made into a movie starring Elizabeth Taylor.

1922 – Ayako Miura, bestselling Japanese novelist who published more than 80 works of fiction and nonfiction.

1923 – Melissa Hayden (born Mildred Herman), Canadian ballerina who wrote several books about ballet.

1927 – Corín Tellado (full name María del Socorro Tellado López), prolific Spanish writer of bestselling romantic novels and photonovels who was listed in the 1994 Guinness Book of World Records as having sold the most books written in Spanish; in 1962 UNESCO declared her the most read Spanish writer after Miguel de Cervantes.

1927 – Albert Uderzo, French comic-book artist and scriptwriter.

1931 – Yvette Duval (née Benchettrit), award-winning Moroccan-born French historian, writer, and professor who specialized in ancient North Africa and the Early African church.

1933 – J. Anthony Lukas, U.S. journalist, editor, and nonfiction author who won a National Book Award and two Pulitzer Prizes.

1939 – Ted Kooser, U.S. poet and essayist who was a U.S. Poet Laureate; his work is conversational in style and celebrates everyday life in the Midwestern U.S.

1949 – James Fenton, English poet, professor, journalist, literary critic, art critic, theater critic, and librettist.

1952 – Padgett Powell, U.S. novelist in the Southern literary tradition.

1962 – Thamizhachi Thangapandian, Indian poet, lyricist, writer, orator, and politician; she was also elected a Member of Parliament.

1966 – Femke Halsema, Dutch writer, columnist, essayist, memoirist, sociologist, criminologist, mayor of Amsterdam, and a member of the House of Representatives.