Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Literature & Poetry

3

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Taha Hussein

طه حسين

Khedivate of Egypt

1889 – 1973 (83 years old)

Revered as the 'Dean of Arabic Literature' (Qahir al-Zalam), blind Egyptian modernist author, educational reformer, and author of the classic autobiography The Days (Al-Ayyam).

Cairo, Egypt

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Literature & Poetry

9

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Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (Pablo Neruda)

Pablo Neruda

Chile

12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973 (69 years old)

Supreme Chilean poet and 1971 Nobel laureate hailed by Gabriel García Márquez as 'the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language', whose Twenty Love Poems, Canto General, and Elemental Odes gave voice to love, labor, and Latin American resistance.

Santiago, Chile

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Literature & Poetry

8

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Yasunari Kawabata

川端 康成

Empire of Japan

1899 – 1972 (72 years old)

First Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1968), master of subtle psychological nuance and traditional Japanese aesthetics in Snow Country and Thousand Cranes.

Kamakura, Japan

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Literature & Poetry

4

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Yukio Mishima

三島 由紀夫

Empire of Japan

1925 – 1970 (45 years old)

Prodigious Japanese author, nationalist, and aesthetician whose Confessions of a Mask, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, and Sea of Fertility tetralogy explored beauty and death.

Fuchu (Tokyo), Japan

4 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

1

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Romulo Gallegos

Rómulo Ángel del Monte Carmelo Gallegos Freire

Venezuela

1884 – 1969 (84 years old)

Venezuelan novelist and statesman whose 1929 masterpiece Dona Barbara became the defining allegorical epic of Latin American civilization versus barbarism in the plains.

Caracas, Venezuela

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Literature & Poetry

4

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John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck Jr.

United States

1902 – 1968 (66 years old)

1962 Nobel laureate whose gritty American social realism in The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and East of Eden gave voice to the working poor and Dust Bowl migrants.

Salinas, California, United States

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Literature & Poetry

0

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Manuel Bandeira

Manuel Carneiro de Souza Bandeira Filho

Brazil

1886 – 1968 (82 years old)

Pioneering Brazilian poet of the Modernist Movement whose 1922 poem Os Sapos served as the manifesto anthem of the historic Modern Art Week in Sao Paulo.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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Literature & Poetry

1

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Guimaraes Rosa

João Guimarães Rosa

Brazil

1908 – 1967 (59 years old)

Brazilian novelist and diplomat whose epic The Devil to Pay in the Backlands is hailed as the Brazilian Ulysses, revolutionizing Portuguese prose with daring neologisms and metaphysical depth.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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Literature & Poetry

4

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Langston Hughes

James Mercer Langston Hughes

United States

1901 – 1967 (66 years old)

Poet Laureate of Harlem and leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance who invented jazz poetry in 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers', The Weary Blues, and 'Harlem'.

Harlem (New York City), United States

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Literature & Poetry

1

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Forough Farrokhzad

فروغ فرخزاد

Iran

1935 – 1967 (32 years old)

Iconic Iranian modernist poet and filmmaker whose candid, passionate feminist poetry shattered centuries of Persian patriarchal silence, and whose documentary The House Is Black is a cinematic masterpiece.

Tajrish (Tehran), Iran

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Literature & Poetry

0

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Lao She

老舍

Qing Empire

1899 – 1966 (67 years old)

Manchu-Chinese novelist and playwright celebrated for Rickshaw Boy and Teahouse, master of Beijing dialect humor and empathetic chronicler of urban working-class life.

Beijing, China

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Literature & Poetry

4

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Anna Akhmatova

Анна Андреевна Ахматова

Russian Empire

1889 – 1966 (76 years old)

Supreme Russian modernist poet of the Silver Age and leader of Acmeism whose poem Requiem bore witness to the terror of Stalin's Great Purge.

Komarovo (Saint Petersburg), Russia

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Literature & Poetry

2

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Junichiro Tanizaki

谷崎 潤一郎

Japan

1886 – 1965 (79 years old)

Japanese novelist celebrated for The Makioka Sisters, Some Prefer Nettles, and In Praise of Shadows, master of traditional Japanese aesthetics and subtle erotic obsessions.

Kyoto, Japan

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Literature & Poetry

10

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Thomas Stearns Eliot

T.S. Eliot

United States

26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965 (76 years old)

Titan of 20th-century poetry and 1948 Nobel laureate whose landmark epic The Waste Land ('April is the cruellest month') and spiritual Four Quartets articulated the disillusionment, fragmentation, and redemption of the modern post-war world.

Kensington (London), Great Britain

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Literature & Poetry

2

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Badr Shakir al-Sayyab

بدر شاكر السياب

Kingdom of Iraq

1926 – 1964 (37 years old)

Iraqi poet celebrated as the father of modern Arabic free verse (shi'r hurr), whose revolutionary 1960 collection Rain Song transformed twentieth-century Arabic poetic meter and mythology.

Al-Zubayr (Basra), Iraq

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Literature & Poetry

5

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Sean O'Casey

John Casey / Seán Ó Cathasaigh

Ireland

1880 – 1964 (84 years old)

Irish dramatist and socialist who immortalized the Dublin working-class tenements in his tragicomic Dublin Trilogy: The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars.

London, United Kingdom

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Literature & Poetry

3

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Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad

عباس محمود العقاد

Egypt

1889 – 1964 (74 years old)

Monumental self-taught Egyptian writer, critic, philosopher, and parliamentarian who authored over one hundred books, famously celebrated for his psychological biographical series 'Al-Abqariyyat' (The Geniuses).

Aswan, Egypt

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Literature & Poetry

3

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Hermann Hesse

Hermann Karl Hesse

German Empire

1877 – 1962 (85 years old)

German-Swiss 1946 Nobel laureate whose spiritual and philosophical novels Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and The Glass Bead Game explored Eastern mysticism and personal authenticity.

Collina d'Oro (Montagnola), Switzerland

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