10 FOREIGN WRITERS

J.D. Salinger (1919 – 2010) American author. Most influential

novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951). Wrote many short stories for New Yorker
magazine, such as “A Perfect Day for Bananafish.”

Joseph Heller (1923 – 1999) American novelist, who wrote satirical and

black comedy. His most famous work is ‘Catch 22’ (1961) – a satire on the futility of war.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927 – 2014) Colombian author. Wrote: One

Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975) and Love in the
Time of Cholera (1985). Nobel Prize in Literature (1982).

Anne Frank (1929 – 1945) Dutch-Jewish diarist. Known for her diary

‘Anne Frank‘ Published posthumously by her father – recalling her life hiding from
Gestapo in occupied Holland.

Salman Rushdie (1947 – ) Anglo-Indian author. His works combine

elements of magic realism, satire and historical fiction – often based on Indian sub-
continent. Notable works include Midnight’s Children (1981), Shame (1983) and Satanic
Verses (1988).
 10 FOREIGN WRITERS

Stephen King (1947 – ) American author of contemporary horror,

supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy. One of the best selling
authors of modern times.

George R.R Martin (1948 – ) American author of epic fantasy series

– A Song of Ice and Fire, – his international best-selling series of fantasy, adapted for
the screen as a Game of Thrones.

Douglas Adams (1952 – 2001) British writer of humorous and absure

science fiction. Adams wrote a best selling trilogy (of five books) The Hitchhiker’s Guide
to the Galaxy – which began as a BBC play.

J.K.Rowling (1965 – ) British author of the Harry Potter Series – which

has become the best selling book series of all time. Her first book was Harry Potter and
the Philosopher’s Stone (1997). Rowling has also published adult fiction, such as The
Casual Vacancy (2012) and The Cuckoo’s Calling (2013)

Khaled Hosseini (1965 – ) Afghan born American writer. Notable

works include: The Kite Runner (2003) A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) And the
Mountains Echoed (2013
 10 FOREIGN WRITERS

William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) English poet and playwright.

Famous plays include Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Merchant of
Venice and Hamlet. Shakespeare is widely considered the seminal writer of the English
language.

Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745) Anglo-Irish writer born in Dublin. Swift

was a prominent satirist, essayist and author. Notable works include Gulliver’s Travels
(1726), A Modest Proposal and A Tale of a Tub.

Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784) British author best-known for his

compilation of the English dictionary. Although not the first attempt at a dictionary, it
was widely considered to be the most comprehensive – setting the standard for later
dictionaries.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832) German poet,

playwright, and author. Notable works of Goethe include Faust, Wilhelm Meister’s
Apprenticeship and Elective Affinities.

Jane Austen (1775 – 1817) English author who wrote romantic fiction

combined with social realism. Her novels include Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride
and Prejudice (1813) and Emma (1816).
 10 FOREIGN WRITERS

Honore de Balzac (1799 –  1850) French novelist and short story

writer. Balzac was an influential realist writer who created characters of moral
ambiguity – often based on his own real-life examples. His greatest work was the
collection of short stories La Comédie Humaine.

Alexandre Dumas (1802 – 1870) French author of historical dramas,

including – The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), and The Three Musketeers (1844). Also
prolific author of magazine articles, pamphlets and travel books.

Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885) French author and poet. Hugo’s novels

include Les Misérables, (1862) and Notre-Dame de Paris (1831).

Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870) – English writer and social critic. His

best-known works include novels such as Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and A
Christmas Carol.

Charlotte Bronte (1816 – 1855) English novelist and poet, from

Haworth. Her best-known novel is ‘Jane Eyre’ (1847).
 10 FOREIGN WRITERS

Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862) – American poet, writer and

leading member of the Transcendentalist movement. Thoreau’s “Walden” (1854) was a
unique account of living close to nature.

Emily Bronte (1818 – 1848) English novelist. Emily Bronte is best

known for her novel Wuthering Heights (1847), and her poetry.

George Eliot (1819 – 1880) Pen name of Mary Ann Evans. Wrote

novels, The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871–72),
and Daniel Deronda (1876)

Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910) Russian novelist and moral philosopher.

Famous works include the epic novels – War and Peace (1869) and Anna
Karenina (1877). Tolstoy also became an influential philosopher with his brand of
Christian pacificism.

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) Russian novelist, journalist and

philosopher. Notable works include Notes from Underground, Crime and
Punishment and The Idiot.
 10 FOREIGN WRITERS

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) Oxford mathematician and author. Famous

for Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, and poems like The Snark.

Mark Twain (1835 – 1910) American writer and humorist, considered

the ‘father of American literature’. Famous works include The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885).

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) English novelist and poet. Hardy was a

Victorian realist who was influenced by Romanticism. He wrote about problems of
Victorian society – in particular, declining rural life. Notable works include: Far from
the Madding Crowd (1874), Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the
Obscure (1895).

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900) – Irish writer and poet. Wilde wrote

humorous, satirical plays, such as ‘The Importance of Being Earnest‘ and ‘The Picture
of Dorian Grey’.

Kenneth Graham (1859 – 1932) Author of the Wind in the Willows

(1908), a classic of children’s literature.
 10 FOREIGN WRITERS

George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950) Irish playwright and wit. Famous

works include: Pygmalion (1912), Man and Superman (1903) and Back to
Methuselah (1921)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) British author of historical

novels and plays. Most famous for his short stories about the detective – Sherlock
Holmes, such as The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) and Sign of Four (1890).

Beatrix Potter (1866 – 1943) English conservationist and author of

imaginative children’s books, such as the Tales of Peter Rabbit (1902).

Marcel Proust (1871 – 1922) French author. Best known for epic novel
l À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time) published in seven parts
between 1913 and 1927.

William Somerset Maugham 1874 – 1965) British novelist and writer.

One of the most popular authors of 1930s. Notable works included The Moon and
Sixpence (1916), The Razor’s Edge (1944), and Of Human Bondage (1915)
 10 FOREIGN WRITERS

P.G.Wodehouse (1881 – 1975) English comic writer. Best known for his

humorous and satirical stories about the English upper classes, such as Jeeves and
Wooster and Blandings Castle.

Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941) English modernist writer, a member of

the Bloomsbury group. Famous novels include Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the
Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928).

James Joyce (1882 – 1941) Irish writer from Dublin. Joyce was one of
most influential modernist avant-garde writers of the Twentieth Century. His
novel Ulysses (1922), was ground-breaking for its stream of consciousness style. Other
works include Dubliners (1914) and Finnegans Wake (1939).

D H Lawrence (1885 – 1930) English poet, novelist and writer. Best

known works include Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love and Lady
Chatterley’s Lover (1928) – which was banned for many years.

Agatha Christie (1890 – 1976) British fictional crime writer. Many of

her books focused on series featuring her detectives ‘Poirot’ and Mrs Marple.
 10 FOREIGN WRITERS

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892 – 1973) – Professor of Anglo-Saxon and English at

Oxford University. Tolkien wrote the best-selling mythical trilogy The Lord of the
Rings. Other works include The Hobbit and The Silmarillion, and a translation
of Beowulf.

Vera Brittain (1893 – 1970) British writer best known for her

autobiography – Testament of Youth (1933) – sharing her traumatic experiences of the
First World War.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940) American author. An iconic writer of

the ‘jazz age’. Notable works include The Great Gatsby (1925), and Tender Is the Night
(1934) – cautionary tales about the ‘Jazz decade’ and the American Dream based on
pleasure and materialism.

Enid Blyton (1897 – 1968) British children’s writer, known for her series
of children’s books – The Famous Five and The Secret Seven. Blyton wrote an estimated
800 books over 40 years.

C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1963) Irish / English author and professor at Oxford

University. Lewis is best known for The Chronicles of Narnia, a children’s fantasy series.
Also well known as a Christian apologist.
 10 FOREIGN WRITERS

Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961) Groundbreaking modernist

American writer. Famous works included For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940) and A
Farewell to Arms (1929).

Vladimir Nabokov (1899 – 1977) Russian author of Lolita (1955)

and Pale Fire (1962)

Barbara Cartland (1901 – 2000) One of most prolific and best selling

authors of the romantic fiction genre. Some suggest she has sold over 2 billion copies
worldwide.

John Steinbeck (1902 – 1968) American writer who captured the social

change experienced in the US around the time of the Great Depression. Famous works
include – Of Mice and Men (1937), The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden
(1952).

George Orwell (1903 – 1950) – English author. Famous works

include Animal Farm, and 1984. – Both stark warnings about the dangers of totalitarian
states, Orwell was also a democratic socialist who fought in the Spanish Civil War,
documenting his experiences in “Homage to Catalonia” (1938).
 10 FOREIGN WRITERS

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) Irish avant garde, modernist writer.

Beckett wrote minimalist and thought provoking plays, such as ‘Waiting for
Godot’(1953) and ‘Endgame‘ (1957). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in
1969.

Albert Camus (1913 – 1960) – French author, journalist, and

philosopher. Associated with existentialism and absurdism. Famous works included The
Myth of Sisyphus, The Stranger and The Plague.

Roald Dahl (1916 – 1990) English author, best known for his children’s
books, such as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, James and The Giant
Peach and The BFG.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918 – 2008) Russian author, historian and

political critic. Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 for his
work in exposing the nature of Soviet totalitarianism. e.g, The Gulag Archipelago (1965-
67).

Emily Bronte (1818 – 1848) English novelist. Emily Bronte is best

known for her novel Wuthering Heights (1847), and her poetry.