498 articles
U. A. Khader
U. A. Khader (യു.എ. ഖാദർ), full name Ussangaantakathu Abdul Khader, was an Indian Malayalam writer of fiction about rural Malabar, known for Thrikkottur Peruma; he died in 2020.
U. R. Ananthamurthy
U. R. Ananthamurthy (1932–2014) was an Indian writer, critic, and professor who pioneered the Navya modernist movement in Kannada literature and won the Jnanpith Award in 1994.
Umar Kayam
Umar Kayam (1932–2002) was an Indonesian writer, sociologist, and cultural authority who wrote acclaimed fiction on Javanese society and served under the New Order government.
Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa
Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa is the pen name of Mozambican writer Francisco Esaú Cossa, born in 1957, whose debut novel Ualalapi (1987) is among the most influential works of modern African fiction.
Uno Kōji
Uno Kōji (宇野浩二), real name Uno Kakujiro, was a Japanese novelist, essayist, and critic of the Taishō and Shōwa periods, known for Kura no Naka and Ko o Kashiya.
Upamanyu Chatterjee
Upamanyu Chatterjee (born 1959) is an Indian novelist and retired civil servant of the Indian Administrative Service, best known for his debut novel English, August (1988) and winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award.
Upendranath Ashk
Upendranath Ashk (1910–1996) was an Indian novelist, playwright, and short-story writer who began in Urdu in Lahore and became a major, controversial figure of 20th-century Hindi literature, best known for Girti Divarein.
Vaikom Muhammad Basheer (വൈക്കം മുഹമ്മദ് ബഷീർ)
Vaikom Muhammad Basheer (വൈക്കം മുഹമ്മദ് ബഷീർ, 1908-1994), the 'Beypore Sultan', was a Malayalam novelist, short story writer, and freedom fighter; author of Premalekhanam, Balyakalasakhi, Mathilukal, and Pathummayude Aadu, and Padma Shri recipient in 1982.
Varsha Adalja
Varsha Adalja (વર્ષા અડાલજા), born 1940, is an Indian Gujarati-language novelist, playwright, and editor, a pioneering feminist voice who won the 1995 Sahitya Akademi Award for Ansar.
Ventura García Calderón
Ventura García Calderón (1886–1959) was a Peruvian novelist, short-story writer, and diplomat who spent most of his life in Paris; his most emblematic work is La venganza del cóndor (1924).
Vikram Chandra (novelist)
Vikram Chandra, Indian-born novelist (Red Earth and Pouring Rain, Love and Longing in Bombay, Sacred Games) and author of Geek Sublime; Sacred Games became Netflix's first Indian original series, 2018, with Chandra as executive producer.
Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar
Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar, known as V. S. Khandekar, was a Marathi writer who became the first Marathi author to win the Jnanpith Award, for his novel Yayati.
Wang Anyi
Wang Anyi (王安忆, born 1954) is a Chinese novelist, essayist, and Fudan University professor whose Shanghai fiction, especially The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, won the Mao Dun Literature Prize.
Wang Chen-ho
Wang Chen-ho (王禎和, 1940–1990) was a Taiwanese novelist from Hualien known for comic stories of small-town people, written in a mix of Mandarin, Taiwanese Hokkien, English, and Japanese.
Wen Kang
Wen Kang (文康) was a Qing dynasty Manchu bannerman novelist, author of Ernü Yingxiong zhuan (The Story of Heroic Sons and Daughters), first printed in 1878.
Wilson Harris
Wilson Harris, born Theodore Wilson Harris (1921–2018), was a Guyanese novelist, poet, and critic, a former land surveyor whose experimental fiction, including the Guyana Quartet, departed from realism.
Witi Ihimaera
Witi Ihimaera, born in 1944, is a New Zealand writer of Māori descent, the first Māori author to publish a story collection, Pounamu, Pounamu, and a novel.
Wong Bik-wan
Wong Bik-wan (黄碧云; Huang Biyun), born in Hong Kong in 1961, is a Hong Kong novelist, essayist, and former journalist who won the 2014 Dream of the Red Chamber Award.
Wu Cheng'en
Wu Cheng'en (吴承恩, c. 1500–1582, courtesy name Ruzhong) was a Ming-dynasty novelist and minor official from Huai'an, Jiangsu, conventionally credited as the author of Journey to the West.
Xiao Jun
Xiao Jun, original name Liu Honglin, was a Chinese novelist and leading member of the Northeast Writers Group, best known for The Village in August (1935).
Xu Dishan
Xu Dishan (许地山), pen name Luohuasheng, was a Chinese novelist, essayist, and religious scholar who co-founded the Literary Research Association and became the first Chinese professor at the University of Hong Kong.
Xu Huaizhong
Xu Huaizhong (徐怀中, 1929–2023) was a Chinese military writer and major general whose novel Qianfeng Ji won the Mao Dun Literature Prize in 2019, when he was about ninety.
Yahya Haqqi
Yahya Haqqi (يحيى حقي; 1905–1992) was an Egyptian writer and diplomat, a pioneer of the modern Arabic short story best known for the novella Qandil Umm Hashim.
Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu
Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu (1889–1974) was a Turkish novelist, journalist, and diplomat, a leading figure of early Republican Turkish literature whose novels trace Turkish society from the late Ottoman era to the 1950s.
Yan Geling
Yan Geling (严歌苓), born 1958, is a Chinese-American novelist and screenwriter whose fiction about Chinese women in historical upheaval was adapted into films including The Flowers of War and Youth.
Yang Kui
Yang Kui (楊逵), born Yang Gui, was a Taiwanese novelist, editor, and social activist who led left-wing literature in Japanese-ruled Taiwan; his story "The Newspaper Boy" was the first by a Taiwanese writer recognized in Japan.
Yanick Lahens
Yanick Lahens, born in 1953 in Port-au-Prince, is a Haitian novelist and essayist who won the 2014 Prix Femina for her novel Bain de lune.
Yanka Bryl
Yanka Bryl (Янка Брыль), born Ivan Antonavich Bryl (1917–2006), was a Belarusian prose writer and translator who co-authored I Am from the Fiery Village (1975), a foundation of Belarusian documentary literature.
Yasunari Kawabata (川端康成)
Yasunari Kawabata (川端康成, 1899–1972), Japanese novelist, first Japanese Nobel Literature laureate (1968), New Sensation school founder, author of Snow Country, The Sound of the Mountain, and The Old Capital; died by gas suicide in 1972.
Yasushi Inoue
Yasushi Inoue (1907–1991) was a Japanese novelist and poet who debuted at 42 and became known for The Hunting Gun, The Roof Tile of Tempyō, and Silk Road novels.