Early 20th-century novelists

Adolfo Bioy Casares

Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914–1999) was an Argentine writer and central figure of twentieth-century fantastic literature, known for La invención de Morel and his lifelong collaboration with Jorge Luis Borges.

Agnes Henningsen

Agnes Henningsen (1868–1962) was a Danish author whose candid novels and eight-volume memoirs defended women's erotic freedom, making her both famous and notorious in her time.

Agnes von Krusenstjerna

Agnes von Krusenstjerna (1894–1940) was a Swedish novelist whose openly erotic depictions of women's lives triggered a national controversy, best known for the seven-volume saga Fröknarna von Pahlen.

Aksel Sandemose

Aksel Sandemose, born Axel Nielsen (1899–1965), was a Danish-Norwegian novelist who moved to Norway in 1930 and formulated the Jante Law in his 1933 breakthrough novel.

Alain-Fournier

Alain-Fournier, pen name of Henri Alban Fournier (1886–1914), French author of the single novel Le Grand Meaulnes (1913); friend of Jacques Rivière, model for Yvonne de Galais was Yvonne de Quiévrecourt; killed in 1914 near Saint-Rémy-la-Calonne.

Albert Helman

Albert Helman was the pen name of Lodewijk Lichtveld (1903–1996), a Surinamese-Dutch writer, composer, and politician considered the first important author from the former Dutch West.

Alberto Moravia

Alberto Moravia, pseudonym of Alberto Pincherle, was an Italian novelist and journalist (1907–1990) whose novels, from Gli indifferenti (1929) to La noia (1960), were widely translated and filmed.

Aleksandrs Grīns

Aleksandrs Grīns, real name Jēkabs Grīns (1895–1941), was a Latvian writer and army captain best known for Dvēseļu putenis, executed in Soviet captivity in 1941.

Alexander Kuprin

Alexander Kuprin (Александр Куприн, 1870–1938) was a Russian writer of the early twentieth century, best known for the novels The Duel and The Pit and the story The Garnet Bracelet.

Alexandros Papadiamantis

Alexandros Papadiamantis (Αλέξανδρος Παπαδιαμάντης, 1851–1911) was a Greek short-story writer and translator who lived in poverty in Athens and wrote about the poor of Skiathos, his masterpiece being The Murderess of 1903.

Alexei Remizov

Alexei Mikhailovich Remizov (Алексей Михайлович Ремизов, 1877–1957) was a Russian Silver Age prose writer known for ornate, folklore-based prose who published 83 books and left Paris after emigrating in 1921.

Alfred Döblin

Alfred Döblin (also Linke Poot), 1878–1957, German physician and Expressionist modernist writer; author of the montage novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929); exiled 1933, converted to Catholicism 1941, died in Emmendingen.

Alois Jirásek

Alois Jirásek (1851–1930) was a Czech writer and gymnasium teacher called the "chronicler of the nation" for historical novels like Temno and F. L. Věk.

André Chamson

André Chamson (1900–1983) was a French novelist and archivist who directed the Louvre's 1940 evacuation, led the Archives de France, and joined the Académie française.

André Gide

André Gide (1869-1951), French novelist, essayist, and diarist; Nobel Laureate in Literature 1947; author of Les Nourritures terrestres, L'Immoraliste, Corydon, and Les Faux-monnayeurs; co-founder of the NRF.

André Malraux

André Malraux (1901–1976), French novelist, art theorist, and first Minister of Cultural Affairs (1959–1969) under de Gaulle; Prix Goncourt 1933 for La Condition humaine, creator of the musée imaginaire, Resistance leader Colonel Berger, Panthéon 1996.

Andrei Bely (Андрей Белый)

Andrei Bely (Андрей Белый), pen name of Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev (1880–1934), was a Russian novelist, poet, and critic, a leading figure of Russian Symbolism and author of Petersburg.

Andrei Mryi

Andrei Mryi (Андрэй Мрый), pen name of Andrei Shashalevich, was a Belarusian prose writer and journalist best known for the satirical novel Zapiski Samsona Samasuya, which led to his persecution.

Andrei Platonov

Andrei Platonov (Андрей Платонов), born Andrei Platonovich Klimentov, was a Russian Soviet writer and playwright whose novels Chevengur and The Foundation Pit made him one of the most distinctive figures of twentieth-century literature.

Anna Seghers

Anna Seghers (Netty Reiling/Radványi, 1900–1983), German-Jewish communist writer born in Mainz; exile in France and Mexico; author of Das siebte Kreuz (1942) and Transit (1944); Büchner Prize 1947; led the GDR Writers' Union 1952–1978.

Annette Kolb

Annette Kolb, born Anna Mathilde Kolb (1870–1967), was a German-French novelist, essayist, and translator whose pacifist Briefe einer Deutsch-Französin (1916) brought bans, exile, and persecution by the Third Reich.

Antal Szerb

Antal Szerb (Szerb Antal, 1901–1945), Hungarian literary historian and novelist of Journey by Moonlight, The Pendragon Legend and Oliver VII; died in the Balf labor camp; Pushkin Press translations by Len Rix.

Antanas Škėma

Antanas Škėma (1910–1961) was a Lithuanian émigré writer, actor, and director, a pioneer of modern Lithuanian drama whose novel Balta drobulė (White Shroud) ranks among the most significant works of Lithuanian prose.

Antanas Vaičiulaitis

Antanas Vaičiulaitis (1906–1992) was a Lithuanian prose writer, poet, critic, and diplomat, one of interwar Lithuania's foremost prose stylists who later lived in the United States.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944), French aviator and writer, Aéropostale line pilot and author of Vol de nuit, Terre des hommes, and Le Petit Prince; disappeared on a 1944 reconnaissance flight, wreckage identified off Marseille in 2003–2004.

Aquilino Ribeiro

Aquilino Ribeiro (1885–1963) was a Portuguese novelist whose fiction rooted in the Beira Alta highlands made him a leading prose writer of the 20th century.

Arno Schmidt

Arno Otto Schmidt (1914–1979) was a German novelist, essayist, and translator, one of postwar German literature's most idiosyncratic experimental writers, best known for the three-column monumental novel Zettel's Traum.

Arnold Zweig

Arnold Zweig (1887–1968) was a German-Jewish novelist and anti-war writer whose 1927 novel Der Streit um den Sergeanten Grischa became a defining war novel of the Weimar Republic.

Arthur van Schendel

Arthur van Schendel (1874–1946) was a Dutch novelist, born in Batavia and long resident in Italy, whose Holland novels made him one of the most honored Dutch writers of the 1930s.