Early 20th-century novelists

Johannes Linnankoski

Johannes Linnankoski, pen name of Vihtori Peltonen (1869–1913), was a Finnish author whose 1905 novel Laulu tulipunaisesta kukasta became the first Finnish bestseller; he also founded the newspaper Uusimaa.

Johannes V. Jensen

Johannes V. Jensen was a Danish author who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1944, best known for Kongens Fald and the evolutionary cycle Den lange Rejse.

Joseph Roth

Joseph Roth (Moses Joseph Roth, 1894–1939), Austrian-Jewish novelist and journalist from Brody, Galicia; author of The Radetzky March (1932) and Job; Frankfurter Zeitung feuilletonist, Paris exile from 1933.

Jules Romains

Jules Romains, pen name of Louis Farigoule, was a French writer who founded Unanimism and wrote the play Knock and the 27-volume novel Les Hommes de bonne volonté.

Julien Green

Julien Green (1900–1998) was a French-language novelist, diarist, and playwright of American parents, and in 1971 became the first academician never to have held French nationality.

Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas

Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas (1869–1933) was a Lithuanian Catholic priest, prose writer, and literary historian, a leading figure of the National Revival and author of Pragiedruliai.

Jurgis Savickis

Jurgis Savickis (1890–1952), who wrote under the pen name Rimošius, was a Lithuanian modernist writer and diplomat who served as envoy in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and other posts, dying in exile in France.

Karen Blixen

Karen Blixen (1885-1962), Danish author also published as Isak Dinesen, wrote in English and Danish. Born and died at Rungstedlund; ran a Kenyan coffee farm 1914-1931; broke through with Seven Gothic Tales (1934) and Out of Africa (1937).

Karin Michaëlis

Karin Michaëlis, born Katharina Marie Bech Brøndum (1872 to 1950), was a Danish author and humanitarian whose scandal-novel The Dangerous Age made her world-famous in 1910.

Karl Heinrich Waggerl

Karl Heinrich Waggerl (1897–1973) was an Austrian writer and former schoolteacher whose rural novels, including Brot (1930), sold over 7 million copies in 12 languages.

Karl Ristikivi

Karl Ristikivi (1912–1977) was an Estonian novelist, poet, and literary historian whose debut novel Tuli ja raud (1938) made him a leading Estonian exile writer in Sweden.

Klaus Mann

Klaus Mann (1906–1949) was a German novelist, essayist, and playwright, son of Thomas Mann, best known for the exile novel Mephisto and his antifascist exile work.

Knut Hamsun

Knut Hamsun (Knut Pedersen, 1859–1952), Norwegian novelist and 1920 Nobel Literature laureate for Growth of the Soil; author of Hunger, pioneer of psychological modernism, and Nazi sympathizer who gave his medal to Goebbels.

Knuth Becker

Knuth Becker (1891–1974) was a Danish novelist and poet whose nine-volume partly autobiographical cycle about Kai Gøtsche, published 1932–1956, is the largest of its kind in Danish literature.

Konstantin Paustovsky

Konstantin Paustovsky (Константи́н Паусто́вский) was a Russian Soviet writer and master of lyrical prose, best known for the six-part autobiographical epic The Story of a Life.

Konstantine Gamsakhurdia

Konstantine Gamsakhurdia (კონსტანტინე გამსახურდია) was a Georgian novelist, one of the most influential 20th-century Georgian writers, known for the modernist Dionysus' Smile and historical novels of medieval Georgia.

Kristmann Guðmundsson

Kristmann Guðmundsson (1901–1983) was an Icelandic novelist and poet who lived in Norway from 1924 to 1938, wrote more than thirty novels, and became the second most translated Icelandic author after Halldór Laxness.

Kuzma Chorny

Kuzma Chorny (Belarusian: Кузьма Чорны), pen name of Mikalai Karlavich Ramanoŭski (1900–1944), was a Belarusian prose writer and dramatist often called the founder of the Belarusian novel.

Ladislav Nádaši-Jégé

Ladislav Nádaši-Jégé, born Ladislav Nádaši (1866–1940), was a Slovak physician and prose writer from Dolný Kubín, a leading exponent of Slovak naturalism whose works include Adam Šangala and Cesta životom.

Lars Ahlin

Lars Ahlin (1915–1997) was a Swedish novelist, short-story writer, and essayist, ranked among the leading Swedish novelists of the twentieth century; he debuted with Tåbb med manifestet in 1943.

László Németh

László Németh (1901–1975) was a Hungarian writer, essayist, playwright, and physician, a leading interwar népi figure whose novels, notably Iszony, were translated into many languages.

Leonhard Frank

Leonhard Frank (1882–1961) was a German novelist, dramatist, and pacifist who first became known with Die Räuberbande (1914) and was a leading writer of the Weimar Republic.

Leonid Leonov

Leonid Leonov, also known as Leonid Maksimovich Leonov, was a Soviet novelist and playwright born in Moscow whose novel The Russian Forest won the Lenin Prize in 1957.

Lion Feuchtwanger

Lion Feuchtwanger (1884–1958) was a German-Jewish novelist and anti-fascist exile whose historical novels, including Jud Süss (1925), made him one of the most widely translated German authors.

Louis Paul Boon

Louis Paul Boon (1912–1979), born Lodewijk Paul Aalbrecht Boon, was a Flemish novelist and journalist from Aalst, Belgium, and a leading renovator of Dutch-language prose.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, pen name of Louis Ferdinand Destouches (1894–1961), French novelist and physician, author of Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932) and Mort à crédit (1936), revolutionary stylist and author of antisemitic pamphlets 1937–1941.

Ludwig Thoma

Ludwig Thoma (1867–1921) was a German author, publisher, and satirist, regarded as the Bavarian writer par excellence, known for the Lausbubengeschichten and the comedy Moral.

Magda Szabó

Magda Szabó (Szabó Magda, 1917–2007) was a Hungarian novelist, poet, and dramatist, one of the most widely translated Hungarian authors, known above all for her 1987 novel The Door.

Maila Talvio

Maila Talvio, born Maria Winter and married name Mikkola, was a Finnish novelist and translator whose Helsinki historical trilogy Itämeren tytär (1929–1936) developed the Finnish historical novel.