6,282 articles
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne (1713–1768), Anglo-Irish clergyman and novelist, author of Tristram Shandy (1759–1767) and A Sentimental Journey (1768), famed for digressive, typographically experimental narrative and vast European influence.
Laurie Gilmore
Laurie Gilmore is the pen name of American romance writer Melissa McTernan, author of the bestselling Dream Harbor series, which began with The Pumpkin Spice Café in 2023.
Laurie Lee
Laurie Lee (Laurence Edward Alan Lee, 1914-1997), English poet and memoirist of Slad, Gloucestershire; author of Cider with Rosie (1959) and the autobiographical trilogy including A Moment of War; MBE 1952; distinct from the American actress and the Wyoming painter of the same name.
Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990), British novelist, poet, and travel writer born in Jullundur, India; author of The Alexandria Quartet (Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea, 1957–60), Prospero's Cell, and Bitter Lemons; friend of Henry Miller.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti was an American poet and activist who co-founded City Lights Booksellers & Publishers in San Francisco. He was tried for obscenity in 1957 for publishing Allen Ginsberg's Howl.
Laxman Mane
Laxman Mane (लक्ष्मण बापू माने, Laxman Bapu Mane), born 1949, is a Marathi writer from Maharashtra whose autobiography Upara, a foundational Dalit work, won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1981.
Laxmi Prasad Devkota (लक्ष्मीप्रसाद देवकोटा)
Laxmi Prasad Devkota (लक्ष्मीप्रसाद देवकोटा; 1909–1959), Nepal's Mahakavi, wrote Muna Madan and Shakuntala Mahakavya; 346 cataloged works spanning epics, poems, essays, and songs.
Lazăr Șăineanu
Lazăr Șăineanu, known in France as Lazare Sainéan, was a Romanian-born philologist, linguist, and folklorist. Denied Romanian citizenship, he settled in Paris in 1901 and turned to French linguistics.
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg writer, scholar, and musician of Alderville First Nation; author of Dancing on Our Turtle's Back, Noopiming, and Theory of Water (2025 Hilary Weston Prize winner); developer of land-as-pedagogy theory.
Lebanese Writers' Union
The Lebanese Writers' Union (اتحاد الكتَّاب اللبنانيين) is a nonprofit cultural institution headquartered in Beirut. Founded in 1968, it unites published Lebanese writers and issues statements on public life.
Lee Child
Lee Child is the pen name of James Grant, a British thriller writer born in 1954 who created the Jack Reacher series, which has sold over 100 million copies.
Lee Israel
Lee Israel (Leonore Carol Israel, 1939-2014), American biographer of Tallulah Bankhead, Dorothy Kilgallen, and Estée Lauder who forged over 400 celebrity letters, was prosecuted by the FBI, and wrote the memoir Can You Ever Forgive Me?.
Lee Maracle
Lee Maracle, born Marguerite Aline Carter, was a Stó:lō Canadian writer and activist whose 1975 debut Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel was among Canada's first published Indigenous fiction.
Lee O-young
Lee O-young (이어령, 1934–2022) was a South Korean literary critic who wrote more than 130 books and served as the country's first Minister of Culture.
Leela Majumdar
Leela Majumdar (Bengali: লীলা মজুমদার, 1908–2007) was an Indian Bengali writer of more than 125 children's books who co-edited the magazine Sandesh for decades and won the Rabindra Puraskar.
Leeladhar Jagudi
Leeladhar Jagudi, born 1940, is a Hindi poet from Uttarakhand who won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1997, the Padma Shri in 2004, and the Vyas Samman in 2018.
Legson Kayira
Legson Kayira was a Malawian novelist who, as a teenager in 1958, walked roughly 2,500 miles across Africa to reach an American college education, recounting the journey in I Will Try.
Leif G. W. Persson
Leif G. W. Persson, born in Stockholm in 1945, is a Swedish criminologist and crime writer known for detective novels featuring Evert Bäckström and television commentary.
Leigh Bardugo
Leigh Bardugo (born 1975) is an Israeli-American fantasy author, creator of the Grishaverse (Shadow and Bone, Six of Crows, King of Scars), the Ninth House trilogy, The Familiar, and The Invisible Parade, adapted as a Netflix series.
Leigh Brackett
Leigh Brackett (1915-1978), the Queen of Space Opera, was an American science fiction writer and screenwriter of The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo, The Long Goodbye, and the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back.
Leigh Hunt
Leigh Hunt, born James Henry Leigh Hunt, was an English poet, essayist, and journalist who edited the radical weekly The Examiner and championed Keats and Shelley.
Leili Anvar
Leili Anvar, born in Tehran in 1967, is a French Iranist, writer, and translator at INALCO in Paris, best known for her verse translation of Attar's Cantique des oiseaux.
Lekë Matrënga
Lekë Matrënga, in Italian Luca Matranga (1567–1619), was an Arbëresh Orthodox cleric of Sicily, author of the 1592 catechism E mbsuame e krështerë, the second printed book in Albanian.
Lekhnath Paudyal
Lekhnath Paudyal (लेखनाथ पौड्याल, 1884 or 1885 – 1966) was a Nepali poet honored as Kavi Shiromani and regarded as a founding father of modern Nepali poetry.
Lemn Sissay
Lemn Sissay, born 1967 in Wigan to an Ethiopian mother, is a British poet, playwright, memoirist, and broadcaster. Known for My Name Is Why, landmark poems, the 2012 Olympics poet role, and Manchester chancellorship.
Lemony Snicket
Lemony Snicket, also known as Lemony Snicket of A Series of Unfortunate Events, is Daniel Handler's pen name and fictional narrator persona, author of the 13-volume Baudelaire orphan saga (1999–2006) plus All the Wrong Questions and The Dark.
Len Deighton
Len Deighton (1929–2026), British spy novelist and author of The Ipcress File and the Bernard Samson series beginning with Berlin Game; anti-Bond realism, over 30 million copies sold.
Lennart Meri
Lennart Georg Meri (1929–2006) was an Estonian writer, filmmaker, and politician who served as President of Estonia from 1992 to 2001, the first elected after independence was restored.
Lennox Robinson
Lennox Robinson (Esmé Stuart Lennox Robinson, 1886–1958) was an Irish playwright, novelist, and theater administrator who served Dublin's Abbey Theatre for fifty years, reviving it after 1919 and championing George Shiels and Sean O'Casey.
Leo Perutz
Leo Perutz, born Leopold Perutz, was an Austrian novelist and insurance mathematician whose historical and fantastic novels made him one of the most widely read authors in interwar Austria and Germany.