Writers and literary biographies

Marko Vovchok

Marko Vovchok, pen name of Mariia Olexandrivna Vilinska, was a Ukrainian writer whose 1857 collection Folk Tales made her the most prominent female writer in nineteenth-century Ukrainian literature.

Markus Zusak, born 1975 in Sydney, is an Australian novelist, author of The Book Thief (2005), The Messenger, and Bridge of Clay; son of German and Austrian immigrants, winner of a Printz Honor, with over 19 million copies sold.

Marlene van Niekerk

Marlene van Niekerk, born 1954, is a South African poet, novelist, and short-story writer in Afrikaans, best known for the award-winning novels Triomf (1994) and Agaat (2004).

Marlon James (novelist)

Marlon James, Jamaican novelist born 1970 in Kingston; won the 2015 Booker Prize for A Brief History of Seven Killings, first Jamaican winner; author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf and The Disappearers, 2026 Booker shortlistee.

Marnix van Sint-Aldegonde

Philips van Marnix, Heer van Sint-Aldegonde (1540–1598), was a Netherlandish nobleman, Calvinist diplomat, and writer whose satire the Byencorf mocked the Catholic Church, and who is credited with the Wilhelmus.

Maroun Abboud

Maroun Abboud (مارون عبود), 1886–1962, was a Lebanese writer, poet, journalist, and literary critic regarded as a pioneer of the modern Arabic literary renaissance in Lebanon.

Marquis de Sade

Marquis de Sade (Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, 1740–1814), French aristocrat, libertine novelist, and atheist philosopher; author of Justine, Juliette, Philosophy in the Boudoir, and the 120 Days of Sodom; his name gave the word sadism.

Marta Lynch

Marta Lynch, full name Marta Lía Frigerio de Lynch (1925 to 1985), was an Argentine novelist and short-story writer whose best sellers examined politics, class, and middle-class women.

Marthe Bibesco

Marthe Bibesco, born Princess Marthe Lahovary, was a Franco-Romanian aristocratic writer who chronicled European royalty in French and won the French Academy Grand Prize in 1954.

Martial

Martial, born Marcus Valerius Martialis in Spain around 40 CE, was a Roman poet who brought the Latin epigram, a brief satirical verse form, to perfection.

Martianus Capella

Martianus Capella, Martianus Minneus Felix Capella, a fifth-century Latin writer of Roman Africa, authored De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, the allegorical nine-book encyclopedia of the seven liberal arts that anchored medieval education.

Martin Amis

Martin Amis (1949-2023), British novelist, essayist, and memoirist, son of Kingsley Amis; author of Money, London Fields, and Time's Arrow; won the Somerset Maugham and James Tait Black prizes but never the Booker; knighted the day before his death.

Martin Andersen Nexø

Martin Andersen Nexø (1869–1954) was a Danish proletarian novelist and communist whose Pelle the Conqueror became the second most widely distributed Danish literary work after H.C. Andersen.

Martin Greif (poet)

Martin Greif, born Friedrich Hermann Frey, was a German poet and dramatist (1839–1911) who lived in Munich and Vienna, known for nature lyrics and the play Agnes Bernauer.

Martin Litchfield West

Martin Litchfield West (1937–2015) was a British classical scholar and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, a leading authority on Greek poetry, meter, and music.

Martín Luis Guzmán

Martín Luis Guzmán (1887–1976) was a Mexican novelist and journalist whose El águila y la serpiente and La sombra del caudillo portray the Mexican Revolution's leaders.

Martin Rázus

Martin Rázus (1888–1937) was a Slovak poet, prose writer, dramatist, journalist, Lutheran pastor, and politician who led the Slovak National Party from 1927 and sat in the Czechoslovak National Assembly.

Martin Walser

Martin Walser (1927–2023) was a German novelist, playwright, and essayist and a leading figure of postwar German literature, known for works like Ein fliehendes Pferd.

Martin Wickramasinghe

Martin Wickramasinghe (මාර්ටින් වික්‍රමසිංහ, 1890–1976) was a Sri Lankan novelist and critic regarded as the father of modern Sinhala literature, known for the novel Gamperaliya.

Martinus Nijhoff

Martinus Nijhoff (1894–1953) was a Dutch modernist poet, essayist, translator, and playwright, known for Awater and Het uur U and ranked among the greatest Dutch-language poets of the twentieth century.

Marun 'Abbud

Marun 'Abbud (مارون عبود) was a Lebanese man of letters, a literary critic, poet, novelist, and translator who taught Arabic for 34 years at 'Aley National College.

Maruyama Kaoru

Maruyama Kaoru (丸山薫, 1899–1974) was a Japanese poet of the Showa era who co-founded the influential poetry magazine Shiki in 1934 and won the first Bungei Hanron Poetry Prize.

Marv Wolfman

Marv Wolfman (born 1946, Brooklyn) is an American comic book writer and editor, co-creator with George Pérez of The New Teen Titans and Crisis on Infinite Earths, and writer of Marvel's Tomb of Dracula; he created or co-created Blade, Nova, Cyborg, Raven, Starfire, Deathstroke, and Black Cat.