Writers and literary biographies

René Béhaine

René Béhaine, pseudonym of René Béhenne (1880–1966), was a French novelist who spent over fifty years writing Histoire d'une société, a sixteen-volume study of provincial bourgeois life, winning literary prizes but remaining little known.

René Char

René Char (1907–1988) was a French poet and Resistance leader from L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in Provence who commanded Maquis units as Capitaine Alexandre and published his best-known work, Feuillets d'Hypnos, in 1946.

René Depestre

René Depestre is a Haitian-born poet, novelist, and essayist living in exile since 1946 who won the prix Renaudot in 1988 for Hadriana dans tous mes rêves.

René Étiemble

René Étiemble (1909–2002) was a French essayist and Sorbonne professor of comparative literature, best known for the 1964 pamphlet Parlez-vous franglais? and for winning the 1988 Balzan Prize.

René Goscinny

René Goscinny (1926–1977), French comics scriptwriter, co-creator of Astérix with Uderzo, Le Petit Nicolas with Sempé, Iznogoud with Tabary, and Lucky Luke's writer from 1955; founded Pilote in 1959 and Studios Idéfix in 1974.

Rene Karabash (Рене Карабаш)

Rene Karabash (Рене Карабаш), pen name of Irena Hristova Ivanova (born 1989), is a Bulgarian poet and novelist whose debut novel She Who Remains won the Elias Canetti Prize and was shortlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize.

René Maran

René Maran (1887–1960) was a French writer and colonial administrator who in 1921 became the first Black writer to win the Prix Goncourt, for his novel Batouala.

René Marqués

René Marqués (1919–1979) was a Puerto Rican playwright, novelist, and essayist from Arecibo, best known for the drama La carreta (The Oxcart, 1953), a landmark of Puerto Rican theater.

René Philombé

René Philombé was the pen name of Philippe-Louis Ombedé (1930–2001), a Cameroonian novelist, poet, and playwright, paralyzed by polio in 1955, who won the Prix Mottart.

René Rapin

René Rapin (1621–1687) was a French Jesuit poet, critic, and historian whose Latin garden poem Hortorum libri IV (1665) won European acclaim and whose Mémoires record the Jesuit side of the Jansenist quarrel.

René Vallery-Radot

René Vallery-Radot (1853–1933) was a French man of letters, journalist at the Temps, and son-in-law of Louis Pasteur, whose biography he wrote and whose institute he led from 1917.

Reşat Nuri Güntekin

Reşat Nuri Güntekin (born Mehmet Reşat, 1889–1956) was a Turkish novelist and playwright best known for Çalıkuşu (1922), about a young Istanbul woman teaching in Anatolian villages.

Rhiannon McGavin

Rhiannon McGavin, also known as thegeekyblonde, is an American poet from Hollywood, Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles 2016, viral for "Somewhere in America", author of Branches and Grocery List Poems, and a 2023 Mitchell Scholar at Trinity College Dublin.

Riau literary school

The Riau literary school was a nineteenth-century cluster of Malay writers, scholars, and printers on Penyengat Island in the Riau-Lingga Sultanate, best known through Raja Ali Haji.

Ribeiro Couto

Ribeiro Couto (Rui Ribeiro Couto, 1898–1963) was a Brazilian diplomat, poet, and novelist, author of Cabocla, ambassador to Yugoslavia, and a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Ricarda Huch

Ricarda Huch (1864–1947) was a German poet, novelist, and historian, the first woman elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts' poetry section and a public opponent of the Nazi regime.

Ričardas Gavelis

Ričardas Gavelis (1950–2002) was a Lithuanian prose writer, playwright, and publicist whose 1989 novel Vilnius Poker is considered a landmark of Lithuanian postmodern fiction.

Ricardo Güiraldes

Ricardo Güiraldes (1886–1927) was an Argentine writer, born in Buenos Aires to an aristocratic family, whose novel Don Segundo Sombra (1926) became a classic of gaucho literature.

Ricardo Miró

Ricardo Miró Denis (1883–1940) was a Panamanian poet, novelist, and diplomat, widely regarded as the national poet of Panama for his patriotic verse and the poem "Patria".

Ricardo Piglia

Ricardo Piglia (Ricardo Emilio Piglia Renzi) was an influential Argentine novelist and literary critic whose novels include Respiración artificial (1980), Plata quemada (1997), and Blanco nocturno (2010).

Riccardo Bacchelli

Riccardo Bacchelli (1891–1985) was an Italian novelist, poet, playwright, and critic who championed Renaissance and 19th-century narrative styles against modernist experiment, best known for the trilogy Il mulino del Po.

Richard Adams

Richard Adams was an English novelist born in 1920, known for Watership Down and The Plague Dogs. He was also a lifelong animal welfare campaigner and author of Shardik.

Richard Bach

Richard Bach (born 1936, Oak Park, Illinois) is an American author and former USAF pilot, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970, 44 million copies) and Illusions (1977).

Richard Bachman

Richard Bachman is the pseudonym under which Stephen King published seven novels from 1977 to 2007, including Rage, The Long Walk, and Thinner, until bookseller Steve Brown exposed him via Library of Congress copyrights in 1985.

Richard Brautigan

Richard Brautigan (1935-1984), American novelist and poet of the 1960s counterculture, author of Trout Fishing in America, In Watermelon Sugar, and Revenge of the Lawn; died by suicide in 1984.

Richard Crashaw

Richard Crashaw (c. 1612/13–1649) was an English poet and clergyman who converted to Roman Catholicism, known for the sensuous sacred verse of Steps to the Temple (1646).

Richard Flanagan

Richard Flanagan, born in Tasmania in 1961, is an Australian novelist who won the 2014 Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

Richard Ford

Richard Ford (born 1944, Jackson, Mississippi), American novelist of the Frank Bascombe series (The Sportswriter, Independence Day), first novelist to win both the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award for one novel.

Richard Halliburton

Richard Halliburton (1900-1939), American travel writer and adventurer, author of The Royal Road to Romance; swam the Panama Canal for a 36-cent toll, flew the Flying Carpet around the world, and vanished in 1939 sailing the junk Sea Dragon from Hong Kong to San Francisco.