Writers and literary biographies

Ismat Chughtai (عصمت چغتائی)

Ismat Chughtai (عصمت چغتائی), Indian Urdu short-story writer and novelist (1915–1991), Progressive Writers' Movement figure, author of Lihaaf and Terhi Lakir; faced obscenity trial in Lahore, received Padma Shri 1975 and Iqbal Samman 1990.

İsmet Özel

İsmet Özel, born in Kayseri in 1944, is a Turkish poet and essayist whose career moved from socialist-realist verse in the 1960s to an Islamist and nationalist framework after 1974.

Isocrates

Isocrates (436–338 BC) was an Athenian rhetorician and teacher of rhetoric, ranked fourth among the ten Attic orators, whose school rivaled Plato's Academy and shaped European education into the eighteenth century.

Isotta Ingrid Rossellini

Isotta Ingrid Rossellini, known as Ingrid Rossellini, born 1952 in Rome, is an Italian-American scholar of Italian literature and twin sister of Isabella Rossellini; daughter of Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman, she holds a Columbia PhD on Petrarch, taught at Harvard, Princeton, and NYU, and wrote Know Thyself (2018).

Israel Joshua Singer

Israel Joshua Singer (1893–1944) was a Yiddish novelist and journalist born in Poland, best known for Yoshe Kalb and The Brothers Ashkenazi, and elder brother of Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Israel Najara

Israel Najara, Hebrew ישראל נג'ארה, was a Hebrew poet, rabbi, and kabbalist born in Safed around 1550 who wrote roughly one thousand songs and died as rabbi of Gaza around 1625.

Israel Zangwill

Israel Zangwill (1864–1926) was a British novelist, playwright, and advocate of Jewish causes who led British Zionism, then broke with it in 1905 to found the Jewish Territorialist Organization.

Īśvaradāsa Nāgara

Īśvaradāsa Nāgara (ઈશ્વરદાસ નાગર) was a seventeenth-century Brahmin from Patan, Gujarat, who served the Mughals and wrote the Futuhat-i-Alamgiri, a Persian history of Aurangzeb's reign.

Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino (1923-1985), Italian novelist and short-story writer of Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno, Il barone rampante, Invisible Cities, and If on a winter's night a traveller; Einaudi editor, ex-PCI partisan, regarded as a postmodernist master.

Itzik Manger

Itzik Manger (איציק מאַנגער), born Isidor Helfer, was a Yiddish poet and playwright best known for modernist biblical ballads like Khumesh-lider; he died in Israel in 1969.

Ivan Bahrianyi

Ivan Bahrianyi (Іван Багряний), pen name of Ivan Pavlovych Lozoviaga, was a Ukrainian writer and émigré politician who survived Soviet camps and won the Shevchenko Prize posthumously in 1992.

Ivan Bogorov

Ivan Bogorov (Иван Богоров) was a Bulgarian Renaissance encyclopedist, physician, and language planner who founded the first Bulgarian newspaper, Bălgarski Orel, in Leipzig in 1846.

Ivan Cankar

Ivan Cankar (1876–1918) was a Slovene writer, playwright, essayist, and political activist regarded as the greatest writer in the Slovene language and founder of Slovene modernism.

Ivan Chyhrynaŭ

Ivan Chyhrynaŭ (Іван Чыгрынаў) was a Belarusian writer and playwright, People's Writer of Belarus from 1994, best known for a five-novel cycle on the Great Patriotic War.

Ivan Dmitriev

Ivan Dmitriev (Иван Иванович Дмитриев, 1760–1837) was a Russian poet and fabulist of the sentimental school who served as Minister of Justice from 1810 to 1814.

Ivan Drach

Ivan Drach (Іван Драч) was a Ukrainian poet and political leader who headed the Popular Movement of Ukraine and received the title Hero of Ukraine in 2006.

Ivan Franko (Іван Якович Франко)

Ivan Franko (Іван Якович Франко, 1856–1916), Ukrainian poet, novelist, scholar, translator, and political leader from Galicia; author of Zakhar Berkut, Boryslav smiiet'sia, and Moisei; Vienna doctorate 1893; first Ukrainian nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Ivan Goncharov

Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov (1812–1891) was a Russian realist novelist whose three novels include Oblomov (1859), which coined the term Oblomovism; he also wrote the travel book Frigate Pallada.

Ivan Grozev

Ivan Grozev (Иван Грозев, 1872–1957) was a Bulgarian poet, dramatist, translator, and mystic literary critic, twice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and called the most prominent mystic in Bulgarian literature.

Ivan Klíma

Ivan Klíma, born Ivan Kauders, was a Czech novelist and playwright banned from publishing after the 1968 Soviet invasion who later won the 2002 Franz Kafka Prize.

Ivan Kotliarevsky

Ivan Kotliarevsky (1769–1838) was a Ukrainian poet and playwright regarded as the founder of modern Ukrainian literature and literary language, known for the vernacular poem Eneida.

Ivan Krylov

Ivan Krylov (Иван Андреевич Крылов), 1769 to 1844, was a Russian writer and fabulist who wrote more than 200 fables in nine books; many lines entered Russian speech as proverbs.

Ivan Mažuranić

Ivan Mažuranić was a Croatian poet, lawyer, and politician who served as ban (governor) of Croatia from 1873 to 1880, the first commoner to hold the office.

Ivan Melezh

Ivan Melezh (Іван Мележ, 1921–1976) was a Belarusian Soviet prose writer best known for the trilogy Polesie Chronicle, which depicts collectivization in the Polesie marshlands and earned him the Lenin Prize in 1972.

Ivan Navumenka

Ivan Navumenka (Іван Якаўлевіч Навуменка, 1925–2006) was a Belarusian prose writer and literary scholar known for his partisan war trilogy, and chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR from 1985 to 1990.

Ivan Nechuy-Levytsky

Ivan Nechuy-Levytsky (Іван Нечуй-Левицький; born Ivan Semenovych Levytsky) was a Ukrainian prose writer and playwright, a founder of Ukrainian realist narrative, best known for Kaidash's Family.

Ivan Ptashnikau

Ivan Ptashnikau (Іван Пташнікаў) was a Belarusian prose writer, 1932 to 2016, a leading figure of Belarusian village prose whose novella Tartak opened the Khatyn theme.

Ivan Shamiakin

Ivan Shamiakin (Іван Пятровіч Шамякін; 1921–2004) was a Belarusian Soviet writer and screenwriter whose books sold more than 25 million copies; he was named People's Writer of the Byelorussian SSR in 1972.

Ivan Shishmanov

Ivan Shishmanov (1862–1928) was a Bulgarian literary historian, folklorist, and comparativist, regarded as the founder of modern Bulgarian humanities scholarship, who served as education minister from 1903 to 1907.