Writers and literary biographies

Ivan Svitlychny

Ivan Svitlychny (Іван Світличний), 1929 to 1992, was a Ukrainian poet, critic, and translator tied to the Sixtiers movement who spent 12 years in Soviet camps and exile.

Ivan Turgenev (Иван Сергеевич Тургенев)

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (Иван Сергеевич Тургенев, 1818-1883), Russian novelist, author of A Sportsman's Sketches and Fathers and Sons; born in Oryol, died in Bougival near Paris, longtime associate of singer Pauline Viardot.

Ivan Vazov

Ivan Vazov (Иван Вазов), 1850 to 1921, was a Bulgarian poet, novelist, and playwright, author of Under the Yoke and the patriarch of Bulgarian literature.

Ivan Vladislavić

Ivan Vladislavić is a South African writer born in Pretoria in 1957, known for novels and documentary prose exploring Johannesburg, and a professor at Wits University.

Ivan Vyshenskyi

Ivan Vyshenskyi (Іван Вишенський) was a Ukrainian polemical writer and Orthodox monk-ascetic of Mount Athos, best known for epistles attacking the 1596 Union of Brest.

Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić

Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić (1874–1938) was a Croatian children's writer known as the "Croatian Andersen," whose Priče iz davnine drew on Slavic mythology; she was nominated four times for the Nobel Prize.

Ivo Andrić

Ivo Andrić (Иво Андриć), 1892–1975, Yugoslav novelist and diplomat, 1961 Nobel laureate; wrote The Bridge on the Drina, Bosnian Chronicle, and The Woman from Sarajevo, published 1945.

Ivo Vojnović

Ivo Vojnović (1857–1929) was a Croatian writer and playwright born in Dubrovnik, regarded as the leading Croatian dramatist of the Moderna; his best-known work is Dubrovačka trilogija (1902).

Iwan Gilkin

Iwan Gilkin (1858–1924) was a Belgian French-language Symbolist poet, dramatist, and critic, author of La Nuit, a founder of La Jeune Belgique, and a member of Belgium's royal academy of French language and literature.

Iwan Simatupang

Iwan Simatupang, full name Iwan Martua Dongan Simatupang (1928–1970), was an Indonesian dramatist, novelist, poet, and essayist whose 1960s and 1970s novels broke with Indonesian fiction conventions.

Izaak Walton

Izaak Walton (1593–1683) was an English writer and biographer whose Compleat Angler (1653), a dialogue on fishing, became one of the most frequently reprinted books in English.

Izumi Shikibu

Izumi Shikibu (和泉式部) was a Japanese waka poet of the mid-Heian period, known for passionate love poetry and for the Izumi Shikibu Nikki recounting her affair with Prince Atsudō.

J. Bernlef

J. Bernlef, pen name of Hendrik Jan Marsman (1937–2012), was a Dutch poet and novelist whose novel Hersenschimmen (1984), translated as Out of Mind, portrayed dementia.

J. C. Bloem

J. C. Bloem, born Jakobus Cornelis Bloem (1887–1966), was a Dutch poet and civil servant whose formally traditional verse made him a classicist in twentieth-century Dutch poetry.

J. D. Salinger

J. D. Salinger (Jerome David Salinger), 1919 to 2010, was an American writer whose novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951) sold more than 65 million copies.

J. G. Ballard

J. G. Ballard (James Graham Ballard, 1930–2009), British novelist born in Shanghai and interned in a Japanese WWII civilian camp; author of Crash, High-Rise, The Drowned World, and Empire of the Sun; associated with British New Wave science fiction and 'inner space'.

J. H. Leopold

J. H. Leopold (Jan Hendrik Leopold, 1865–1925) was a Dutch symbolist poet and classicist, best known for the long poem Cheops and his free translations of Persian and Arabic poetry.

J. I. Segal

J. I. Segal, born Yaakov Yitzchak Skolar (1896–1954), was a Canadian Yiddish poet and journalist based in Montreal, one of Canada's first Yiddish writers and its most renowned Yiddish poet.

J. J. Voskuil

J. J. Voskuil, also known as Han Voskuil, was a Dutch novelist and folklorist whose seven-volume, 5,500-page novel cycle Het Bureau sold nearly half a million copies.

J. K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling (Joanne Rowling, born 1965) is the British author of the seven-book Harry Potter series (1997–2007, over 600 million copies), the Robert Galbraith Strike crime novels, and founder of the charity Lumos.

J. L. Carr

J. L. Carr (Joseph Lloyd Carr, 1912-1994), English novelist and Quince Tree Press publisher; wrote eight novels including A Month in the Country, Guardian Fiction Prize winner and 1980 Booker shortlist.

J. M. Barrie

J. M. Barrie (1860–1937), Scottish novelist and playwright, creator of Peter Pan; born in Kirriemuir, guardian of the Llewelyn Davies boys, gave the Peter Pan copyright to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

J. M. Coetzee

J.M. Coetzee (born 1940, Cape Town) is a South African-born Australian novelist, two-time Booker Prize winner (Life & Times of Michael K, Disgrace) and 2003 Nobel laureate in Literature, known for spare allegorical fiction.

J. M. G. Le Clézio

J. M. G. Le Clézio (Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio), French novelist born 1940 in Nice, 2008 Nobel Literature laureate; author of Le Procès-verbal, Désert, and Mauritius-rooted fiction.

J. P. Clark

J. P. Clark, born John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo, was a Nigerian poet, playwright, and scholar counted among the pioneers of modern Nigerian poetry; he died in 2020.

J. P. Donleavy

J. P. Donleavy (1926-2017), American-born Irish novelist, author of The Ginger Man (1955), banned in Ireland and published by Olympia Press; won a 21-year legal battle with Maurice Girodias and bought the press, settling at Levington Park, Mullingar.

J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973), English philologist and Oxford professor, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, creator of Middle-earth and invented languages, and founding figure of modern fantasy literature.

J.-H. Rosny aîné

J.-H. Rosny aîné was the principal pseudonym of Joseph-Henri Boëx (1856–1940), a Belgian-born French novelist, pioneer of prehistoric fiction and science fiction, and president of the Académie Goncourt.

Jaan Kaplinski

Jaan Kaplinski (1941–2021) was an Estonian poet, philosopher, translator, and politician, a leading figure of the 1960s Estonian poetry revival, nominated several times for the Nobel Prize.