Writers and literary biographies

Jānis Poruks

Jānis Poruks (1871–1911) was a Latvian writer and poet, a founder of romantic Latvian literature whose novella Pērļu zvejnieks (The Pearl Fisher) belongs to the Latvian Culture Canon.

Jānis Sudrabkalns

Jānis Sudrabkalns was the pen name of the Latvian poet Arvīds Sudrabkalns (1894–1975), a leading interwar and Soviet-era poet, People's Poet of the Latvian SSR in 1947.

Janko Kráľ

Janko Kráľ was a Slovak Romantic poet of the Štúr generation, born in 1822, best known for the ballad Zakliata panna vo Váhu a divný Janko of 1844.

János Arany

János Arany (1817–1882) was a Hungarian poet, translator, and scholar whose verse epic Toldi (1847) won national fame, and whose ballads and Shakespeare translations are classics.

János Batsányi, also spelled Bacsányi (1763–1845), was a Hungarian Enlightenment poet and editor who founded the Magyar Museum, the first literary journal in Hungarian, and was imprisoned for his revolutionary verse.

János Pilinszky

János Pilinszky (Pilinszky János, 1921–1981) was a Hungarian poet and essayist, a Kossuth Prize winner whose poetry centers on Second World War trauma and God's silence.

Janusz Korczak

Janusz Korczak, pen name of Henryk Goldszmit, was a Polish Jewish pediatrician and educator who ran the Dom Sierot orphanage in Warsaw and is seen as a founder of the children's rights movement.

Jarl Hemmer

Jarl Hemmer (1893–1944) was a Finland-Swedish author and poet, known for the verse epic Rågens rike and the Civil War novel En man och hans samvete.

Jaroslav Hašek

Jaroslav Hašek (1883–1923) was a Czech writer, journalist, and humorist whose unfinished satirical novel The Good Soldier Švejk, published 1921–1923, became the most translated book of Czech literature, appearing in 54 languages by 1994.

Jaroslav Seifert

Jaroslav Seifert was a Czech poet and journalist who won the 1984 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Czech to receive it. A Charter 77 signatory, he wrote nearly thirty volumes of poetry over six decades.

Jaroslav Vrchlický

Jaroslav Vrchlický, born Emil Frída, was a Czech poet, dramatist, and translator who published about 270 books, including more than 80 poetry collections, and died in 1912.

Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz

Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz was a Polish poet, prose writer, and playwright, co-founder of the Skamander group and one of the eminent Polish writers of the 20th century.

Jasimuddin

Jasimuddin (1903–1976) was a Bengali poet known as Palli Kabi, the Country Poet, whose narrative poem Nakshi Kanthar Math portrayed rural Bengal life in rustic language.

Jason Epstein

Jason Epstein (1928–2022), American editor and publisher; founder of Anchor Books, the first US trade paperback line; Random House editorial director; co-founder of The New York Review of Books and Library of America; pioneer of print-on-demand.

Jason Reynolds

Jason Reynolds, American author of more than 20 books for children and young adults including Ghost, Long Way Down, and Look Both Ways; 2024 MacArthur Fellow, 2021 Carnegie Medal winner, and 2020-2022 US National Ambassador for Young People's Literature.

Jaswant Singh Kanwal

Jaswant Singh Kanwal (ਜਸਵੰਤ ਸਿੰਘ ਕੰਵਲ; 1919–2020) was an Indian Punjabi-language novelist, short story writer, and essayist who wrote about 102 books on rural Punjabi life and won the Sahitya Akademi Award.

Jatindra Nath Duara

Jatindra Nath Duara (Assamese: যতীন্দ্ৰ নাথ দুৱৰা; 1892–1964) was an Assamese poet regarded as the foremost Romantic poet of Assamese literature, winning the Sahitya Akademi Award for Banphul.

Jaun Elia (جون ایلیا)

Jaun Elia (جون ایلیا), 1931–2002, Urdu poet and scholar from Amroha based in Karachi; only Shayad published in his lifetime, posthumous volumes by Khalid Ahmed Ansari, Pride of Performance 2000.

Javad Mojabi

Javad Mojabi (جواد مجابی) was an Iranian poet, novelist, satirist, painter, and art critic active for more than six decades until his death in 2026.

Javier de Viana

Javier de Viana (1868–1926) was a Uruguayan writer, journalist, and politician of the Generación del Novecientos, known for naturalist stories of the gaucho in rural Uruguay.

Javier Sologuren

Javier Sologuren Moreno (1921–2004) was a Peruvian poet, essayist, translator, and artisan publisher, a central figure of twentieth-century Peruvian poetry and of the poetic group of 1945.

Jay Asher

Jay Asher (born 1975, Arcadia, California) is the American YA author of Thirteen Reasons Why (2007), later a Netflix series; also wrote The Future of Us, What Light, and Piper, and was embroiled in a 2018 SCBWI controversy he denies.

Jay McInerney

Jay McInerney, born John Barrett McInerney Jr. in 1955, is an American novelist known for Bright Lights, Big City (1984), the Brat Pack, and his wine column for Town & Country.

Jayakanthan (ஜெயகாந்தன்)

Jayakanthan (ஜெயகாந்தன்), also JK, Dhandapani Jayakanthan, 1934-2015, Tamil writer from Cuddalore raised in the Communist Party of India; wrote about 40 novels and 200 short stories, won the 1972 Sahitya Akademi Award and 2002 Jnanpith Award.

Jayanta Mahapatra

Jayanta Mahapatra was an Indian poet who wrote in English and Odia, taught physics in Odisha, and in 1981 won the first Sahitya Akademi Award for English poetry.

Jazep Losik

Jazep Losik (Язэп Лёсік, 1883–1940) was a Belarusian linguist and political figure, second chairman of the Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic and a founder of standardized Belarusian grammar.

Jean Améry

Jean Améry (Hans Mayer, 1912–1978), Austrian essayist and Auschwitz survivor. Pen name anagram of Mayer; wrote At the Mind's Limits (1966), defending resentment and describing torture's lasting destruction of trust in the world.

Jean Anouilh

Jean Anouilh (1910–1987) was a French dramatist whose breakthrough came in 1937 with Le Voyageur sans bagage, and whose signature works are Antigone (1944), staged during the Occupation, and Becket (1959).

Jean Bodel

Jean Bodel, also written Jehan Bodel (c. 1165 – 1210), was a French trouvère and playwright of Arras, author of the oldest French miracle play.