Literature and written works

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.

Jayadrath Vadh

Jayadrath Vadh (जयद्रथ-वध) is a 1910 Hindi khandkavya, or short epic, by Maithili Sharan Gupt that retells Abhimanyu's death in the chakravyuh and Arjuna's slaying of Jayadrath.

Jayadratha (जयद्रथ) is the Mahabharata king of Sindhu and Sauvira, a Kaurava ally whose Rudra-granted stand caused Abhimanyu's death and whose slaying by Arjuna before sunset is told in the Jayadratha-vadha Parva.

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.

JCB Prize for Literature

The JCB Prize for Literature was an Indian literary award of Rs 2.5 million for fiction by Indian authors, established in 2018 and discontinued in 2025 after seven editions.

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.

Jean Chardin

Jean Chardin, later Sir John Chardin, was a French Huguenot jeweler and merchant who spent about ten years in Safavid Persia and wrote the ten-volume Voyages en Perse.

Jean de Florette

Jean de Florette is a 1986 French drama directed by Claude Berri, adapted from Marcel Pagnol's novel L'Eau des collines and starring Yves Montand, Gérard Depardieu, and Daniel Auteuil.

Jean de La Bruyère

Jean de La Bruyère (1645–1696) was a French essayist and moralist, author of Les Caractères (1688), a collection of maxims and portraits of his century.

Jean de La Fontaine

Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695) was a French poet and fabulist whose 239 verse fables, drawn from Aesop, place him in the first rank of French literature.

Jean de Meun

Jean de Meun (c. 1240 – c. 1305) was a French poet who completed the Roman de la Rose, adding about 17,000 lines to Guillaume de Lorris's allegory.

Jean Fanchette

Jean Fanchette (1932–1992) was a Mauritian-born French-language poet, psychoanalyst, and editor who founded the Paris review Two Cities and won the Académie française's prix de la Langue française in 1976.

Jean Giono

Jean Giono (1895–1970) was a French novelist and pacifist from Manosque in Provence, known for the Pan trilogy, the Hussard cycle, and "The Man Who Planted Trees."

Jean Giraud

Jean Giraud (1938–2012), French comics artist signing as Gir and Mœbius; creator of Blueberry, Arzach, Le Garage hermétique, and L'Incal, co-founder of Métal Hurlant, and designer for Alien, Tron, and The Fifth Element.

Jean Guéhenno

Jean Guéhenno (1890–1978) was a French writer, teacher, and education inspector best remembered for Journal des années noires, his secret diary of the German occupation of France.

Jean M. Auel

Jean M. Auel, born 1936, American author of the Earth's Children prehistoric series beginning with The Clan of the Cave Bear (1980); six volumes, over 45 million copies sold, ending with The Land of Painted Caves (2011).

Jean Malonga

Jean Malonga (1907–1985) was a Congolese writer and politician, regarded as the founder of modern Congolese literature; his novel Cœur d'Aryenne is considered the first Congolese novel.

Jean Métellus

Jean Métellus (1937–2014) was a Haitian poet, novelist, playwright, and neurologist who left Haiti in 1959 under the Duvalier dictatorship and spent his life in exile in France.

Jean Paul

Jean Paul was the pen name of Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (1763–1825), a German novelist known for humorous works such as Hesperus, Siebenkäs, and Titan.

Jean Pliya

Jean Pliya (1931–2015) was a Beninese writer of French expression and geographer by training, a founding figure of Beninese theater whose plays Kondo le requin and La Secrétaire particulière dominated the stage for two decades.

Jean Raspail

Jean Raspail (Jean Paul Raspail, 5 July 1925 – 13 June 2020), French novelist, journalist, and explorer; author of Le Camp des saints (1973) and Moi, Antoine de Tounens; Académie française Grand Prix du Roman 1981.

Jean Rhys

Jean Rhys (Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams), Dominican-born modernist novelist (1890 or 1894–1979), author of Quartet, Voyage in the Dark, Good Morning, Midnight, and Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), the Jane Eyre prequel that restored her fame.

Jean Schlumberger (writer)

Jean Schlumberger (1877–1968) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright who co-founded La Nouvelle Revue Française with André Gide in 1908 and ran it from 1909 to 1914.

Jean Stafford

Jean Stafford (1915–1979) was an American novelist and short story writer who won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her Collected Stories and wrote the novels Boston Adventure and The Mountain Lion.

Jean Starobinski

Jean Starobinski (1920–2019) was a Swiss literary critic, historian of ideas, and psychiatrist of the Geneva School, known for his studies of Montaigne, Rousseau, Diderot, and the Enlightenment.