Bertrand Russell was born in Trelleck, Gwent, the second son of Viscount Amberley. His mother, Katherine, was the daughter of Baron Stanley of Aderley. She died in 1874. Her husband died twenty months later, after a long period of gradually increasing debility. At the age of three Russell was an orphan. He was brought up […]
Barbara Cartland was born in Edgbaston, West Midlands, into a wealthy family. She attended Malvern Girls’ College and Abbey House, Netley Abbey, Hampshire. Her grandfather committed suicide when he went bankrupt and father was killed in Flanders in 1918. Cartland was reared by her strong mother, who moved the family to London and opened her
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee was born on 27th June 1838 in the village Knathalpara of the 24 Paraganas District of Bengal. He belonged to a family of Brahmins. The family was well known for the performance of yajnas (sacrifices). Bankim Chandra’s father Yadav Chandra Chattopadhyaya was in government service. In the very year of his son’s
Arundhati Roy is a famous Indian novelist and social activist. Arundhati Roy came into limelight in 1997 when she won the Booker Prize for her first novel ‘The God of Small Things’. She was awarded Sydney Peace Prize in 2004.Arundhati Roy was born November 24, 1961 in Assam. Her mother was a Keralite Christian and
Arthur Conan Doyle was born at Picardy Place, Edinburgh, as the son of Charles Altamont Doyle, a civil servant in the Edinburgh Office of Works, and Mary (Foley) Doyle. Both of Doyle’s parents were Roman Catholics. To increase his income Charles Altamont painted, made book illustrations, and also worked as a sketch artist on criminal
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in the small seaport of Taganrog, southern Russia, as the son of a grocer and grandson of a serf, who had bought his own freedom and that of his three sons in 1841. He also taught himself to read and write. Chekhov’s mother was Yevgenia Morozov, the daughter of a
Anita Desai was born in Mussoorie, a hill station north of Delhi, as the daughter of a D.N. Mazumdar, a Bengali businessman, and the former Toni Nime, of German origin. She began to write in English at the age of seven, and published her first story at the age of nine. Desai was educated in
Amrita Pritam was born in 1919 in Gujranwala in a part of India which later became Pakistan. She was the only child of a school teacher and a poet. Her mother died when she was eleven and she grew up with adult responsibilities. She began to write at an early age, and her first collection
Amitav Ghosh, famous Indian English writer, was born in Calcutta in 1956. His father was a lieutenant-colonel in the army as a result he has to travel to different parts of the world. Thus Amitav Ghosh was raised and educated in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran, Egypt, India and United Kingdom. He received his earlier education
Iqbal is one of the finest urdu poets of the last century. He is perhaps most well known in India for his poem “Sarey jahan sey achha Hindostan hamara”. It is ironic that he is also considered as having sown the seeds of Pakistan since he asserted the need for an Islamic State in the
Ali Sardar Jafri was born in Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh. He came to Mumbai in 1942 and made it his home. He firmly believed in the cultural unity of the subcontinent. Arrested for writing against British rule in India, Jafri was among the votaries of the progressive movement in Urdu literature. Jafri’s literary career began at the
Alfred Hitchcock was born in London, the son of William Hitchcock, a poultry dealer and fruit importer. He was educated at a Jesuit school, London’s St. Ignatius College, and the School of Engineering and Navigation, where he studied mechanics, electricity, acoustics, and navigation. He then worked for a telegraph company and took art courses at
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn descended from an intellectual Cossack family. He was born in Kislovodsk in the northern Caucasus Mountains, between the Black and Caspian seas. His father, Isaaki Solzhenitsyn, a Tsarist artillery officer, was killed in an hunting accident six months before Aleksandr’s birth. During WW I he served on the front, where he married Taissia
Agatha Christie was born in Torquay, in the county of Devon, as the daughter of Frederick Alvah Miller, an American with a moderate private income, and Clarissa Miller. Her father died when she was a child. Christie was educated home, where her mother encouraged her to write from very early age. At sixteen she was