The greatest Italian poet and one of the most important writers of European literature. Dante is best known for the epic poem Commedia, c. 1310-14, later named La Divina Commedia. It has profoundly affected not only the religious imagination but all subsequent allegorical creation of imaginary worlds in literature. Dante spent much of his life […]

Charles Dickens was born in Landport, Hampshire, during the new industrial age, which gave birth to theories of Karl Marx. Dickens’s father was a clerk in the navy pay office. He was well paid but often ended in financial troubles. In 1814 Dickens moved to London, and then to Chatham, where he received some education.

Bhisham Sahni, born on Aug 8, 1915 at Rawalpindi in present day Pakistan, is a distinguished Hindi fiction writer, playwright, translator, teacher and polyglot. His works reflect his unflinching commitment to India’s pluralist ethos and secular foundations. Tamas, his magnum opus, translated into English in 1988, gained worldwide acclaim for its sensitive and anguished portrayal

Bhartendu Harish Chandra was born on 9 September 1850 in a distinguished and opulent Agarwal family of Varanasi. From his grand- father and father he inherited material prosperity, Vaishnava traditions and literary talents. Harish Chandra showed love for devotional music and aptitude for composing poetry even at the age of five.Today Bhartendu Harish Chandra is

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