Bookish birthdays for the week of March 19, 2023

Here are the literary birthdays to celebrate over the week of March 19, 2023.

Irving Wallace (March 19, 1916): Wallace began his career as a screenwriter and went on to write thirty books, including the novels The Chapman Report, The Prize, and The Nympho and Other Maniacs.

Philip Roth (March 19, 1933): Portnoy’s Complaint established Roth’s career; he went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for American Pastoral and three PEN/Faulkner Awards (for Operation Shylock, The Human Stain, and Everyman).

Henrik Ibsen (March 20, 1828): Ibsen was among the first to write contemporary and realistic plays that highlighted social evils, including his well-known A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler.

Louis L’Amour (March 22, 1908): L’Amour, the bestselling author of over 100 books (mostly westerns), was the first novelist to receive a Congressional Gold Medal.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919): Ferlinghetti is one of the founders of the Beat movement, and his poetry collection A Coney Island of the Mind was the best-selling book by a living American poet during the second half of the twentieth century.

Flannery O’Connor (March 25, 1925): O’Connor is known as a master of short stories, including her breakthrough collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find, and Other Stories and the National Book Award winner The Complete Stories.