Posted on May 28, 2023 at 8:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Here are the literary birthdays to celebrate over the week of May 28, 2023.

Maeve Binchy (May 28, 1940). Among the novels that gained Binchy fame for their depictions of relationships and small-town life were Firefly Summer, Circle of Friends, and Tara Road.

G. K. Chesterton (May 29, 1874). Chesterton worked his interest in social criticism into fiction, like the novel The Man Who Was Thursday and the short stories starring priest-sleuth Father Brown, but also wrote extensively about theology and literary criticism.

Countee Cullen (May 30, 1903): Cullen is considered one of the Harlem Renaissance’s finest poets; his most famous works include Copper Sun, The Ballad of the Brown Girl, and Color.

Colm Tóibín (May 30, 1955): Tóibín spent years as a journalist and travel writer before turning his focus to novels, including such acclaimed works as Brooklyn, The Master, and House of Names.

Svetlana Alexievich (May 31, 1948): Alexievich, an investigative reporter, has used her work as the basis for five "documentary novels" about life during and after the Soviet Union; for this, she received the Nobel Prize. 

Colleen McCullough (June 1, 1938): McCullough is best known for The Thorn Birds, which earned her fame and a record advance of nearly $2 million, and her seven-book Masters of Rome series.

Thomas Hardy (June 2, 1840): Hardy is celebrated as a 19th-century writer, most notably for Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, and a 20th-century poet.

Fredrik Backman (June 2, 1981): Backman, known for such novels as A Man Called Ove and Anxious People, is a New York Times bestseller whose books have been published in more than forty countries.

Franz Kafka (June 3, 1883): Kafka only allowed a few of his works, like “The Metamorphosis,” to be published during his lifetime, and told his executor to burn leftover manuscripts (an order he disobeyed).

Allen Ginsberg (June 3, 1926): Ginsberg’s epic poem “Howl” is considered one of the most important works from the Beat literary movement.

Larry McMurtry (June 3, 1936): Among McMurtry’s thirty-plus novels are Terms of Endearment (adapted into a movie) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove.

Categories: Today in Books

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