Literature
This includes writers of novels, plays, poetry, short stories, and children's literature.
- Agbabi, Patience
- Albee, Edward Franklin
- Andal
- Anderson, Edward Warrigal
- Angelou, Maya
- Baca, Jimmy Santiago
- Bird, A. John
- Bishop, Elizabeth
- Black, Pauline
- Brodkey, Harold
- Brown, Rita Mae
- Campbell, Alistair Te Ariki
- Capote, Truman
- Castelo Branco, Camilo
- Chamfort, Sébastien-Roch
- Clare, Monica
- Conrad, Joseph
- Cookson, Catherine Anne
- Cornwell, Bernard
- Cornwell, Patricia
- Cosmas Melodus
- Cullen, Countée
- Custis, George Washington Parke
- Dahlberg, Edward
- Dante Alighieri
- Davies, Daniel John
- Davies, William Henry
- Elder, Lonne III
- Estés, Clarissa Pinkola
- Fish, Laura
- Fisher, Antwone
- Francis, Benjamin
- Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
- Gay, John
- Genet, Jean
- Grahame, Kenneth
- Green, Tim
- Grey Owl
- Hadrian (under Roman Empire)
- Head, Bessie
- Hildegard of Bingen
- Hughes, Langston
- Hurston, Zora Neale
- Jones, Pei Te Hurinui
- Kay, Jackie
- Keats, John
- Kipling, J. Rudyard
- Kujau, Konrad
- Leleiohoku, William Pitt Kalaho'olewa II (under Hawai'ian Royal Families)
- Leonard, Hugh
- Liddell, Alice Pleasance
- Lifton, Betty Jean
- Lloyd, Ellis
- MacBride, Roger Lea
- Marcus Aurelius (under Roman Empire)
- Martinson, Harry Edmund
- Maugham, William Somerset
- McCarthy, Mary Therese
- McRobbie, Narelle
- Melville, Herman
- Michener, James Albert
- Mills, Robert Scourfield
- Montgomery, Lucy Maud
- Morcom, Luke Sidney
- Munk, Kaj
- Newman, Robert
- Pàscoli, Giovanni
- Pliny the Younger (under Roman Empire)
- Poe, Edgar Allan
- Pryse, Robert John
- Robbins, Harold
- Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
- Seymour, Alan
- Sissay, Lemn
- Soseki, Natsume
- Stradling, John
- Swift, Jonathan
- Tall Mountain, Mary
- Te Kanawa, Kiri
- Thomas, Leslie John
- Tolkien, J.R.R.
- Tolstoy, Leo Nikolayevich
- Traynor, Joanna
- Villon, François
- von Kleist, Heinrich
- Wallace, Edgar
- Ward, Glenyse
- Wheatley, Phillis
- Wiesel, Eliezer
- Williams, John Owen
- Wine, Maria
- Winterson, Jeanette
- Wordsworth, Dorothy
- Wordsworth, William
- Wright, Richard Nathaniel
Brown, Rita Mae
Brown was born to an unmarried woman who left her in an orphanage. She was soon placed with birth relatives who adopted her. She was raised in poverty on a farm in the rural South and now f... [more]
Campbell, Alistair Te Ariki
Campbell was born in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific and is part Cook Island Maori. Orphaned as a young child, he was sent to Dunedin, NZ, and raised there in an orphanage from 1933, ... [more]
Capote, Truman
At the age of six Capote's parents abandoned him to the care of four elderly, unmarried maternal cousins, three sisters and a brother, living together. He was a high-school dropout, apprent... [more]
Castelo Branco, Camilo
Castelo Branco was born illegitimate in Lisbon, and raised by relatives after being orphaned as a very young child. As a young man he led a wild life but then took minor orders in the Ch... [more]
Chamfort, Sébastien-Roch
Chamfort's birth parents are not known for certain, but may have been Jacqueline de Montrodeix and her lover. He was adopted by a grocer, François Nicolas, and his wife. After a good educat... [more]
Clare, Monica
Clare was born in Dareel, Queensland, to an English mother and an Aboriginal shearer, Beatrice Scott and Ron McGowan. Her mother died in childbirth when she was seven years old and she and ... [more]
Conrad, Joseph
He spent 20 years at sea, which provided the background for some of his best writing. He settled in England in 1895 and wrote in English. His famous novels include The Heart of Darkness, Ni... [more]
Cookson, Catherine Anne
Cookson was born to a young unmarried woman and raised by her grandparents. Until she was seven she thought that her mother, Kate, was her older sister, and finding out that she was illegit... [more]
Cornwell, Bernard
Cornwell was born to an English WAAF soldier named Cornwell and a Canadian airman. His mother placed him in an orphanage and soon afterwards he was adopted by the Wiggins couple from Essex ... [more]
Cornwell, Patricia
Cornwell was born Patricia Daniels to a married couple. When she was five or seven (sources differ) her father abandoned the family for another woman. Her mother moved with the three childr... [more]
