Today's Page : June 6th
6 Jun 2012 9:10
Thomas Mann, Gerhart Hauptmann, Friedrich Holderlin, Alexander Pushkin, Kenneth Rexroth, Eliza Orzeszkowa, Cynthia Rylant, Arthur Bertram Chandler and Frederic Dardare the acclaimed authors who were born or died on a day like today.
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann, born on a day like this on 1875 was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist and a Nobel Prize laureate in 1929, who was known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His works were first translated into English in 1924. He received his Nobel Prize principally in recognition of his popular achievement with the epic "Buddenbrooks", "The Magic Mountain", and his numerous short stories. He died of atherosclerosis in 1955 in a hospital in Zurich.
Gerhart Hauptmann
Gerhart Hauptmann, the German dramatist and novelist and the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912 passed away on a day like this on 1946. He was born in Obersalzbrunn, a small town of Silesia, a part of Poland. His first drama, "Before Dawn"(1889) inaugurated the naturalistic movement in modern German literature. It was followed by "The Reconciliation"(1890), "Lonely People"(1891) and "The Weavers"(1892). In 1911 he wrote "The Rats", and in 1912 he was awarded the Novel Prize in Literature, "primarily in recognition of his fruitful, varied and outstanding production in the realm of dramatic art."
Friedrich Holderlin
Friedrich Holderlin, who passed away on a day like this on 1843 was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. He was also an important thinker in the development of Geramn Idealism. His poetry, widely recognized today as one of the highest points of Geramn literature, was little known or understood during his lifetime, and slipped into obscurity shortly after his death. Holderlin was a fervent admirer of ancient Greek culture, but his understanding of it was very personal. For him, the Greek gods were not the plaster figures of conventional classicism, but living, actual presences, wonderfully life-giving though, at the same time, terrifying. He understood and sympathized with the Greek idea of the tragic fall, which he expressed movingly in the last stanze of his "Hyperion's Song of Destiny".
Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, born on a day like this on 1799, was a Russian author of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. He was born into the Russian nobility in Moscow. He published his first poem at the age of fifteen, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation. While he was under the strict surveillance of the Tsar's political police and unable to publish, he wrote his most famous play, the drama "Boris Godunov". His novel "Eugene Onegin" was serialized between 1825 and 1832. He was notoriously touchy about his honour and fought a total of 29 duels, and was finally fatally wounded in such an encounter with a French officer. Pushkin's early death at the age of 37 is still regarded as a catastrophe for Russian literature.
Kenneth Rexroth
Kenneth Rexroth, born on December 22nd 1905, was an American poet, translator and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance. Although he did not consider himself to be a Beat poet, and disliked the association, he was of one the major influences on the Beat generation and was once dubbed "Father of the Beats" by Time Magazine. He was among the first poets in the US to explore traditional Japanese poetic forms such as haiku. He passed away in Santa Barbara on a day like this in 1982.
Eliza Orzeszkowa
Eliza Orzeszkowa who was born on a day like this in 1841, was a Polish novelist and a leading writer of the Positivism in Poland. She wrote a series of 30 novels and 120 powerful sketches, dramas and novellas, dealing with the social conditions of her occupied country. Some of her most famous work are as follows: "Eli Makower"(1875), "Meir Ezofowicz"(1878), "Nad Niemnen(On the Niemen)". In 1905 together with Henryk Sienkiewicz and Lev Tolstoy, Eliza was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. She died on the 18th of May 1910 at the age of 68.
Cynthia Rylant
Cynthia Rylant, born on a day like this in 1954 in an American author. She has written more than 100 Children's books in English and Spanish. Her works include fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Her novel "Missing May" won the 1993 Newbery Medal and "A Fine White Dust" was a 1987 Newbery Honor book. Her other works "A Kindness"(1988), "Soda Jerk"(1990) and "A Couple of Kooks and Other Stories about Love"(1990) have each been named a "Best Book of the Year for Young Adults" by the American Library Association.
Arthur Bertram Chandler
Arthur Bertram Chandler, was born on March 28th 1912 and passed away on a day like this in 1984. He was a British-Australian Science fiction author, writing under his own name and the pseudonyms George Whitley, Andrew Dunstan and S.H.M. He wrote over 40 novels and 200 works of short fiction. He won Ditmar Awards for the short story "The Bitter Pill"(1971) and for three novels "False Fatherland"(1969), "The Bitter Pill"(1975), and "The Big Black Mark"(1976).
Frederic Dard
Frederic Dard was born on June 29, 1921 and passed away on a day like this in 2000 in Switzerland. He was a French writer and author of the famous "San-Antonio" series. He is one of the most famous French crime novels writers of the second half of the 20th century. He was also one of the most prolific , since he wrote more than 300 novels throughout his career. "San-Antonio" is both the main hero and the pseudonym of the writer, and the books are written in the first person. He wrote 173 adventures of San-Antonio, of which millions of copies were sold.
