Anniversaries, 30 March
Paul Verlaine
Paul Verlaine, one of the finest early modern poets, was born in Metz in north-east France where his father, an army officer, was stationed. He was an only child, but grew up with his orphaned cousin, Elisa Moncomble, whom he allegedly loved passionately and platonically.
When he was fourteen, Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal strengthened Verlaine in his already budding desire to write. After graduating from the Lycée Imperial Bonaparte (now the Lycée Condorcet) in Paris he embarked on a career i...
Anniversaries, 30 March
Kevin Brooks
Kevin Brooks was born in Exeter and has studied Philosophy and Psychology at Aston University in Birmingham and in London. Brooks has had many different types of jobs, for example as an assistant at a crematorium, at a petrol station, with the railways, the post, as a maintenance worker at London Zoo and as a municipal civil servant. But he has always felt that he really wanted to become a writer. Kevin Brooks is married and lives in Manningtree in Essex, popularly called ‘England’s smallest tow...
Anniversaries, 30 March
Uwe Timm
The German author Uwe Timm was born in Hamburg as the third and youngest child of the family. His father fought in the Second World War, as did his much older brother, who served in the Waffen SS and was killed in 1943. Timm's father, whose military career ended with the war, later opened a furrier's shop in Hamburg; the family’s bourgeois way of life was informed by a sense of duty. Timm trained as a furrier and took over the debt-burdened shop when his father died. He attended B...
Anniversaries, 30 March
Martina Cole
Martina Cole is one best-selling British authors of the 21st century; according to the mass media, only Harry Potter’s creator J.K. Rowling has achieved greater economic success. If Cole is popular with readers, the opposite applies to the critics: on the whole, bloggers are the only commentators who give her positive reviews, and even though she has been nominated for several literary prizes, she has only been awarded one: the British Book Award considered The Take (2005) to be the best t...
Photo: Ola Erikson / Forflex (2013)
Sample of authors
Johnstone, Doug
The Scottish novelist, musician and journalist Douglas ‘Doug’ Johnstone was born in Irvine in Scotland, but grew up in the Scottish town of Arbroath. He moved to Edinburgh in connection with his studies, gaining a Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics at the University of Edinburgh. He worked a few years in that field – developing military technology – but in 1999 he tired of it and became a freelance arts jou...