Anniversaries, 7 April
Gabriela Mistral
The Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral was born in Vicuña as Lucila de María del Perpetuo Socorro Godoy Alcayaga. She came from a poor, but well educated family of mixed Spanish, Basque and Native American descent. After her father, a teacher, had left home when Gabriela was three years old, she moved with her mother and her half-sister Emelina to Montegrande. Emelina became a teacher in a small village and Gabriela had to work from an early age. She attended school for a few years, but during her f...
Anniversaries, 7 April
William Wordsworth
The English poet William Wordsworth was born in Cumberland as the son of a lawyer, but lost his parents at an early age. He studied at Cambridge, and in the 1790s he spent long periods in France where he was initially caught up in the revolutionary spirit, but later disenchanted because of the revolutionaries' violent methods. He became financially independent in 1795 when he received a legacy of 900 pounds and was able to dedicate his time to writing poetry. Wordsworth settled in the Lake...
Anniversaries, 7 April
Hannah Kent
The Australian author Hannah Kent looks back on an idyllic childhood in Adelaide Hills. Together with her little sister, she spent a lot of time out in nature among oaks and rubber trees. This interest in nature is mirrored in her novels, in which she likes to "transform the qualities of nature into prose". She is one of those children who decide to become an author at an early age. She made herself the editor for her own newspaper The Owl, which she also distributed to about fifteen friends...
Photo: Peter Peitsch (2008) / www.peitschphoto.com
Sample of authors
Le Carré, John
Born David John Moore Cornwell in Poole, county of Dorset, England, John le Carré grew up in a troubled home. While his father served a prison sentence for fraud, his mother left the family when David was five years old. He did not see her again until he was 21. He grew up at boarding schools and in his father’s home, before he got the opportunity to enter higher education at age 16. He studied la...