Amin Maalouf Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Amin Maalouf, born February 25, 1949.

Amin Maalouf is a Lebanese-born French author who has lived in France since 1976. Although his native language is Arabic, he writes in French, and his works have been translated into over 40 languages.

Of his several works of nonfiction, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes is probably the best known. He received the Prix Goncourt in 1993 for his novel The Rock of Tanios, as well as the 2010 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. He is a member of the Académie française and was elected its Perpetual Secretary on 28 September 2023.

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Conn Iggulden Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Conn Iggulden, born February 24, 1971.

Connor Iggulden is a British author who writes historical fiction, most notably the Emperor series and Conqueror series. He also co-authored The Dangerous Book for Boys with his brother Hal. In 2007, Iggulden became the first person to top the UK fiction and nonfiction lists at the same time.

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Bernard Cornwell Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Bernard Cornwell, born February 23, 1944.

Bernard Cornwell OBE is an English-American author of historical novels and a history of the Waterloo Campaign. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe. He has also written The Saxon Stories, a series of 13 novels about the making of England.

He has written historical novels primarily based on English history, in five series, and one series of contemporary thriller novels. A feature of his historical novels is an end note on how they match or differ from history, and what one might see at the modern sites of the events described. He wrote a nonfiction book on the battle of Waterloo, in addition to the fictional story of the famous battle in the Sharpe series. Three of the historical novel series have been adapted for television: the Sharpe television series by ITV, The Last Kingdom by BBC and The Winter King for MGM+. He lives in the US with his wife, alternating between Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Charleston, South Carolina.

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Arthur Schopenhauer Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Arthur Schopenhauer, born February 22, 1788.

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher. He is known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation, which characterizes the phenomenal world as the manifestation of a blind and irrational noumenal will. Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant, Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism.

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Anais Nin Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Anais Nin, born February 21, 1903.

Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell was a French-born American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the daughter of the composer Joaquín Nin and the classically trained singer Rosa Culmell. Nin spent her early years in Spain and Cuba, about sixteen years in Paris, and the remaining half of her life in the United States, where she became an established author.

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Alan Furst Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Alan Furst, born February 20, 1941.

Alan Furst is an American author of historical spy novels. Furst has been called “an heir to the tradition of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene,” whom he cites along with Joseph Roth and Arthur Koestler as important influences. Most of his novels since 1988 have been set just prior to or during the Second World War and he is noted for his successful evocations of Eastern European peoples and places during the period from 1933 to 1944.

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Amy Tan Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Amy Tan, born February 19, 1952.

Amy Ruth Tan is an American author of Chinese heritage, best known for the novel The Joy Luck Club, which was adapted into a 1993 film. She is also known for other novels, short story collections, children’s books, and a memoir.

Tan has written several other novels, including The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991), The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, Saving Fish from Drowning, and The Valley of Amazement. Tan has also written two children’s books: The Moon Lady and Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat, which was turned into an animated series that aired on PBS. Tan’s latest book is a memoir entitled Where The Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

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Audre Lorde Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Audre Lorde, born February 18, 1934.

Audre Lorde was an American writer, professor, philosopher, intersectional feminist, poet and civil rights activist. She was a self-described “black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet” who dedicated her life and talents to confronting all forms of injustice, as she believed there could be “no hierarchy of oppressions”.

As a poet, she is well known for technical mastery and emotional expression, as well as her poems that express anger and outrage at civil and social injustices she observed throughout her life. As a spoken word artist, her delivery has been called powerful, melodic, and intense by the Poetry Foundation. Her poems and prose largely deal with issues related to civil rights, feminism, lesbianism, illness and disability, and the exploration of black female identity.

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Andre Norton Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Andre Norton, born February 17, 1912.

Andre Alice Norton (born Alice Mary Norton) was an American writer of science fiction and fantasy, who also wrote works of historical and contemporary fiction. She wrote primarily under the pen name Andre Norton, but also under Andrew North and Allen Weston. She was the first woman to be Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy, to be Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master, and to be inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame

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Iain Banks Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Iain Banks, born February 16, 1954.

Iain Banks was a Scottish author, writing mainstream fiction as Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M. Banks, adding the initial of his adopted middle name Menzies. After the success of The Wasp Factory he began to write full time. His first science fiction book, Consider Phlebas, appeared in 1987, marking the start of the Culture series. His books have been adapted for theatre, radio, and television. In 2008, The Times named Banks in their list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945”

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.