Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

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Tchicaya U Tam'si

Gérald-Félix Tchicaya

Republic of the Congo

1931-08-25 – 1988-04-22 (56 years old)

One of the greatest lyrical poets of the African continent whose visceral, surrealist collections ('Le Mauvais Sang', 'Feu de brousse') and novels captured the wounded soul and rivers of the Congo.

Yvelines, France

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Tchicaya U Tam'si

Gerald-Felix Tchicaya

Congo

1931-08-25 – 1988-04-22 (56 years old)

One of modern Africa's greatest poets whose visceral, surrealist French verse collections like 'Epitomé' and 'Le Mauvais Sang' expressed the torment and resilience of the African continent.

Bazancourt, France

3 Full Record →

Mikhail Naimy

ميخائيل نعيمة

Lebanon

22 November 1889 – 28 February 1988 (98 years old)

Beloved Lebanese philosopher, poet, and novelist who co-founded the New York Pen League and authored 'The Book of Mirdad'.

Baskinta, Lebanon

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René Char

René Émile Char

France

1907 – 1988 (80 years old)

Colossal Provençal poet and WWII resistance commander code-named 'Capitaine Alexandre' whose aphoristic masterpiece Feuillets d'Hypnos recorded moral defiance in the maquis, praised by Albert Camus as France's greatest living poet.

L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue (Vaucluse), France

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Mengistu Lemma

Ethiopia

1924-01-01 – 1988-01-01 (64 years old)

Celebrated Ethiopian playwright and poet whose classic satirical comedies 'Snobbery in Marriage' (Yalacha Gabicha) and 'The Marriage of Unequals' defined modern Amharic dramatic literature.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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Marguerite Yourcenar

Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour

Belgium

1903 – 1987 (84 years old)

Brussels-born French-Belgian literary giant who wrote Memoirs of Hadrian (1951) and The Abyss (1968), and in 1980 shattered 345 years of male exclusivity by becoming the first woman elected to the Académie Française.

Somesville (Mount Desert Island, Maine), United States

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Gwendolyn MacEwen

Gwendolyn Margaret MacEwen

Canada

1941 – 1987 (46 years old)

Brilliant and enigmatic Toronto poet whose mythopoeic vision and linguistic virtuosity won two Governor General's Awards for The Shadow-Maker (1969) and Afterworlds (1987).

Toronto, Canada

3 Full Record →

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Lasgush Poradeci

Lazar Sotir Gusho

Albania

1899-12-27 – 1987-11-12 (87 years old)

Master 20th-century Albanian lyric poet celebrated for musical, hermetic verse collections Vallja e yjve (Dance of the Stars) and Ylli i zemrës, capturing the mystical tranquility of Lake Ohrid.

Pogradec, Albania

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Dambudzo Marechera

Charles William Dambudzo Marechera

Zimbabwe

1952-06-04 – 1987-08-18 (35 years old)

Iconoclastic cult author whose explosive 1978 novella collection 'The House of Hunger' won the Guardian Fiction Prize and revolutionized African literature with visceral modernist fury.

Harare, Zimbabwe

3 Full Record →

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Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Brazil

1902 – 1987 (84 years old)

Brazilian poet widely considered the most influential Brazilian poet of the twentieth century, whose modernist verses blended introspective irony, social conscience, and linguistic simplicity.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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Tawfiq al-Hakim

توفيق الحكيم

Egypt

1898 – 1987 (88 years old)

Pioneering Egyptian dramatist, novelist, and essayist who founded modern Arabic theater with The Sleepers of Ephesus and created the modern novel Return of the Spirit.

Cairo, Egypt

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Margaret Laurence

Jean Margaret Wemyss Laurence

Canada

1926 – 1987 (60 years old)

Preeminent novelist of the Canadian literary renaissance whose iconic Manawaka sequence, culminating in The Stone Angel and The Diviners, powerfully voiced female resilience and prairie heritage.

Neepawa (Manitoba), Canada

3 Full Record →

Milton Acorn

The People's Poet

Canada

30 March 1923 – 20 August 1986 (63 years old)

Fierce Prince Edward Island working-class poet who was crowned "The People's Poet" by his fellow writers and won the Governor General's Award.

Pleasant Valley, Canada

3 Full Record →

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Jaime Saenz

Jaime Saenz Guzmán

Bolivia

1921-10-29 – 1986-07-25 (64 years old)

Iconic cult Bolivian poet and novelist whose mystical, nocturnal works, including 'Felipe Delgado' and 'La noche', transformed the city of La Paz into an esoteric literary universe.

La Paz, Bolivia

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Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo

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Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo

Jorge Luis Borges

Argentina

24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986 (86 years old)

Argentine literary wizard whose metaphysical labyrinths, infinite libraries, and philosophical parables in Ficciones (The Library of Babel, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius) and El Aleph revolutionized postmodern world literature.

Geneva, Switzerland

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16

Salah Jahin

صلاح جاهين

Egypt

December 25, 1930 – April 21, 1986 (55 years old)

Iconic Egyptian colloquial poet, satirist, newspaper cartoonist, and screenwriter whose philosophical 'Rubaiyat' (Quatrains) and anthems of the 1952 Revolution defined the emotional ethos of modern Egypt.

Cairo, Egypt

16 Full Record →