Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Literature & Poetry

2

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Oliverio Girondo

Oliverio Girondo

Argentina

1891-08-17 – 1967-01-24 (75 years old)

Revolutionary Argentine avant-garde poet and member of the Florida group whose groundbreaking 1922 collection Veinte poemas para ser leídos en el tranvía brought Ultraist modernism to Latin America.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

2 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

38

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Lao She

老舍

China

1899 – 1966 (67 years old)

Manchu-Chinese novelist and playwright celebrated for Rickshaw Boy and Teahouse, master of Beijing dialect humor and empathetic chronicler of urban working-class life.

Beijing, China

38 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

0

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Carlos Luis Fallas

Carlos Luis Fallas Sibaja

Costa Rica

1909-01-21 – 1966-05-07 (57 years old)

Acclaimed working-class author and communist labor organizer whose explosive 1941 novel 'Mamita Yunai' exposed the brutal exploitation of United Fruit Company banana workers in Central America.

San José, Costa Rica

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Literature & Poetry

31

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Anna Akhmatova

Анна Андреевна Ахматова

Russia

1889 – 1966 (76 years old)

Supreme Russian modernist poet of the Silver Age and leader of Acmeism whose poem Requiem bore witness to the terror of Stalin's Great Purge.

Komarovo (Saint Petersburg), Russia

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Literature & Poetry

17

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Anna Gréki

آنا غريكي (كوليت دوراند)

Algeria

1931 – 1966 (34 years old)

Passionate Algerian poet and revolutionary militant born in the Aurès who was imprisoned by French paratroopers and authored the immortal collection 'Algérie, Capitale Alger'.

Algiers, Algeria

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Literature & Poetry

33

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Junichiro Tanizaki

谷崎 潤一郎

Japan

1886 – 1965 (79 years old)

Japanese novelist celebrated for The Makioka Sisters, Some Prefer Nettles, and In Praise of Shadows, master of traditional Japanese aesthetics and subtle erotic obsessions.

Kyoto, Japan

33 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

43

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Thomas Stearns Eliot

T.S. Eliot

United States

26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965 (76 years old)

Titan of 20th-century poetry and 1948 Nobel laureate whose landmark epic The Waste Land ('April is the cruellest month') and spiritual Four Quartets articulated the disillusionment, fragmentation, and redemption of the modern post-war world.

Kensington (London), Great Britain

43 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

30

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Badr Shakir al-Sayyab

بدر شاكر السياب

Iraq

1926 – 1964 (37 years old)

Iraqi poet celebrated as the father of modern Arabic free verse (shi'r hurr), whose revolutionary 1960 collection Rain Song transformed twentieth-century Arabic poetic meter and mythology.

Al-Zubayr (Basra), Iraq

30 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

36

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Sean O'Casey

John Casey / Seán Ó Cathasaigh

Ireland

1880 – 1964 (84 years old)

Irish dramatist and socialist who immortalized the Dublin working-class tenements in his tragicomic Dublin Trilogy: The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars.

London, United Kingdom

36 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

0

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Thakin Kodaw Hmaing

သခင်ကိုယ်တော်မှိုင်း

Historical Burma

1876-03-23 – 1964-07-23 (88 years old)

Revered as 'Sayagyi' (Great Master), patriarch of 20th-century Burmese literature and intellectual mentor to Aung San whose satirical layggyo poems and peace activism won the 1954 International Stalin Peace Prize.

Yangon, Myanmar

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Literature & Poetry

2

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Frans Eemil Sillanpää

Frans Eemil Sillanpää

Finland

1888-09-16 – 1964-06-03 (75 years old)

First Finnish author awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (1939) for his deep understanding of his country's peasantry and the exquisite art with which he portrayed their life and nature.

Hämeenkyrö, Finland

2 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

4

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E. J. Pratt

Ned Pratt

Canada

4 February 1882 – 26 April 1964 (82 years old)

Towering Newfoundland-born poet whose heroic epics The Titanic, Brébeuf and his Brethren, and Towards the Last Spike defined the Canadian mythos.

Toronto, Canada

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Literature & Poetry

40

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Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad

عباس محمود العقاد

Egypt

1889 – 1964 (74 years old)

Monumental self-taught Egyptian writer, critic, philosopher, and parliamentarian who authored over one hundred books, famously celebrated for his psychological biographical series 'Al-Abqariyyat' (The Geniuses).

Aswan, Egypt

40 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

5

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Cheikh Abdelkader El Khaldi

عبد القادر الخالدي

Algeria

1896 – 1964 (68 years old)

Master poet of Bedouin Melhoun and author of the immortal love masterpiece 'Bakhta', whose lyrics form the poetic bedrock of modern Raï and Bedouin song.

Oran, Algeria

5 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

12

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Mohammed Mokhtar Soussi

محمد المختار السوسي

Morocco

1900 – 1963 (63 years old)

Prolific Moroccan historian, jurist, and anti-colonial intellectual whose monumental 20-volume encyclopedia al-Ma'sul rescued the Amazigh scholarly, poetic, and Sufi heritage of the Anti-Atlas mountains.

Rabat, Morocco

12 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

11

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Mohamed Mokhtar Soussi

محمد المختار السوسي

Morocco

1900 – 1963 (63 years old)

Encyclopedic Moroccan historian, poet, and nationalist leader who authored the monumental 20-volume regional encyclopedia Al-Ma'sul while exiled by French authorities in the Anti-Atlas.

Rabat, Morocco

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Literature & Poetry

14

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Mohammed al-Mukhtar Soussi

محمد المختار السوسي

Morocco

c. 1900 – 1963 (63 years old)

Monuments Moroccan historian, encyclopedist, and Minister of Islamic Affairs who authored the monumental twenty-volume encyclopedia 'Al-Ma'sul' documenting the history, culture, and scholars of southern Morocco.

Rabat, Morocco

14 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

2

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Dame Mary Gilmore

Mary Jean Cameron Gilmore

Australia

1865-08-16 – 1962-12-03 (97 years old)

Iconic socialist poet, journalist, and social crusader who joined William Lane's utopian New Australia colony in Paraguay and championed women's and Indigenous rights for seven decades, featured on the $10 note.

Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia

2 Full Record →