Author Profiles
Profiles Index - page 4
Shirley Hazzard
Shirley Hazzard's novels are The Evening of the Holiday (1966), The Bay of Noon (1970), The Transit of Venus (1981)and The Great Fire (2003). She is also the author of two collections of short fiction, Cliffs of Fall and Other Stories (1963) and People in Glass Houses (1967). Her nonfiction works include Defeat of an Ideal (1973), Countenance of Truth (1990), and the memoir Greene on Capri (2000).
William Least Heat-Moon
illiam Trogdon, who writes under the name of William Least Heat-Moon, was born of English-Irish-Osage ancestry in Kansas City, Missouri. He holds a bachelor's degree in photojournalism and a doctorate in English from the University of Missouri. He is the author of Blue Highways; Prairyerth, an epic evocation of the American tallgrass prairie country; and the forthcoming River-Horse, an account of his travels along America's interior waterways.
John Grisham
John Grisham began writing as a hobby while an attorney in Mississippi. His second book, The Firm, was a bestseller that was made into a major motion picture starring Tom Cruise. John Grisham's books include The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Brethren, The King of Torts, and Bleachers.
Barbara Gowdy
Barbara Gowdy is the author of five previous books, including Mister Sandman and We So Seldom Look On Love, and she has twice been a finalist for both the Governor General's Award and the Giller Prize. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.
William Gibson
William Gibson is often referred to as the father of cyberpunk, a science fiction sub-genre that he "created" with his seminal work, "Neuromancer," in 1984. It was in "Neuromancer" that Gibson introduced his audience to the concept of cyberspace, to the newly important human-computer interface, and to the gritty and dangerous technological wasteland that became the backdrop for other Gibson novels.
Ken Follett
Ken Follett burst into the book world in 1978 with Eye of the Needle, a taut and original thriller with a memorable woman character in the central role. His latest is Hornet Flight, about two young people who escape from German-occupied Denmark in a Hornet Moth biplane. It is loosely based on a true story. It was published in December 2002. He has sold approximately fifty million books worldwide.
Ian Fleming
British journalist, secret service agent, writer, whose most famous creation was the superhero James Bond, agent 007. Fleming spent some years with British Intelligence, but his books are far from reality - they offer colorful locations, beautiful women, and exciting and inventive adventures
Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis is the author of Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, The Informers, and Glamorama. He was born in 1964 and raised in Los Angeles. He is a graduate of Bennington College and lives in New York City.
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco is an Italian novelist and philosopher. His novel The Name of the Rose, was made into a movie starring Sean Connery as a monk who investigates a series of murders revolving around a monastery library. Recent books include Foucault's Pendulum, Serendipities, and most recently, Baudolino.
Margaret Drabble
Margaret Drabble is known for such novels as The Millstone (1965), The Waterfall (1969), and The Middle Ground (1980), and her critical studies on Wordsworth (1966), Arnold Bennett (1974), The Radiant Way (1987), A Natural Curiosity (1989), The Gates of Ivory (1991), The Peppered Moth (2001), and The Seven Sisters (2002). She also edited the Oxford Companion to English Literature (1985).
Geoff Dyer
Geoff Dyer is the author of three novels: The Color of Memory, The Search, and Paris Trance; a critical study of John Berger, Ways of Telling; and three genre-defying titles: But Beautiful (winner of the 1972 Somerset Maugham Prize), The Missing of the Somme, and Out of Sheer Rage (a National Book Critics Circle finalist). He lives in London, where he spends much of his time wishing he lived in San Francisco.
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo is the author of thirteen novels, including "Underworld," "Libra," "White Noise," and "Cosmopolis." He has won the National Book Award, the PEN/ Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Jerusalem Prize.
Catherine Coulter
Catherine Coulter's first novel came out at the end of 1978 when she had just reached puberty. It was a Regency romance because, as any published author will tell you, it's best to limit the number of unknowns in a first book, and not only had she grown up reading Georgette Heyer, but she earned her M.A. degree in early 19th century European history.
Laurie Colwin
Laurie Colwin was a popular author of novels and short stories. Before her untimely death in October 1992, Colwin garnered a large following with her sparkling tales of love and family in the upper middle class.
Da Chen
Da Chen was born in Southern China in 1962. His family was of the landowning class, so they suffered considerable privation under the days of the infamous Red Guard. Da Chen's father, a traditional musician and intellectual, was forced to ruinous work in the fields. For much of his youth, Da Chen's and the family were hard-pressed to survive.
Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, in 1938. His first collection of stories, "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please" (a National Book Award nominee in 1977), was followed by "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," "Cathedral" (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1984), and "Where I'm Calling From" in 1988, when he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Anthony Burgess
Born 25th February 1917. Anthony Burgess, who will always be remembered for his eighth book, "A Clockwork Orange," was born Jack Wilson in a small house in Harpurhey, the son of a bookkeeper and part-time pianist, and the musician/dancer he met at the Ardwick Empire...
Mitch Albom
Mitch Albom is a bestselling author, nationally-syndicated newspaper columnist for the Detroit Free Press. He is the author of eight books, including the bestsellers The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Tuesdays With Morrie. Oprah Winfrey produced a major television movie for ABC based on Tuesdays With Morrie that aired in December 1999 and starred Jack Lemmon and Hank Azaria.
Dave Barry
Dave Barry is a humor columnist for the Miami Herald. His column appears in more than 500 newspapers in the United States and abroad. In 1988 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.
Alessandro Baricco
Alessandro Baricco was born in Turin in 1958. The author of three previous novels, he has won the Prix Médicis étranger in France and the Selezione Campiello, Viareggio, and Palazzo del Bosco prizes in Italy. His third novel, "Silk," became an immediate best-seller in Italy and has been translated into twenty-seven languages.
Aniruddha Bahal
Aniruddha Bahal is the founder and editor in chief of Cobrapost.com, an Indian news Web site. He is also the co-founder and former CEO of Tehelka.com. He has worked for India Today and Outlook, among other publications, and lives in Noida, near New Delhi. His recent novel is Bunker 13.
J. G. Ballard
J.G. Ballard is the author of numerous books, including "Empire of the Sun," the underground classic "Crash," and "The Kindness of Women." He is revered as one of the most important writers of fiction to address the consequences of twentieth-century technology. His latest book is Super-Cannes. He lives in England.
Jean Auel
JEAN AUEL is an international phenomenon. Her Earth's Children books have sold 34 million copies worldwide. Her extensive research has earned her the respect of archaeologists and anthropologists around the world. The Clan of the Cave Bear, the first book of the series, has achieved a cult following.