Friedrich Dürrenmatt, born in Konolfingen in January 1921, was a Swiss writer, dramatist and also painter. After a busy childhood, he studied philosophy and Germanic languages in Zurich and Bern. After the Second World War, he began writing short tales and plays. He was the protagonist of renewal of the German-language, German theater, dealing grotesquely with the problems of contemporary …
Read More »PURE AND NOBLE POETIC TALENT – Regina Ullmann
This Swiss-German poet and poet was born in St. Gallen in mid-December 1884. This eastern Switzerland town, between Lake Constance and Appenzell has a rich historical center. http://www.st.gallen-bodensee.ch/en/region-touring/st-gallen-lake-constance/city-map. Special feature of the city are 111 oriel windows. The monastery area with cathedral and library has been inserted by UNESCO into the World Heritage List of Humanity. Regina Ullmann and her …
Read More »VENUS IN FURS – Novel by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
He studied law, history and mathematics at the University of Graz, and after graduating he moved to Lemberg, where he became a professor. LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH was an Austrian writer and journalist, who gained renown for his romantic stories of Galician life. The term masochism is derived from his name. He was well known as a man of letters. In …
Read More »ARTEMISIA – Novel by Anna Banti
She was born in Florence at the gates of the summer of 1895. She who reads her texts senses the search for taste, because in narrative intrigue she skillfully replaces a plot of motifs similar to musical sequences. Her great literary theme was that of woman’s solitude, seeking for a dignity in the world of men. That unique daughter of …
Read More »THE STANZE – Angelo Poliziano
He is considered to be the leading humanist of the fifteenth century, destined for even greater literary glory if the scythe of death had not cut him by the age of forty years. Born in Montepulciano in 1454 and raised at the Medici Court in Florence, he was one of the leading poets of Italian humanity. Angelo Ambrogini (Poliziano), a …
Read More »WHERE THE ESSENCE OF DEER JOINS THE ANCESTORS – Gloria Bird
She lives in Wellpinit, where she works for the Spokane Tribe and teaches at the Salish-Kootenai College campus. Her poetry collections include Full Moon on the Reservation, The River of History, and Red Roots Sparse. Her poetry and prose focus on how the representations of native peoples can facilitate harmful stereotypes. She is a member of the Northwest Native American …
Read More »I WAS CONTROVERSIAL FIGURE ON MY RESERVATION WHEN I WAS KID – Sherman Alexie
SHERMAN JOSEPH ALEXIE is one of the most award-winning writers in North America, but his studies have been characterized by home studying. This American novelist, short story writer, poet, and filmmaker was born in 1966 grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. His parents were alcoholics, but he described his life at the reservation school as challenging. Because of his …
Read More »THE SCARLET LETTER – Romance, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
John Hathorne (a judge involved in Salem’s witches trials) is one of his ancestors. NATHANIEL HATHORNE was born in 1804 in Salem (Massachusetts). In 1821 he entered the Bowdoin College, graduating four years later. Franklin Pierce (14th President of the United States) was among his fellow students. He published his first novel in 1828. After some transfers, he stopped in …
Read More »ONE ART – Poem, by Elizabeth Bishop
From 1970 to 1977 she taught at Harvard University. Her poems were published in The New Yorker and in other magazines. Elizabeth Bishop was born in Worcester (Massachusetts, USA), http://www.worcestermass.org/ in 1911. She experienced the deep warmth of parents, who were quite in love with each other and with their new daughter only few months. The events of her early …
Read More »A COMPLICATED KINDNESS – Romance, by Miriam Toews
She has degree in Literature and Cinema and a degree in Journalism. Miriam Toews was born in Steinbach (Manitoba, Canada) in 1964. She left Steinbach at eighteen, living in Montreal and London before settling in Winnipeg. She has a bachelor degree in Film Studies from the University of Manitoba, and a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of King’s College, …
Read More »