Sappho was a Greek lyric poet. She is one of the most important of the poets of the ancient Greek world. Her vivid, emotional manner of writing influenced poets through the ages.
She was born circa 625. However, the exact date of her birth and death are unknown. She was born in the city of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos in a noble family. She had three brothers. She is said to have married a wealthy man named Cercylas and had a daughter named Cleis.
Around the year 600 BC she was forced into exile to the island of Sicily, but was able to return.
She created the Sapphic stanza and may have been the first to accompany her poems with a harp.
In 1073 Pope Gregory VII likely burned any of her books that still survived, because her poetry was erotic and concerned with love between women. Typical topics of her poems are the worlds of beauty, personal relationships, and love.
Plato called her the “tenth Muse,” referring to the nine Greek goddesses who were the patrons of the arts and sciences.
An asteroid discovered in 1864 was named in her honor.
More »

Jorge Luis Borges was an Argentine author. He was one of Latin America’s most original and influential prose writers and poets. Borges is one of the great stylists of the Spanish language.
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was born on August 24, 1899, in Buenos Aires. His father was a lawyer, and his mother was a teacher. His English-born grandmother told him many stories. He received his earliest education at home. In 1905, Borges began studying English with the home teacher. The following year he wrote his first story La Visera fatal.
At the age of nine Borges began his public schooling in Palermo and published a translation Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince into Spanish.
In 1914 the Borges family traveled to Europe. They settled in Switzerland because of World War I. Borges finished his formal education at the College in Geneva.
More »

Judy Blume is an American author, who writes for children and young adults. Her books have been published in more than 20 languages. Her stories often focus on the emotional and social concerns of suburban adolescents.
Judy Sussman was born on February 12, 1938 in New Jersey into a family of a dentist and a housewife. She has a brother, David, who is five years older. Since childhood, Judy loved to think up stories.
In 1956 she graduated from high school and entered Boston University. In 1961 she graduated from New York University with a degree in education.
Judy began writing when her children went to kindergarten. Her first book The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo was published in 1969. The next decade was very successful – Judy published 13 books. She became famous when her novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was published in 1970.
More »

Emily Bronte was an English novelist, who wrote only one novel, Wuthering Heights.
Emily Jane Brontë was born on August 20, 1818 in Thornton, Yorkshire. She was the daughter of an Anglican minister. She was one of six children. For some time (1824-1825), together with Charlotte she studied at the charity school in Cowan Bridge. Her education was directed at home by her father.
In 1837 she served as a governess in a suburb of Halifax Lowe Hill. In 1842 she and Charlotte went to Brussels to continue their education.
In 1846 a collection of poems “Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell” was published. To evade contemporary prejudice against female writers, the Brontë sisters adopted pen names. All three retained the same initials: Charlotte became Currer Bell, Anne became Acton Bell and Emily became Ellis Bell. The book, published at their own expense, was hardly a sensation. In 1847 all three sisters (using the same pen-names) made their debuts as novelists.
More »

Anna Akhmatova was a Russian poet, translator and literary critic. She is one of the most significant figures of Russian literature of XX century. In 1965 Akhmatova was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. She is the best-known member of the Acmeist movement.
Her fate was tragic. Her first husband, Nikolai Gumilev, was shot in 1921. Nikolai Punin, third husband, was arrested three times and died in the camp in 1953. Her only son, Lev Gumilyov, spent in detention more than 10 years. She reflected her woe in one of her most important work – the poem Requiem. This lyrical masterpiece is dedicated to the victims of Josef Stalin’s terror.
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko was born on June 23, 1889 in Odessa. Her father was a retired naval officer, who moved the family to St. Petersburg when Anna was a young girl. She studied at the Tsarskoe Selo Women’s Gymnasium. At the age of 11 Anna wrote her first poem and decided to become a poet. However, Anna’s father thought it was a waste of time and prohibited to use her real surname. Anna chose a pen-name – Akhmatova – maiden name of her grandmother.
More »

Matsuo Basho was one of the greatest Japanese poets. He is associated with the celebrated Genroku era (ca. 1680-1730). He was an innovator in poetry. Basho elevated haiku, a traditional form of Japanese poetry, to a serious art.
The haiku became an independent form in the latter part of the 16th century. The haiku is a 17-syllable verse form divided into successive phrases or lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables.
Basho (his real name was Matsuo Manefusa) was born in 1644 near Kyoto, Japan. He was one of six children in a family of samurai. Basho started out as a samurai warrior in the service of a local lord.
After his lord’s death in 1666 he wandered about Japan in search of imagery and is known as a traveler as well as a poet. Basho is an author of some of the most beautiful travel diaries ever written in Japanese. Basho wrote poems as he traveled. He wrote about the sights and landscapes he saw.
In 1672, at the age of 29, Basho went to Edo (modern Tokyo).
More »

Aesop was a Greek writer, who wrote hundreds of stories called fables. The word “fable” means “amazing” or “larger-than-life”—or even “imaginary”. His fables are animal stories. They are still used to teach children.
Little is known about the ancient Greek writer Aesop (c. 620 B.C.E.–c. 560 B.C.E.). He was said to have been a slave who earned his freedom through his storytelling and went on to serve as advisor to a king.
The fables of Aesop were probably part of an oral history—stories that were told aloud. An early English-language version of the stories was published in 1692.
Most of the fables are about animals with human characteristics. Most end with a moral, or a statement of the lesson that the fable teaches.
More »