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Category Archive: Literature

Omar Khayyam – Persian poet and astronomer

Omar Khayyam - Persian poet and astronomer

Omar Khayyam – Persian poet and astronomer


Omar Khayyam was a Persian astronomer, mathematician, and poet.
Omar Khayyam was born in May 1048 in Nishapur, Persia (present-day Iran). His name means “tent maker”, the likely profession of his father. During his lifetime he was known as a mathematician and astronomer. He also studied philosophy.
As a young man he worked in Samarkand under the patronage of the Seljuk ruler, Malik Shah, during which time he wrote the Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra. In the commentary he is concerned with the foundations of geometry. Khayyam also wrote a commentary on the Principles of Euclid, in which he developed the theory of relations and proportions and the doctrine of parallel. And there Khayyam expressed a number of interesting thoughts that influenced the further development of mathematics.
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George Sand – French novelist

George Sand - French novelist

George Sand – French novelist


George Sand was French novelist, the most successful woman writer of her century.
Armandine Aurore Lucille Dupin (her real name) was born on July 1, 1804 in Paris. Her father, Maurice Dupin, was a soldier of the Empire, and her mother was the daughter of a professional bird fancier. Aurore’s father died when she was still a child. At the age of 14 the girl went to the convent of the Dames Augustines Anglaises in Paris. Then her grandmother called her to her home in Nohant, where Aurore studied nature, practiced medicine, read a lot. Her eccentric tutor encouraged her to wear men’s clothing while horseback riding.
At 19 Aurore married Casimir Dudevant, the son of a baron and a servant girl. She had a platonic relationship with Aurelien de Seze, but soon she began to realize that it was impossible to sustain love without physical passion.
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Lion Feuchtwanger – German writer

Lion Feuchtwanger – German writer

Lion Feuchtwanger – German writer


Lion Feuchtwanger was a German writer of Jewish origin. He lived and wrote in political exile for the last quarter-century of his life. His masterwork, Success, is one of the great novels of the 20th century.
Lion Feuchtwanger was born on July 7, 1884, in Munich, Germany. He was the son of a wealthy Jewish industrialist. Lion studied philosophy, literature, ancient and modern languages at Berlin and Munich universities. While still a student he composed three short plays – Joel, King Saul, and Uriah’s Wife. From 1908 to 1911 he became a drama critic for Die Schaubühne (The Stage). In 1912 Lion married Martha Loffler.
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Jaroslav Hasek – Czech writer

Jaroslav Hasek - Czech writer

Jaroslav Hasek – Czech writer


Brilliant talent of Jaroslav Hašek brought Czech literature world recognition. He was a Czech satirist writer, anarchist, playwright, journalist, commissar of the Red Army. He was the author of approximately 1500 different stories, feuilletons and other works.
Jaroslav Hašek was born on April 30, 1883 in Prague. At first he worked at a pharmacy. However, instead of daily work, he went on a hiking trip. Together with a company of teenagers he travelled in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Moravia. In 1899 Jaroslav entered the Trade Academy and graduated in 1902. In the same year he began to work in the bank Slavia. He began to work in October and already in the winter he went travelling without telling anyone about this. For the first time the administration of the bank forgave him. However, after a short time, in May 1903 he missed again and was fired.
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Karel Capek – Czech writer

Karel Capek - Czech writer

Karel Capek – Czech writer


Karel Capek is one of the most famous Czech writers of the 20th century. He was a prose writer, playwright, translator, and science fiction writer. He is the author of the famous plays The Makropulos Affair (Věc Makropulos, 1922), The Mother (Matka, 1938), The RUR (Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti, 1920), the novels The Factory for the Absolute (Továrna na absolutno, 1922), Krakatit (1922), Hordubal (1933), Meteor (Povětroň, 1934), Ordinary life (Obyčejný život, 1934), The war with Salamanders (Válka s mloky, 1936), The First Rescue (První parta, 1937), The Life and Work of the Composer Foltyn (Život a dílo skladatele Foltýna, 1939, not finished), as well as numerous stories, essays, satirical articles, tales, and travel notes. He was a translator of modern French poetry.
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Ray Bradbury – great writer

Ray Bradbury – great writer

Ray Bradbury – great writer


Ray Bradbury is a great science fiction writer known for the dystopia Fahrenheit 451, the cycle of short stories Martian Chronicles and partly autobiographical novel Dandelion Wine. He created lasting images of a futuristic world. Over the course of a long career he had written over 500 works, including short stories, poems, novels, and plays for theater and television. Bradbury described himself as a fantasist rather than a science fiction writer.
Raymond Douglas Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. Then his family moved to Los Angeles, where he graduated from high school in 1938. He was the third son of Spaulding Bradbury and Esther Marie Moberg Bradbury. It is interesting that the boy received his second name Douglas in honor of the famous actor Douglas Fairbanks.
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Arthur Conan Doyle – great writer

Arthur Conan Doyle – great writer

Arthur Conan Doyle – great writer


Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a British author and physician who popularized the detective genre of literature. He is remembered more for his brilliant detective character Sherlock Holmes.
Arthur Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859 in Edinburgh. He was the eldest son of Charles Altimont Doyle and his wife, Mary Foley.
In 1869, Doyle was enrolled in Hodder Preparatory, a Jesuit school in Lancashire. Two years later he attended the Jesuit college, Stonyhurst School. He traveled to Austria, where he spent a year studying German. In 1876, he entered Edinburgh University to study medicine. In his third year in medical school Doyle began to write fiction to support himself. In 1885 he received a doctor of medicine degree. Doyle worked as a ship’s doctor.
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