Find out more about the greatest 20th Century Novelists, including William Gibson, Lady Colin Campbell, J. K. Rowling, Roald Dahl and David Foster Wallace
J. K. Rowling31 July 1965, British
Author
J. R. R. Tolkien03 January 1892, British, South African
Writer
James Baldwin02 August 1924, American
Novelist
Ernest Hemingway21 July 1899, American
Journalist
George Orwell25 June 1903, British
Novelist
Roald Dahl13 September 1916, British
Novelist
Rabindranath Tagore07 May 1861, Indian
Poet
Virginia Woolf25 January 1882, British
Novelist
Leonard Cohen21 September 1934, Canadian
Singer-songwriter
Salman Rushdie19 June 1947, Indian, British
British-Indian novelist
Neil Gaiman10 November 1960, British
Author
Hunter S. Thompson18 July 1937, American
Journalist and Author
Dr. Seuss02 March 1904, American
Author
Toni Morrison18 February 1931, American
Novelist
Dalton Trumbo09 December 1905, American
Screenwriter, Novelist
George R. R. Martin20 September 1948, American
Screenwriter, Novelist
Shirley Jackson14 December 1916, American
Author
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar28 May 1883, Indian
Independence Activist, Reformer
David Thewlis20 March 1963, British
Actor
Truman Capote30 September 1924, American
Author
David Foster Wallace21 February 1962, American
Writer
Ian Fleming28 May 1908, British
Author of James Bond Series
Haruki Murakami12 January 1949, Japanese
Margaret Atwood18 November 1939, Canadian
Writer, Environmental Activist
Kurt Vonnegut11 November 1922, American
American writer
H. G. Wells21 September 1866, British
Writer
John Steinbeck27 February 1902, American
Author
Charles Bukowski16 August 1920, German, American
Poet
Tom Clancy12 April 1947, American
Novelist
Philip K. Dick16 December 1928, American
Novelist
James Patterson22 March 1947, American
Writer
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J. D. Salinger01 January 1919, American
Writer
John Grisham08 February 1955, American
American writer
Harper Lee28 April 1926, American
Novelist
Philip Roth19 March 1933, American
Novelist
Jill Gascoine11 April 1937, British
Actress
Lucy Hawking02 November 1970, British
Journalist, Novelist, Writer
Simone de Beauvoir09 January 1908, French
Writer
Bruce Boxleitner12 May 1950, American
Actor
Richard Belzer04 August 1944, American
Stand-up Comedian, Actor, Author
P. L. Travers09 August 1899, Australian, British
Writer
Ray Bradbury22 August 1920, American
Writer
Gore Vidal03 October 1925, American
Jake Tapper12 March 1969, American
Journalist
Samuel Beckett13 April 1906, Irish
Novelist, Playwright, Theater Director
Paulo Coelho24 August 1947, Brazilian
Brazilian lyricist
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn11 December 1918, Russian, Russian
Author
Denise Nicholas12 July 1944, American
Actress
William S. Burroughs05 February 1914, American
Novelist, Short Story Writer
Zelda Fitzgerald24 July 1900, American
Novelist
Elizabeth Gilbert18 July 1969, American
Writer
George Kennedy18 February 1925, American
Actor
Sterling Hayden26 March 1916, American
Actor
Nicholas Sparks31 December 1965, American
Novelist
Dirk Blocker31 July 1957, American
Actor
Chuck Palahniuk21 February 1962, American
Novelist & Journalist
Bernard Cornwell23 February 1944, British
Author of Historical Novels
Kazuo Ishiguro08 November 1954, British
Nobel Prize Winner in Literature
Umberto Eco05 January 1932, Italian
Italian Semiotician, Philosopher
R. K. Narayan10 October 1906, Indian
Isabel Allende02 August 1942, Chilean, Peruvian, American
Writer
Lawrence Durrell27 February 1912, British
Novelist
Saadat Hasan Manto11 May 1912, Pakistani
Writer
Evelyn Waugh28 October 1903, British
Writer
Dee Dee Ramone18 September 1951, American
Musician
Colette28 January 1873, French
Novelist
Chinua Achebe16 November 1930, Nigerian
Nigerian novelist
Khaled Hosseini04 March 1965, American
Novelist
Mona Simpson14 June 1957, American
Author
Joyce Carol Oates16 June 1938, American
Writer
William Gibson17 March 1948, Canadian, American
Speculative Fiction Writer
Roxann Dawson11 September 1958, American
Actress
Robert E. Howard22 January 1906, American
Pulp Fiction Writer
William Golding19 September 1911, British
Novelist
Robby Benson21 January 1956, American
Actor
Karen Blixen17 April 1885, Danish
Writer
Anne Morrow Lindbergh22 June 1906, American
Renowned Author & Aviator
Milan Kundera01 April 1929, Czech, French
Writer
Jhumpa Lahiri11 July 1967, British, American
Writer
Danielle Steel14 August 1947, American
Novelist
Harlan Ellison27 May 1934, American
Writer
Stefan Zweig28 November 1881, Austrian
Novelist
Alain de Botton20 December 1969, Swiss, British
Author
Shelby Foote17 November 1916, American
Writer
Anthony Burgess25 February 1917, British
Khushwant Singh02 February 1915, Indian
Novelist, Lawyer, Journalist & Politician
Romain Gary21 May 1914, French
Diplomat
Philip Larkin09 August 1922, British
Poet
Martha Gellhorn08 November 1908, American
Journalist & Writer
Mikhail Bulgakov15 May 1891, Russian
Novelist
Dashiell Hammett27 May 1894, American
Novelist
Nick Hornby17 April 1957, British
Author & Editor
J. M. Coetzee09 February 1940, South African
Novelist, Author
V. S. Naipaul17 August 1932, British
Writer