Jan. 31: Oe Kenzaburo, Japanese novelist

BORN JANUARY 31:

Oe Kenzaburo (1935 - ) Japanese novelist, short story writer, and essayist. A major literary figure in his home country, he was influenced in his early days by French and American literature, and has used his insights to oppose nuclear weapons and power, the power wielded by the Japanese Imperial household, and other issues. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994. The semi-autobiographical novel A Personal Matter tells the story of a young father grappling with the severe mental disability of his newborn son; The Silent Cry tells the story of two brothers in the early 1960s who, after decades of separation, deal with their own crises on a visit to their ancestral village in the countryside.

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Jan. 30: Lloyd Alexander, American fantasy author

BORN JANUARY 30:

Lloyd Alexander (1924-2007) American author of more than 40 books, mainly fantasy novels for children and young adults, most famously a series of five fantasy novels rooted in Welsh mythology called The Chronicles of Prydain and featuring an "Assistant Pig-Keeper" who becomes the "High King"; the second of these was animated by Disney. Also of note is the darker and more adult Westmark trilogy, set in a time similar to the history of the French Revolution.

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Jan. 29: Edward Abbey, American environmental writer

BORN JANUARY 29:

Edward Abbey (1927-1989) American novelist and essayist who became an icon of the environmental movement. Desert Solitaire, based on his experience as a ranger at Arches National Monument (now a national park) is a model of "nature autobiography"; his novel The Monkey Wrench Gang depicts the use of sabotage to protest environmentally damaging activities in the Southwest.

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Jan. 28: Colette, French novelist

BORN JANUARY 28:

Colette (1873-1954) French novelist who wrote Gigi, about a sixteen-year-old trained to catch a wealthy lover but who married him instead. With her first husband Henry Gauthier-Villars (known as "Willy"), she co-wrote the four novels known as the "Claudine stories," purporting to be the diary of a fifteen-year-old girl growing to adulthood. How much was written by Willy (under whose name the books first appeared) and how much by Collette (a model for the protagonist) has never been determined.

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Jan. 27: Lewis Carroll, English writer and humorist

BORN JANUARY 27:

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) English writer and mathematician. He was a fun and funny guy--a dab hand at puzzles and riddles--who did much of his work to please the children of his friends, one of whom was named Alice. He wrote the novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass; and the poems The Hunting of the Snark and "Jabberwocky."

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Jan. 26: Philip José Farmer, American author of science fiction

BORN JANUARY 26:

Philip José Farmer (1918-2009) American author of science fiction, best known for sequences of novels such as the World of Tiers and Riverworld series. He often mixed real and classic fictional characters and worlds, and real and fake authors, and pioneered the use of sexual and religious themes in his work.

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Jan. 25: Robert Burns, Scottish poet

BORN JANUARY 25:

Robert Burns (1759-1796) Scottish poet without whom we'd have nothing to sing on New Year's Eve (he wrote "Auld Lang Syne"). Nothing penetrates the lessons of nature like "To a Mouse" ("the best-laid plans of mice and men..."). His use of the Scots language sometimes requires translation, but can usually be understood well enough by English speakers, and brings a color his work would lack otherwise.

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Jan. 24: Edith Wharton, American writer

BORN JANUARY 24:

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) American novelist and short story writer who portrayed the lives and morals of the upper classes of New York in the "Gilded Age." Major works include The House of Mirth; Ethan Frome; and The Age of Innocence (won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1920)

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Jan. 23: Stendhal, French novelist

BORN JANUARY 23:

Stendhal (born Marie-Henri Beyle; 1783-1842) French realist novelist. He wrote Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black, referencing the protagonist's tension between secular and clerical interests) and La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma), about the adventures of a young Italian nobleman.

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Jan. 22: George Gordon, Lord Byron, English poet

BORN JANUARY 22:

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet and one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, widely considered among the greatest of the English poets. He wrote lengthy narrative poems like Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, as well as short lyrics like "She Walks in Beauty."

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Jan. 21: Ernest Holmes, American metaphysical teacher

BORN JANUARY 21:

Ernest Holmes (1887-1960) American "New Thought" teacher who founded the Religious Science sect of the greater New Thought movement, and wrote The Science of Mind (and other "metaphysical" books) proposing a new relationship between humans and God, focusing on prayer and meditation, spiritual self-healing, self-confidence, and expression of love. His Science of Mind magazine has been published since 1927.

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Jan. 20: Federico Fellini, Italian filmmaker

BORN JANUARY 20:

Federico Fellini (1920-1993) Italian filmmaker recognized as one of the greatest of all time, whose work blends fantasy with earthiness, and who made La Strada; Nights of Cabiria; La Dolce Vita; 8-1/2; Satyricon; and Amarcord. He was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, and won four.

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Jan. 19: Edgar Allan Poe, American writer

BORN JANUARY 19:

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) American poet and short story writer and--it was perhaps-unfairly alleged--dope fiend. Notable short stories (he wrote nearly 70) include "The Cask of Amontillado"; "The Fall of the House of Usher"; "The Masque of the Red Death"; "The Pit and the Pendulum"; The Tell-Tale Heart"; and two stories featuring a detective, which Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Homes) called the "root from which a whole literature has developed": "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Purloined Letter." Despite the quality of his poems like "Annabel Lee"; "Eldorado"; and "To Helen," all are outstripped in fame by The Raven.

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Jan. 18: A. A. Milne, British writer

BORN JANUARY 18:

A. A. (Alan Alexander) Milne (1882-1956) English novelist, essayist, poet, playwright, and short-story writer, and, most notably, author of children's literature: he was the "father" of Winnie-the-Pooh (and the father of Christopher Robin Milne)

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Jan. 17: Benjamin Franklin, American polymath

BORN JANUARY 17:

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American polymath, Founding Father, first Ambassador to France, and ladies' man. Read his Autobiography; much of Poor Richard's Almanack has entered the common core of culture ("A friend in need is a friend indeed!")

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Jan. 16: Robert W. Service, Canadian poet

BORN JANUARY 16:

Robert W. Service (1874-1958) British-Canadian poet, "the Bard of the Yukon," known for The Shooting of Dan McGrew and The Cremation of Sam McGee, the popularity of which led to Songs of a Sourdough (re-titled The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses in the U.S.) and Ballads of a Cheechako; the income from these and subsequent books allowed him to move to Paris, the French Riviera, and elsewhere.

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Jan. 14: Yukio Mishima, Japanese writer

BORN JANUARY 14:

Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) stunningly evocative Japanese novelist, playwright, poet, short story writer, and essayist. A Shintoist and active right-wing nationalist, he opposed Japan's increasing western-style materialism and postwar turn to democracy and globalism. To prove his point, he and four followers entered a Tokyo military base and took its commandant hostage, attempting to overthrow Japan's 1947 Constitution. After a speech and a cry of "Long live the Emperor!", he committed seppuku ("hara-kiri"), the favored mode of death of the samurai. Works include Confessions of a Mask; The Temple of the Golden Pavilion; The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea; The Sea of Fertility tetralogy (Spring Snow; Runaway Horses; The Temple of Dawn; The Decay of the Angel); and Hagakure Nyumon, which examines living the Samurai Way in modern life.

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Jan. 13: G. I. Gurdjieff, Armenian-Russian philosopher and mystic

BORN JANUARY 13:

G. I. Gurdjieff (1866-1949) Armenian-Russian philosopher and mystic, who wrote that most of us live our lives in a state of "waking sleep," from which it is possible to awaken--something the Buddha said 2500 years earlier. The purportedly autobiographical (but more likely fictional) Meetings with Remarkable Men contains "profiles" of his inspirations.

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Jan. 12: Jack London, American writer

BORN JANUARY 12:

Jack London (1876-1916) American novelist, short story writer, journalist, and activist, and one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. His rough-and-ready novels include The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea Wolf; and stories "To Build a Fire," "An Odyssey of the North," "Love of Life," "The Pearls of Parlay," and "The Heathen"; the non-fiction work The People of the Abyss was an exposé of the conditions of the working class in the east end of London.

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Jan. 11: Aldo Leopold, American naturalist

BORN JANUARY 11:

Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) American naturalist. His A Sand County Almanac is a delight to read; a professor at the University of Wisconsin, he influenced the development of modern environmental ethics and the movement for wilderness conservation.

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