American novelist Amy Tan, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, has focused
her writing on the cultural and generational differences among Asian-American women. Her best
known novel, The Joy Luck Club, explores the relationships between Chinese women ...
Arthur Miller (1915- ) is an acclaimed American playwright whose works
confront moral and political issues and describe the pressures society puts on people. Aside
from his marriage to Marilyn Monroe, Miller is probably best known for his 1949 maste...
Joyce Carol Oates (1938- ) is an American author who taught English at the
University of Detroit and the University of Windsor, Ontario and has been affiliated with
Princeton University since 1978. Oates writes about contemporary American life, which...
American dancer and choreographer Judith Jamison made her New York debut
with the American Ballet Theatre in 1964. Jamisons fame began to build when she joined the
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in 1965, the company of which she would become ar...
Author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on November 11,
1922. Vonneguts literature is well-known for its satirical approach to twentieth century
concerns in regards to new technology and the impact of modern war. The satirist ha...
Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec,
and Toronto, Canada. She is best known as the author of editions such as The Handmaids Tale
(1985) and The Edible Woman (1969). Each work addresses popular contemporary iss...
Renaissance woman Maya Angelou is a poet, author, playwright, professional
stage and screen producer, director, and performer. One of her best known written works is I
Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970), a humorous autobiography set in segregated A...
Controversial writer Norman Mailer used his personal experiences to
invigorate the nonfiction novel. Born in Long Branch, New Jersey and raised in Brooklyn, New
York, Mailer received his S.B. in engineering from Harvard in 1943, and was drafted for W...
Author Pat Conroy, born October 26, 1945 in Atlanta, Georgia, was the
oldest of seven children. Since his father was a figure in the military, Conroy moved frequently
and eventually graduated from the Citadel Military Academy in Charleston, South Car...
Paul Theroux is known for a wide spectrum of publications, encompassing
novels, childrens books, and magazine contributions. He is most widely noted for his collection
of travel books, including Riding the Iron Rooster (1988), The Great Railway Baz...
Philip Roth was born in 1933 in Newark, New Jersey, which would later be
the setting for many of his early novels. Noted for his ironic take on the issues of identity
and sexuality within the life of the middle-class Jewish American, Roth first gaine...
American novelist Richard Ford was born in Jackson, Mississippi, though he
denies his status as a southern writer. Ford has written five novels, his best known being The
Sportswriter (1986), a first-person account in the life of novelist-turned-sport...
Writer and critic Susan Sontag was born in New York and grew up in Arizona
and California. Sontag entered University of California Berkeley when she was fifteen, and
subsequently studied at University of Chicago, Harvard, and the University of Paris....
Popular African-American writer Terry McMillan was born on October 18, 1951
and grew up in Port Huron, Michigan. She attended the University of California, Berkeley,
graduating with a bachelor's degree in journalism. While still at Berkeley, she wrot...
Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, American author and journalist Tom
Wolfe obtained fame for his experimental writing style known as New Journalism, introduced in
his 1968 novel The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. Wolfe worked for...
Novelist Tony Hillerman was born in Sacred Heart, Oklahoma, where he was
raised amongst the Pottawatomie and Seminole Indians. Hillerman attended Oklahoma State
University, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of New Mexico. He is known fo...
William Kennedy is credited with bringing his native city of Albany, New
York to life within the literary world. His novels, in what has been deemed his Albany Cycle,
include Legs (1975), Billy Phelan's Greatest Game (1978), and the Pulitzer Priz...
August Wilson, an American playwright and poet, was born in Pittsburgh on
April 27, 1945. His experiences growing up in a poor black community in Pittsburgh gained him
valuable insight into the plight of blacks in American society, which he has draw...
Carlos Fuentes (1928- ), a Mexican writer and editor, is also an
accomplished diplomat, having served as head of the department of cultural relations in Mexicos
ministry of foreign affairs (1950-1959) and as the Mexican ambassador to France (1975-1...
David Halberstam [1934-] is one of America's most distinguished journalists
and historians, whose newspaper reporting and books have helped define our era. In 1960, after
having covered the early civil rights struggle for the Nashville Tennessean, Ha...
David McCullough (1933- ) is well known as the author of one of the most
popular and well-respected biographies in recent memory, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Truman
(1992). His works also include The Johnstown Flood (1968), The Path Between Seas (1977...
Derek Walcott (1930- ) is a West Indian writer whose poems and dramas
exhibit his deft control of language as he infuses the English language with a rich mix of
Latin, French, and patois. The son a British father and a West Indian mother, Walcott dr...
E.L. Doctorow (1931- ), an American novelist born in New York City, is
known for his works of historical fiction. Doctorow's work, highly regarded and controversial,
is distinguished by deep philosophical inquiry, a subtle and varied prose style, an...
Edward Albee (1928- ), an American dramatist born in Washington, D.C., has
been one of the foremost playwrights of his day, whose work initiated a new theatrical movement
in America. His ground-breaking plays are an indictment of American society, w...
Garry Wills, raised in Michigan in a devout Catholic family, is a cultural
historian and author who has written nearly thirty books over his career. Some of his works
include Nixon Agonistes (1970), Reagans America (1987), Why I Am a Catholic (200...
Isabel Allende (1942- ), niece of former Chilean president Salvador
Allende, is one of todays most prominent Chilean writers. She has lived many years in
California, having lived abroad ever since the 1973 coup that deposed her uncle. Her fictio...
Jacques dAmboise (1934- ), recognized as one of the finest classical
dancers of our time, has devoted his life to the arts and the promotion of arts education. Best
known for his roles in American works such as Filling Station and Western Symphony...
Jane Smiley (1949- ) a novelist born in Los Angeles, California, has
written twelve works of fiction covering a wide array of topics, including politics, farming,
horse training, impulse buying, Barbie, and marriage. Some of her works include The Ag...
John Irving (1942- ) an author born in Exeter, New Hampshire, first
received major recognition for his fourth novel, The World According to Garp (1978). Nominated
for a National Book Award, this novel describes the career of a novelist and typifies ...
John Updike (1932- ), a remarkably prolific American novelist, poet, and
short-story writer, was born in Shillington, Pennsylvania and graduated from Harvard in 1954.
His considerable talent is evident from his writings, which reveal a well-controll...
Joseph Heller (1923-1999) was a surreal novelist whose 1961 classic
Catch-22 (1961) remains a seminal, antiwar novel. The term catch-22, coined in this novel, has
become a part of the American vernacular, now used to refer to any illogical or pa...