Namdeo Dhasal was born in a village near Poona, India, in 1947. As a member of the Dalits, the casteless (or ›untouchables‹) he grew up in direst poverty. Dhasal spent his childhood in Golpitha, a red-light district in Mumbai/Bombay, where his father worked for a butcher. Following the example of
Nadine Gordimer was born in the South African mining town of Springs in 1923. Gordimer, the daughter of Jewish immigrants, published her first story at the age of 15. She studied Humanities in Johannesburg but soon began to concentrate entirely on her writing. In 1949 she published her first collection of short
Mohammad Mohammad Ali was born into a large family in Teheran in 1948. His father was a businessman, and his mother a housewife. His mother loved ancient Persian tales and epics, which she shared with her children. It was a teacher who wrote poetry and prose who awakened Mohammad Ali’s interest in literature
born in Stratford, Taranaki, New Zealand in 1956. She graduated in English from the University of Canterbury with a paper on the New Zealand author Ian Wedde. She then attended the University of British Columbia for five years and wrote a doctorate paper on the American poet Louis Zukofsky. From
Michael Palmer was born in New York City in 1943. He studied Comparative Literature at Harvard University and settled in San Francisco in 1969. As an undergraduate Palmer collaborated with Clark Coolidge in publishing the magazine ‘Joglars’. His first volume of poetry, ‘Plan of the City of O’, appeared in
Mazisi Raymond Kunene was born in Durban, South Africa, in 1930. He graduated from the University of Natal with a paper on traditional and modern Zulu poetry. In 1959 he obtained a grant to complete his doctoral dissertation in London. From this point on Kunene dedicated himself to the struggle for
Marina Colasanti was born in Asmara, Eritrea, when it was an Italian colony. She went to Italy during the Second World War, then to Brazil in 1948. Colasanti began studying art at the National School of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro in 1952. After several exhibitions she began to
Lydia Davis was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1947, and grew up there and in New York City, attending second grade, however, at the Ursulinenklosterschule in Graz, Austria. After graduating from Barnard College, she spent nearly three years abroad, in Ireland and in France. While living in Paris she began
Lyudmila Ulitskaya was born during her mother’s evacuation to the Urals in 1943. From the age of two she was brought up and educated in Moscow, where she studied Biology. For two years she worked as a geneticist at the USSR Academy institute in Moscow, but was dismissed in 1969
Leo Tuor was born in Rabius in the Swiss canton Graubünden in 1959. The native Rhaetian attended a German Benedictine boarding school in Disentis and later studied Philosophy, History and Literature in Zurich, Fribourg and Berlin. Tuor trained to be a secondary school teacher but is more active as a
Lars Gustafsson was born in Västerås, central Sweden, in 1936. He completed his philosophy studies at the University of Uppsala and Magdalen College, Oxford, with a dissertation in 1978 on »three extremists in the philosophy of language« (incl. Friedrich Nietzsche). From 1960 Gustafsson worked as editor, and from 1965 to
Klaus Kordon was born in Pankow in northeast Berlin, in 1943. He grew up in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin. Both Kordon’s parents died when he was a child: his father during the war and his mother in 1956, after which he lived in several children’s homes. He had various professions, including
