Bel Kaufman (10 May, 1911 – 25 July, 2014), born as Bella, in Berlin, Germany, was an American author and educator known for her novel Up the Down Staircase.

John Hawkes (17 August, 1925 – 15 May, 1998) and an American novelist. He is known for his novels The Lime Twig (1961) and The Beetle Leg (1951) among others.

Czesław Miłosz (30 June, 1911 – 14 August, 2004) was a poet, writer and translator from Poland. Books by Czesław Miłosz* 1) Originally born under the flag of the Russian Empire, the village of Szetejnie is now part of Lithuania. 2) During World War II, Mr. Miłosz was in Warsaw, which was ruled by Nazi Germany. 3) After the war, Mr. Miłosz was appointed as Poland’s cultural attaché to Washington DC and Paris. 4) In 1951 Mr. Miłosz defected to the West. In 1970 he because a US citizen. 5) Mr. Miłosz’s book The Captive Mind (1953), a study on how intellectuals behave under totalitarian governments, is a staple in political science course. 6) In 1978 he was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and in 1980 the Nobel Prize in Literature. 7) Books and works by the author where banned in his home country of Poland, the first time many Poles heard of him was when he won the Noble Prize. 8) Mr. Miłosz is recognized in 1989 as a Righteous Among the Nations in Yad Vashem, Israel for his role in helping four Jews escape Warsaw during World War II. 9) After his death, protesters in Kraków, Poland threatened to disrupt his funeral because he was an “anti-Polish, anti-Catholic, and had signed a petition supporting gay and lesbian…

Born as Theodore Dostoevsky, the author had a speech impediment and couldn’t pronounce to “th” sound. He changed his name to Fyodor instead.

Emma Lazarus (22 July, 1849 – 19 November, 1887) was an American poet known for her 1883 sonnet The New Colossus which is inscribed on a bronze plaque being held by the Statue of Liberty. By T. Johnson – The New York Historical Society [1][2], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=275227 1) Ms. Lazarus was one of seven children born in New York. 2) Poet Grace Seixas Nathan was the great-great grandmother of Ms. Lazarus 3) Since early age, Ms. Lazarus studied American and British literature 4) She loved the writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson and an admirer of political economist Henry George. 5) She spoke English, German, French and Italian. 6) After reading Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, Ms. Lazarus started taking interest in her Jewish roots 7) She was an advocate for Jewish Russian refugees after the Russian pogroms 8) Ms. Lazarus’ famous sonnet The New Colossus was written for and donated to an auction to raise funds to build the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty 9) Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, Emma Lazarus’ good friend and daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife, Sophia founded the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne after she was inspired by The New Colossus 10) In 2008…

The authors go to great length not only to tell a story, but give the reader the historical context in which the events were happening, as well as the social and political climates.

In 1906 Gorky went on a fund raising trip, on behalf of the Bolsheviks, to the United States. During the trip he wrote his novel The Mother when visiting the Adirondack Mountains. Gorky also created a scandal because he was traveling with actress Maria Andreyeva, his lover, instead of his wife. Despite feeling contempt for the bourgeois soul, Gorky came to admire the American spirit.

The author managed to captures several aspects of Israeli society, the Russian immigrant, a soldier, politician, religious Jew, an Arab bird-lover and more. The point of view constantly changes in the story which gives the narrative it’s on dynamic and takes on a life of its own.

Elias Canetti (25 July, 1905 – 14 August, 1994) was a novelist, non-fiction writer, memoirist and playwright. Mr. Elias was born in Bulgaria, but is known as a Swiss and British novelist. Image from russianroulettehitscannes.wordpress.com Books by Elias Canetti The ancestors of Mr. Canetti were Sephardi Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492. Canetti came from Cañete, named after Cañete, Cuenca, a village in Spain Mr. Canetti wrote in German In 1981 Mr. Canetti won the Nobel Prize in Literature “for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power”. Mr. Canetti studied Chemistry at the University of Vienna. He graduated in 1929 but never worked as a chemist. As a student, Mr. Canetti witnessed the July Revolt of 1927 (a.k.a. the Vienna Palace of Justice fire). The riot left a deep impression on the future writer, especially the burning of books. Canetti married Venetiana Taubner-Calderon in 1934, she was his muse and literary assistant. He was open to relationships with other women. Canetti immigrated to England, in 1938, devoting his time to research on mass psychology and the allure of fascism. Even though he was a British citizen, Mr. Mr. Canetti lived mostly in…

In “Animal Farm” Orwell criticized the Russian Government and communism.