Vikram Seth    Vikram Seth was born in Kolkata in 1952 to Prem Seth, a shoe company executive, and Laila Seth, a judge. Vikram Seth is the oldest of three children in the Seth family. He was sent to Doon school, a prestigious boarding school for boys, at the age of six. As a young student, Vikram was very shy, “Incapable of looking people in the eye,” he says. But what...

Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885) Victor Hugo, novelist, poet, and dramatist, is one of the most important of French Romantic writers. Among his best-known works are The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) and Les Miser-able (1862). Victor Hugo was born in Besancon as the son of a army general, who taught young Victor to admire Napoleon as a hero. He began in early adolescence to write verse tragedies and poetry; and...

Upton Sinclair (1878 – 1968)   Upton Sinclair was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, and short story writer, whose most famous book is The Jungle (1906). Sinclair was born on September 20, 1878 in Baltimore, Maryland. His father was a liquor salesman whose alcoholism shadowed Sinclair’s childhood. When Sinclair was ten, the family moved to New York. He started to write dime novels at the age of 15 and produced ethnic...

Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888 – 1965) S. Eliot, American-British poet and critic, is one of the most distinguished literary figures of the 20th century. T. S. Eliot won the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature. He studied at Harvard, the Sorbonne and Oxford. In 1914, he established residence in Lon-don and in 1927 became a British subject. After working as a teacher and a bank clerk he began a publishing career; he...

Thomas Moore Thomas Moore was born in Dublin as the son of a grocer. His background was poor and he never varnished it. Moore studied at Trinity College, Dublin and London, and published his first book, The Poetical Works Of Thomas Little, in 1801. He became in 1803 a civil officer to Bermuda, where he stayed for a year, and then returned to England after travels in U.S. and Canada. Moore’s...

Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928) Thomas Hardy was an English poet and novelist, famous for his depictions of the imaginary county Wessex. Hardy’s work reflected his stoical pessimism and sense of tragedy in human life. Thomas Hardy was born Egdon Heath, in Dorset, near Dorchester on June 2, 1840. His father was a master mason and building contractor. Hardy’s mother, whose tastes included Latin poets and French romances, provided for his...

Thomas Browne (1605 – 1682) Thomas Browne was born in London on October 19, 1605. After graduating M.A. from Broadgates Hall, Oxford (1629), he studied medicine privately and worked as an assistant to an Oxford doctor.  He then attended the Universities of Montpellier and Padua, and in 1633 he was graduated M.D. at Leiden. Browne’s medical education in Europe also earned him incorporation as M.D. from Oxford, and in 1637- he...

Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963) American writer whose best-known poems are carefully crafted pieces noted for their personal imagery and intense focus. Plath wrote only two books before her suicide at the age of 31. Her posthumous Ariel (1965) stunned the literary world with its power. Plath was born in Boston as the daughter of German immigrant parents. Her father was a professor of biology at Boston University, and had specialized...