Coffey, Brian (1905–1995)
Brian Coffey was an Irish modernist poet whose life and work are closely associated with fellow Irishmen Samuel Beckett (1906–1989), Denis Devlin (1908–1959), and George…
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Kurtág, György (1926--)
Unlike his friend György Ligeti, who emigrated from Hungary in 1956, György Kurtág remained until after the end of the Cold War in Budapest, where…
Jolas, Maria (1893–1987)
Maria Jolas was an important, if backstage, figure in the literary modernist movement in France and the USA. The wife and close collaborator of Eugene…
Cunard, Nancy (1896–1965)
A poet, journalist, publisher, radical intellectual, and political activist, Nancy Cunard operated at or near the centre of multiple modernist discourses. Her early poetry, especially…
O’Brien, Flann (1911–1966)
Born Brian O’Nolan (or Ó Nualláin) in Strabane, County Tyrone, the novelist and satirist known as Flann O’Brien is now recognized as a leading figure…
Gascoyne, David (1916–2001)
David Gascoyne was a British poet and novelist active in English surrealism and post-surrealism. His novel Opening Day (1933) was one of the earliest prose…
Beckett, Samuel Barclay (1906–89)
Samuel Barclay Beckett is widely considered one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. Born in Ireland and living in France for half…
Yeats, Jack Butler (1871-1957)
Jack B. Yeats was born into a remarkably creative Irish family; his father—John Butler Yeats—was a painter and his brother was the poet W.B. Yeats.…
Stream of Consciousness
The term ‘stream of consciousness’ was first coined by psychologist William James in The Principles of Psychology in 1893, when he describes it thusly: “consciousness…
Nouveau Roman
The ‘Nouveau Roman’ or ‘New Novel’ is used to refer to a literary and critical movement in France during the 1950s and early 1960s. Later,…
Fugard, Athol (1932--)
Athol Fugard has been a novelist and memoirist (of sorts), but is best known for his pioneering political work in the theatre as a writer,…
MacGreevy, Thomas (1950–1963)
Thomas MacGreevy was a poet, art and literary critic, and Director of the National Gallery of Ireland (1950-63). MacGreevy was born in 1893, during the…
Slapstick Comedy
The term “slapstick comedy” refers to film comedies in which the humor relies upon physical gags and stunts. The slapstick—a wooden paddle to which a…
Gombrowicz, Witold (1904–1969)
Born into a wealthy landed family, Gombrowicz debuted in the avant-garde milieu of interwar Warsaw. In 1939, when the Germans invaded Poland, he was on…
Finnegans Wake
An experimental masterpiece by James Joyce, published in 1939. Joyce began writing it during 1923 and parts of it appeared under the title Work-in-Progress within…
Miguel Aguilar Ahumada (1931--)
Miguel Aguilar Ahumada is a Chilean composer, academic, and musicologist. His value in the Chilean and Latin American musical panorama lies in his role as…
Chaplin, Charlie (1889–1977)
Charles Spenser Chaplin was born in London on April 16, 1889, and died on Christmas Day, 1977, at home in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland. He had been…
Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund (1903–69)
Born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund to an Italian Catholic mother and an assimilated Jewish father, Adorno would take his mother’s vaguely aristocratic last name. Philosopher, aesthetician,…
Ernst, Max (1891–1976)
Max Ernst was a painter, sculptor and printmaker. He was born in Germany, but he lived in Paris and then New York; he returned to…
Shingeki
Shingeki (literally “new theater”) is a word coined in late Meiji period Japan (1868–1912) referring to dramatic works and theater performance styles imported and adapted…
Shammas, Anton (1950–)
Anton Shammas is a Palestinian poet, novelist, academic and translator. He is best known for his 1986 novel ערבסקות/Arabeskot [Arabesques], the first high-profile novel written…
Giacometti, Giovanni Alberto (1901–1966)
Alberto Giacometti was a titan of twentieth-century art. His rich oeuvre of sculpture, painting and drawing ranks alongside pioneering artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri…
Broch, Hermann (1886–1951)
Hermann Broch is best known as a philosophically attuned novelist. Above all he is the author of two extraordinarily accomplished works of European modernist fiction:…
Bloomsday
Bloomsday, June 16th, is an annual global literary holiday honoring the characters of James Joyce’s Ulysses; the celebrations are marked by readings, re-enactments, pub-crawls, and…
Borges, Jorge Luis (1899–1986)
Jorge Luis Borges is among the writers who have brought international fame to Latin American Literature. A fabulist, poet, essayist and translator, Borges shaped modern…