PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: memoir
American writer
Mark Twain was an American humorist, journalist, lecturer, and novelist who acquired international fame for his travel narratives, especially The Innocents Abroad (1869), Roughing It (1872), and Life on...
British writer
Virginia Woolf was an English writer whose novels, through their nonlinear approaches to narrative, exerted a major influence on the genre. While she is best known for her novels, especially Mrs. Dalloway...
American actor and director
Woody Allen is an American motion-picture director, screenwriter, actor, comedian, playwright, and author who is best known for his bittersweet comic films containing elements of parody, slapstick, and...
American director
Vincente Minnelli was an American motion-picture director who infused a new sophistication and vitality into filmed musicals in the 1940s and ’50s. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.)...
34th president of the United States
Dwight D. Eisenhower was the 34th president of the United States (1953–61), who had been supreme commander of the Allied forces in western Europe during World War II. Eisenhower was the third of seven...
French composer
Hector Berlioz was a French composer, critic, and conductor of the Romantic period, known largely for his Symphonie fantastique (1830), the choral symphony Roméo et Juliette (1839), and the dramatic piece...
American musician
Bob Dylan is an American folksinger and songwriter who moved from folk to rock music in the 1960s, infusing the lyrics of rock and roll, theretofore concerned mostly with boy-girl romantic innuendo, with...
British historian
Edward Gibbon was an English rationalist historian and scholar best known as the author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88), a continuous narrative from the 2nd century...
42nd president of the United States
Bill Clinton is the 42nd president of the United States (1993–2001), who oversaw the country’s longest peacetime economic expansion. In 1998 he became the second U.S. president to be impeached; he was...
British scholar and military officer
T.E. Lawrence was a British archaeological scholar, military strategist, and author best known for his legendary war activities in the Middle East during World War I and for his account of those activities...
Russian writer
Maxim Gorky was a Russian short-story writer and novelist who first attracted attention with his naturalistic and sympathetic stories of tramps and social outcasts and later wrote other stories, novels,...
English poet, editor, and publisher
In 1891 a 20-year-old university student met the famed Irish writer and wit Oscar Wilde. The student, a golden-haired aristocrat and poet named Lord Alfred Douglas, soon began a romantic relationship with...
German author
Heinrich Heine was a German poet whose international literary reputation and influence were established by the Buch der Lieder (1827; The Book of Songs), frequently set to music, though the more sombre...
American writer
Ernest Hemingway was an American novelist and short-story writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. He was noted both for the intense masculinity of his writing and for his adventurous...
British author
George Orwell was an English novelist, essayist, and critic famous for his novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949). The latter of these is a profound anti-utopian novel that examines...
American activist and author
Ron Kovic is a Vietnam War veteran, activist, and author who became a leading antiwar figure in the 1970s. Kovic had been wounded and paralyzed during his service in the war. In 1976 he detailed his experiences...
Russian writer
Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen was a political thinker, activist, and writer who originated the theory of a unique Russian path to socialism known as peasant populism. Herzen chronicled his career in My Past...
48th vice president of the United States
Mike Pence is the 48th vice president of the United States (2017–21) in the Republican administration of Pres. Donald Trump. In 2020 Trump and Pence were defeated by their Democratic opponents, Joe Biden...
American writer
Alice Walker is an American writer whose novels, short stories, and poems are noted for their insightful treatment of African American culture. Her novels, most notably The Color Purple (1982), focus particularly...
American actor
Alec Baldwin is an American actor of great versatility who is especially known for his portrayal of roguish characters, notably Jack Donaghy on the sitcom 30 Rock (2006–13). Adept at comedy and drama,...
German writer
Lou Andreas-Salomé was a Russian-German writer who has been called “the mother of psychoanalysis.” Socially unconventional and possessing a brilliant intellect, she was the first female psychoanalyst and...
president of France
François Hollande is a French politician who was president of France (2012–17). He earlier served as first secretary of the Socialist Party (1997–2008). The son of a physician in France’s northwestern...
French theologian and poet
Peter Abelard was a French theologian and philosopher best known for his solution of the problem of universals and for his original use of dialectics. He is also known for his poetry and for his celebrated...
50th vice president of the United States
J.D. Vance is the 50th vice president of the United States (2025– ) in the Republican administration of Pres. Donald Trump. Vance became widely known as the author of Hillbilly Elegy (2016), a best-selling...
American civil rights activist
Rosa Parks was an American civil rights activist whose refusal to relinquish her seat on a public bus precipitated the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama, which became the spark that ignited the...
Russian author
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist and historian, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. Solzhenitsyn was born into a family of Cossack intellectuals and brought up...
American Canadian actor
Matthew Perry was an American Canadian comedic actor best known for his portrayal of the wisecracking Chandler Bing on the hugely popular sitcom Friends (1994–2004). Matthew Perry was the only child born...
American author
Jesmyn Ward is one of the most acclaimed writers of the 21st century, publishing novels and nonfiction works that explore the lives of poor African Americans living in coastal Mississippi, all written...
American farmer and writer
Solomon Northup was an American farmer, labourer, and musician whose experience of being kidnapped and sold into slavery was the basis for his book Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a...
British author
Graham Greene was an English novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and journalist whose novels treat life’s moral ambiguities in the context of contemporary political settings. His father was the headmaster...
American musician, journalist, and author
James McBride is an American author and musician known for his acclaimed works of historical fiction and autobiography, including the best-selling memoir The Color of Water (1996) and the National Book...
Canadian actor
Elliot Page is a Canadian actor best known for his performances in the comedy-drama film Juno (2007) and the Netflix television series The Umbrella Academy (2019– ). Page was assigned female at birth and...
British-American writer
Salman Rushdie is an Indian-born British-American writer whose allegorical novels examine historical and philosophical issues by means of surreal characters, brooding humor, and an effusive and melodramatic...
Japanese author
Haruki Murakami is a Japanese novelist, short-story writer, and translator whose deeply imaginative and often ambiguous books became international bestsellers. His famous works include the novels Hard-Boiled...
American actor
John Lithgow is an American stage and screen character actor known for his extreme versatility, earning acclaim in roles ranging from mild-mannered everymen to cold-blooded killers. Lithgow was born into...
American politician
Chris Christie is an American lawyer and politician who served as the governor of New Jersey (2010–18) and gained national prominence as a moderate voice in the Republican Party. He unsuccessfully ran...
American writer
With such books as Bluets (2009) and The Argonauts (2015), American writer Maggie Nelson is known for works that defy simple categorization by blending poetry, criticism, and autobiography. Her intensely...
Irish author
Colm Tóibín is one of the most widely read writers in contemporary Irish literature. He has published fiction and nonfiction, including travelogues, essays, and criticism. His best-known works include...
American attorney and law enforcement official
James Comey is a U.S. attorney and law enforcement official who served as director (2013–17) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Comey came from an Irish American family. His paternal grandfather...
Chilean-American author
Isabel Allende is a Chilean American writer in the magic realist tradition who is considered one of the finest contemporary novelists from Latin America. Her best-known works include The House of the Spirits...
American author
Isaac Asimov was an American author and biochemist, a highly successful and prolific writer of science fiction and of science books for the layperson. He wrote or edited about 500 volumes, of which the...
American author
James Patterson is an American author, principally known for his thriller and suspense novels. His prolific output and business savvy made him a ubiquitous presence on best-seller lists in the late 20th...
American author
Sigrid Nunez is an American novelist and writer known for her spare, witty prose and oblique approach to existential themes of loneliness, mortality, and grief. Among her notable works is the novel The...
Colombian author
Gabriel García Márquez was a Colombian novelist and one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, mostly for his masterpiece Cien años de soledad...
American writer and director
Roger Corman was an American motion picture director, producer, and distributor known for his highly successful low-budget exploitation films and for launching the careers of several prominent directors...
American author, academic, musician and artist
Joy Harjo is an American poet, writer, musician, and activist who was the first Native American to be named U.S. poet laureate (2019–22). Her poems feature Native symbolism, imagery, history, and ideas...
United States government official
John Bolton is an American government official who served as national security adviser (2018–19) to United States President Donald Trump. Bolton previously was the interim U.S. ambassador to the United...
American intelligence contractor
Edward Snowden is an American intelligence contractor and whistleblower who in 2013 revealed the existence of secret wide-ranging information-gathering programs conducted by the National Security Agency...
American immunologist
Anthony Fauci is an American doctor and scientist who, as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID; 1984–2022), played a key role in diagnosing and treating a number...
American painter and writer
Dorothea Tanning was an American artist and author who, during her seven-decade career, moved between painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, and writing. Her art was associated with Surrealism, and...
