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Achebe, Chinua: b1930
Chinua Achebe is probably black Africa's most widely read novelist. His first work, Things Fall Apart, has been translated into 40 languages and is...
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Angelou, Maya: b1928
"I love to write because...it offers me the enigma of my life." Maya Angelou's prose depicts her personal history, her pride as a black woman and...
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Auden, W(ystan) H(ugh): 1907 - 1973
One of the most influential poets of the 20th century, Auden's life and work reflect a progression, from the politically committed poems of his...
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Betjeman, John: 1906 - 1984
Poet Laureate in 1972 John Betjeman's popular verse celebrated architecture, but concentrated mainly on middle-class social life in the metropolitan...
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Cummings, E(dward) E(stlin): 1894 - 1962
A widely popular poet, Cummings used eccentric typography and phrasing in his work "to develop new means of ...
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Day-Lewis, Cecil: 1904 - 1972
Leading poet and crime writer of the 30s and 40s, Cecil Day-Lewis's work includes The Magnetic Mountain, An Overture to Death and Collected ...
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Heaney, Seamus: b1939
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995, Seamus Heaney has been described as "the most important Irish poet since Yeats". He is probably...
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Lee, Laurie: 1914 - 1997
Best known for the first volume of his memoir of a Cotswold country, Cider with Rosie, Laurie Lee also wrote poetry...
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Motion, Andrew: b1952
Poet Laureate since 1999, Andrew Motion has also written biographies of Phillip Larkin, Keats and the Lamberts which earned him the Somerset Maugham...
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Murray, Les: b1938
Les Murray ususally writes his poems from the perspective of white, rural, workingclass Australians. He is noted for capturing the psychic and rural...
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Nash, Ogden: 1902 - 1971
A master of light verse, the impact of Nash's poems lies in the rhymes, bizarrely tangential or disconcertingly exact, they are always satisfyingly...
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Ondaatje, Michael: b1943
Known for his skill in combining the real and the imaginary, the surreal and the factual, Michael Ondaatje co-won the Booker Prize for The English...
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Pound, Ezra: 1885 - 1972
A crucially important figure in the development of 20th-century poetry and criticism, Ezra Pound is also famous for his fascist inclinations leading...
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Sassoon, Siegfried: 1886 - 1967
Nicknamed "Mad Jack" for his reckless courage during World War I, Siegfried Sassoon became opposed to the war and started writing antiwar poetry in...
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Seth, Vikram: b1952
Author of the epic best-selling novel of postcolonial India, A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth was also acclaimed for the virtuoso novel in verse, The...
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Smith, Stevie: 1902 - 1971
Described as one of the most original poetic voices to emerge from the thirties, Stevie Smith's eccentric, mischievous, often disturbing poems...
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Thomas, Dylan: 1914 - 1953
A poet of mesmerising power and author of the radio play, Under Milk Wood, Dylan Thomas is known as much for his self-destructive lifestyle as for...
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Walcott, Derek: b1930
Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992, Derek Walcott applies an inventive use of language in his plays and poems about the West Indian...
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Yeats, William Butler: 1865 - 1939
One of the greatest poets of the 20th century, Yeats turned to pagan Ireland for his inspiration. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for...
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de la Mare, Walter: 1873 - 1956
A poetic master of the macabre, Walter de la Mare published his first collection of poems in 1902 under a ...
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