Southern Europe

Aristotle (Greek Aristoteles) was born around 384 BCE in Stagira, Greece. At age 17, he went to study in Athens under Plato (428–328 BC) for 20 years, who had been taught by Socrates.Aristotle wrote an estimated...

Jolanda Insana was born in 1937 in Messina, Italy. Insana was the author of several volumes of poetry, beginning with Sciarra amara (approximately translated “Bitter Harvest”) published in 1977. In addition...

Jacint Verdaguer’s remarkable literary achievement lies not only in his masterful epics of Spain and Catalonia but also in his prolific shorter narrative and lyric poetry that engaged the popular imagination...

Stesichorus (632–556) was one of the nine canonical lyric poets of Greek antiquity, most well-known for his choral lyric verse on epic themes. Stesichorus, which in Greek means “instructor of choruses,” was...

In the estimation of many literary critics and critical historians who have surveyed the rich offerings of classical literary criticism and theory, the treatise On the Sublime, written by probably in the first...

Guiseppe Ungaretti grew up in Alexandria, Egypt. In 1912, he moved to Paris, France, where he studied at the Sorbonne. His poetry collections include Morte delle stagioni (“Death of the Seasons,” 1967), La...

C.P. Cavafy is widely considered the most distinguished Greek poet of the 20th century. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt, where his Greek parents had settled in the mid-1850s. Cavafy’s father was an importer...

Known as Abu Harun Musa in Arabic, Moses ibn Ezra (c. 1060-1139) was a poet and philosopher. Born in Granada, he was educated in both Jewish and Arabic literature and theology. When Granada was captured by...

Known as Shelomoh ben Yehudah Ibn Gabirol in Hebrew and Abu Ayyub Sulaiman ibn Yahya Ibn Jubayrol in Arabic, Solomon Ibn Gabirol (c. 1022 to 1058-70) was a Hebrew poet and Neoplatonic philosopher who lived...

Italian poet, editor, and theorist Filippo Tommaso (F.T.) Marinetti was born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1876, and he was educated in Egypt and France. He was the author of Destruction (1904) and La Ville Charnelle...

Poet, musician, and musicologist Amelia Rosselli is considered to be one of the best Italian writers of the post-WWII generation. She was born in Paris to Italian parents who fled Italy. Her father and uncle...

Born in Kassa, Hungary (now Košice, Slovakia), to a Hungarian noble family, Sándor Márai traveled to Frankfurt, Berlin, and Paris in his youth before settling in Budapest in 1928. The first person to write...

Antonio Machado ranks among Spain’s greatest 20th-century poets. He was born in 1875 in Palacio de las Duenas on his family’s country estate. When he was still a child, Machado moved with his family to Madrid...

Born in Turin, Italy, the novelist, memoirist, and poet Primo Levi earned a PhD in chemistry at the University of Turin. After joining the Italian anti-Fascist resistance, he was arrested by the Nazis in late...

One of Italy’s most famous and controversial filmmakers, Pier Paolo Pasolini was also a novelist and poet. Born in Bologna to a military family that moved frequently, Pasolini began writing poetry at age seven...

Juan de Yepes y Álvarez was born in Spain and entered the Carmelite Order as a young man. After a meeting with St. Teresa of Avila, he joined her attempts at reforming the order and pledged himself to a more...

Poet Olga Broumas was born in Ermoupoli, Greece. She received a Fulbright fellowship in 1967 and immigrated to the United States. Broumas earned her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and MA from the University...

Emanuel Carnevali was born in Florence, Italy, and immigrated to the U.S. just before World War I. He held a series of menial jobs in New York City before joining literary circles whose ranks included William...

German-Italian writer, dramatist, and journalist Kurt Erich Suckert published under the pseudonym Curzio Malaparte (which he learned was Napoleon Bonaparte’s original family name), was born in Prato, and raised...

Poet and visual artist Juan Carlos Mestre was born in Villafranca del Bierzo, in León, Spain, under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. He studied at the University of Barcelona. Mestre’s poems use dream...