Literary Birthday Month: November

• Nov 1

• French poet and critic Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636; d.1711), an influential neoclassical critic
• Stephen Crane, New Jersey-born novelist, reporter, and poet (1871; d.1900), author of The Red Badge of Courage (1895)
• Sholem Asch (1880), Polish-born Yiddish American novelist and playwright
• Hermann Broch (1886; d.1951), Austrian novelist
• Louisiana-born (Chicago-raised) African-American poet, artist, and art teacher Margaret Taylor Burroughs (1917)
• Palestinian/American (born Jerusalem) Edward Said (1935), music critic for The Nation and political essayist
• Virginia-born Southern writer Lee Smith (1944)

Nov 2

• Barbey D'Aurevilly (1808; d.1889), French drama and literary critic, novelist, and short story writer, whose masterpiece is considered to be Les Diaboliques (1874; The She-Devils)
• Odysseus Elytis (1911), Greek poet and 1979 Nobel prize winner
• Jamaican-born U.S. novelist and poet Michelle Cliff (1946), whose novels are concerned with social and political issues

• Lucan (39 A.D.), Spanish/Latin poet, author of Bellum Civile
• Massachusetts-born William Cullen Bryant (1794; d.1878), American romantic poet, editor, and lawyer, he penned the poem 'Thanatopsis'
• French novelist Andre Malraux (1901)
• Australian aboriginal poet and writer Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920; nee Kath Walker)
• Florida playwright Terrence McNally (1939)

• Nov 4
• Eden Phillpotts, British novelist, poet, and playwright (1862)
• Ciro Alegria (1909), Peruvian novelist

• Nov 5
• London-born poet, dramatist, and translator James Elroy Flecker (1884)
• Will Durant (1885), Massachusetts-born writer and historian, who with his wife, Ariel, authored the 11-volume Story of Civilization
• Connecticut native Thomas Flanagan (1923; d.2002), who wrote an acclaimed Irish historical trilogy
• Los Angeles-born novelist and memoirist Geoffrey Wolff (1937)
• Irish novelist Tom Phelan (1940)
• playwright and actor Sam Shepard (1943), born in Illinois

• Nov 6
• Thomas Kyd (baptised this date, 1558), English dramatist
• Colley Cibber (1671), English dramatist and poet, re-writer of Richard III
• Colorado-born New Yorker founder Harold Ross (1892)
• James Jones (1921), Illinois novelist and author of From Here To Eternity

• Nov 7
• Albert Camus (1913; d.1960), French existentialist essayist, novelist, journalist (born Algeria), awarded 1957 Nobel in Literature, well-known for novels L'Etranger (1942; The Stranger) and La Peste (1947; The Plague)
• Iowa-born Rafael A. Lafferty, science fiction writer and Hugo winner (1914; d.2002)

• Nov 8
• Bram Stoker (1847), Irish creator of Dracula
• Margaret Mitchell (1900), author of Gone with the Wind
• Peter Weiss (1916), German/Swedish (born near Berlin) novelist, dramatist, film director, and painter
• Japanese/English Booker Prize winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro (1954)

• Nov 9
• Ivan Turgenev (1818), Russian novelist, poet and playwright
• Anne Sexton (1928), Massachusetts poet and suicide

• Nov 10
• Irish novelist, poet, and dramatist Oliver Goldsmith (1728; d.1774), well-known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1764) and his comedic drama She Stoops to Conquer (1773)
• German poet, lyricist, and playwright [Johann Christoph] Friedrich von Schiller (1759)
• [Nicholas] Vachel Lindsay (1879), U.S. poet
• novelist J[ohn] P[hillips] Marquand (1893), born Delaware
• military and police novelist, New Jersey native William E. Butterworth III (1929), aka WEB Griffin

• Nov 11
• Russian novelist Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821; d.1881), whose novels include Crime and Punishment (1866) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880)
• novelist Howard Fast (1914)
• modern American writer Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922)
• Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes (1928)

• Nov 12
• NYC-born non-fiction writer Tracy Kidder (1945), author of House and Among Schoolchildren 

• Nov 13:

• Massachusetts-born crime writer and columnist George V[incent] Higgins (1939)

• Nov 14
• Danish poet Adam G[ottlob] Oehlenschläger (1779; English text of poem 'There Is A Charming Land')
• Swedish children's writer and Pippi Longstocking creator Astrid Lindgren (1907)
• Minnesota-born journalist Harrison [Evans] Salisbury (1908), non-fiction author and Pulitzer Prize winner for international reporting
• Scottish poet Norman Alexander MacCaig (1910)
• Ohio-born humorist and libertarian P[atrick] J[ake] O'Rourke (1947)

• Nov 15
• German poet, dramtist, novelist, and 1912 Nobelist Gerhart Hauptmann (1862; d.1946)
• St. Louis poet and 1951 Pulitzer Prize winner Marianne Moore (1887)
• English biographer and art critic Sacheverell Sitwell (1897)
• British novelist Tim Pears (1956)
• British writer of darkly comic novels Tibor Fischer (1959)

• Nov 16
• Pulitzer Prize winning, Pittsburgh-born playwright and journalist George S[imon] Kaufman (1889)
• Armenian/English writer (born Bulgaria) Michael Arlen (1895), aka Dikran Kuyumjian, author of An American Verdict
• prolific Austrialian children's book writer Colin [Milton] Thiele (1920), two-time winner of the Australian Children's Book Award
• Portuguese playwright, novelist, short story writer José Saramago, Nobel Prize winner in 1998 (1922)
• NYC-native Julian Thompson (1927), author of young-adult novels
• Nigerian fiction writer, essayist, and poet [Albert] Chinua[lumogu] Achebe (1930), whose first novel was Things Fall Apart

• Nov 17
• Joost van Den Vondel (1587), German/Dutch poet and dramatist
• Mississippi-born novelist, Civil War historian, and longtime correspondent of Walker Percy, Shelby Foote (1916)

• Nov 18
• British humorist and dramtist, the lyrical half of the Gilbert & Sullivan team, Sir William [Schwenck] Gilbert (1836; d.1911)
• Clarence Day (1874), NYC writer, author of Life with Father
• Savannah-born Academy-Award-winning lyricist Johnny Mercer (1909), who wrote 'Moon River,' 'Come Rain or Come Shine,' and 'Days of Wine and Roses,' among many others
• Canadian novelist, poet, and short-story writer Margaret Atwood (1939)

• Nov 19
• Allen Tate (1899), U.S. poet

• Nov 20
• English poet Thomas Chatterton (1752; d.1770), who wrote 'Song From Aella' and poisoned himself before he was 18
• Selma Lagerlöf (1858), Swedish novelist and winner of 1909 Nobel in Literature
• South African novelist, short-story writer, and Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer (1923)

• Nov 21
• French philosopher and Candide writer Voltaire (born Francois-Marie Arouet; 1694; d.1778)
• journalist, columnist, and author Jim Bishop (1907), wrote The Day Kennedy Was Shot
• NYC-born feminist novelist Marilyn French (1929), who wrote The Women's Room
• English actress, short-story writer, and novelist Beryl Bainbridge (1933)

• Nov 22

• French poet and translator (born Cuba) José María de Heredia (1842; d.1905), whose sonnets evoke the sensuous imagery of the Caribbean
• English novelist George [Robert] Gissing (1857; d.1903), whose bitter novels of social realism examined poverty's deleterious effect on the character
• French novelist and poet André [Paul Guillaume] Gide (1869; d.1951), awarded the 1947 Nobel prize for literature
• Nov 23
• Irish mystery novelist, journalist, and Edgar Award winner Shaun Herron (1912)
• Romanian poet Paul Celan (1920)
• Kentucky-raised African American gothic novelist, poet, and short story writer Gayl Jones (1949)

• Nov 24

• French poet Charles d'Orléans (1394; d.1465) aka Charles, Duke of Orléans, who wrote chansons, ballades, and rondeaux in French, Latin, and English
• Dutch philosopher, author, and lens-grinder Benedict [Baruch] de Spinoza (1632)
• Italian journalist and author Carlo Collodi (1826), aka Carlo Lorenzini, who created Pinocchio
• Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849), writer of The Secret Garden
• Garson Kanin (1912), American playwright, producer, and friend of Katharine Hepburn's

• Nov 25
• Lope Felix de Vega (1562), Spanish dramatist and poet
• Ohio-born novelist Helen Hooven Santmyer (1895), author of the best-selling her novel ...And Ladies of the Club
• English playwright Shelagh Delaney (1939)
• Nov 26
• English pre-Romantic poet, hymnist, translator, and letter-writer William Cowper (1731; d.1800), who co-wrote the Olney Hymns
• Romanian/French playwright Eugene Ionesco (1909)
• Nov 27
• Tennessee-born novelist and poet James Agee (1909), who wrote A Death in the Family
• Gail Sheehy (1937), author of the Passages books

• Nov 28
• English cleric and author of the moralistic Pilgrim's Progress (part I-1678; part II-1684), John Bunyan (1628; d.1688)
• visionary and revolutionary English poet and painter William Blake (1757; d.1827), well-known for Songs of Innocence (1789), Songs of Experience (1794), and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c.1790)
• Nikolai Nekrasov (1821), Russian poet and journalist
• Russian poet and dramatist Alexander Alexandrovich Blok (1880; d.1921), most famous for The Twelve (1912), which welcomes the Revolution
• German (born Vienna, Austria) poet, translator, biographer, short-story writer, and novelist Stefan Zweig (1881)
• Italian novelist, journalist, and short-story writer Alberto Moravia (1907), nee Alberto Pincherle
• Brooklyn native, African American dramatist, poet, novelist, and longtime Howard University drama professor Owen [Vincent] Dodson (1914; d. 1983)
• Nebraska-born African American poet and novelist Lance Jeffers (1919; d.1985), whose poetry concerned black endurance in the face of white oppression
• Zimbabwe-born South African poet Dennis Brutus (1924; also called John Bruin)
• Pennsylvania-born novelist and mystery writer Rita Mae Brown (1944), author of Rubyfruit Jungle and the Sneaky Pie mysteries

• Nov 29
• Venezuelan poet and scholar Andrés Bello (1781; d.1865)
• Louisa May Alcott (1832), Pennsylvania-born author of Little Women and Little Men
• C. S. Lewis (1898), English essayist, children's writer, and Christian apologist
• Carlo Levi (1902), Italian painter and novelist
• NYC-born Madeleine L'Engle (1918; d.Sept 2007), novelist, and author of children's classics and non-fiction works
• Boston native, novelist, and short-story writer Sue Miller (1943)

• Nov 30
• [Sir] Phillip Sidney (1554), English poet
• English satirist Jonathan Swift (1667), author of A Modest Proposal and Gulliver's Travels
• American humorist Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens (1835)
• American (French-born) writer of critical and historical studies Jacques Barzun (1907)
• Kansas-born photographer, novelist, autobiographer, essayist, composer, and film producer Gordon [Alexander Buchanan] Parks (1912), whose 1963 novel The Learning Tree was made into a movie in 1968
• Chicago-born playwright, screenwriter and director David Mamet (1947)