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Otranto

(Encyclopedia)Otranto ôˈträntō [key], town (1991 pop. 5,114), in Apulia, extreme S Italy, on the Strait of Otranto, which links the Adriatic and Ionian seas. It is a small fishing port and a seaside resort. Ori...

Waley, Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Waley, Arthur, 1889–1966, English orientalist, b. London as Arthur David Schloss, educated at Cambridge. He was and still is considered one of the world's great Asian scholars. His most important wo...

Valera y Alcalá Galiano, Juan

(Encyclopedia)Valera y Alcalá Galiano, Juan hwän välāˈrä ē älkäläˈ gälyäˈnō [key], 1824–1905, Spanish writer and diplomat. Of a leading liberal family, Valera was a diplomat until 1858, and he late...

Sternheim, Carl

(Encyclopedia)Sternheim, Carl kärl shtĕrnˈhīm [key], 1878–1943, German dramatist. In his successful comedy Die Hose (1911, tr. A Pair of Drawers, 1927) and in his later works he satirized as corrupt the manne...

Brown, Charles Brockden

(Encyclopedia)Brown, Charles Brockden, 1771–1810, American novelist and editor, b. Philadelphia, considered the first professional American novelist. After the publication of Alcuin: A Dialogue (1798), he wrote s...

Kundera, Milan

(Encyclopedia)Kundera, Milan mĭlˈän ko͝ondĕrˈə [key], 1929–2023, Czechslovakian-born novel...

McNally, Terrence

(Encyclopedia)McNally, Terrence, 1939–2020, American playwright, b. St. Petersburg, Fla., grad. Columbia, 1960. Known for his dark humor, social satire, and focus on human isolation and the need to connect, he of...

Gogol, Nikolai Vasilyevich

(Encyclopedia)Gogol, Nikolai Vasilyevich nyĭkəlīˈ vəsēˈlyəvĭch gôˈgəl [key], 1809–52, Russian short-story writer, novelist, and playwright, sometimes considered the father of Russian realism. Of Ukrai...

Sayles, John

(Encyclopedia)Sayles, John (John Thomas Sayles), 1950–, one of America's most influential independent filmmakers as well as a screenwriter, fiction writer, playwright, and actor, b. Schenectady, N.Y., grad. Willi...

Pramoedya Ananta Toer

(Encyclopedia)Pramoedya Ananta Toer, 1925–2006, modern Indonesia's preeminent writer of fiction, b. Blora, Java. The son of a nationalist headmaster, he was a longtime journalist, involved left-wing politics from...