Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–44) was a French writer and aviator, who disappeared on a reconnaissance mission during the Second World War. The author of several novels about flying, he is best remembered today for the children’s book The Little Prince.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne (1713–68) was an Irish-born Anglican minister. He is most famous for The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy.

Émile Zola

Émile Zola (1840–1902) is the foremost representative of the Naturalist school, and is best remembered for Thérèse Raquin and his twenty-novel cycle, The Rougon-Macquarts.

Victor Hugo

Novelist, playwright, poet, painter, human-rights activist and statesman, Victor Hugo (1802–85) was one of the most influential figures of nineteenth-century France and is still considered its greatest writer.

Rudyard Kipling

Famous for his tales of adventure in British India, Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) is one of the most popular writers of all time and the first English-speaking recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) is regarded by some as the greatest novelist of all time. With such masterpieces as Anna Karenina and War and Peace, he influenced generations of writers and changed the course of world literature.

Annette von Droste Hülshoff

Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (1797–1848) is considered one of the most important German poets of the nineteenth century. Her classic novella The Jew’s Beech is her only completed work of prose fiction.

Stuart Prebble

Apart from being one of the leading broadcasters and producers of his generation, Stuart Prebble is an acclaimed writer of fiction and non-fiction. Among his publications are two novels, five comedy books based on the Grumpy Old Men TV series which he produced and, more recently, a book about the Falklands War, Secrets of the Conqueror, published by Faber and Faber in 2012. The Insect Farm is his latest novel.

Read an interview with Stuart Prebble here

George Bernard Shaw

The author of over fifty works for the stage – among them Pygmalion and Man and Superman – the Irish playwright and political writer George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) was the leading dramatist of his generation and the recipient of the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Paul van Loon

A highly successful children’s author from the Netherlands, Paul van Loon is best known in the English-speaking world for his Alfie the Werewolf series (published by Hodder in the UK). Originally an illustrator, Paul became a writer by accident when he could find no one to put into words a story he had thought of. He is never seen without his dark sunglasses, which has led to rumours that he is a vampire.

Read an interview with Paul van Loon here