ARAGON, LOUIS (1897–1982), French writer affiliated with surrealism and communism whose works focus largely on political and social critique.
BABEL, ISAAK (1894–1940), Russian short-story writer known for such works as Red Cavalry (1926) and Odessa Tales (1927).
BALZAC, HONORÉ DE (1799–1850), French novelist regarded as the founder of realist fiction; author of the masterpiece La comédie humaine.
BARNIR, DOV (1911–2000), Belgian-born Israeli politician who authored several books on art and politics upon retiring from the Knesset.
BECKETT, SAMUEL (1906–1989), Irish-born French writer best known for his absurdist plays; awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969.
BELLOW, SAUL (1915–2005), Canadian-born Jewish American novelist whose works include the 1953 The Adventures of Augie March; won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976.
BRECHT, BERTOLT (1898–1956), German dramatist whose notions of theater have been enormously influential in both literature and film; works include the 1928 The Threepenny Opera.
BROOM, ROBERT (1866–1951), Scottish South African paleontologist most noted for his discovery of Paranthropus robustus.
CHAPLIN, CHARLIE (1889–1977), Hollywood icon born in England most famous for his creation of the Tramp character. Pressured by McCarthyism to live outside the United States in 1952.
CRÈVECOEUR, J. HECTOR ST. JOHN DE (1735–1813), French author who lived in America and whose experiences as a farmer and traveler are reflected in his works.
DARWIN, CHARLES (1809–1882), English naturalist whose 1859 Origin of Species set forth the theory of evolution on the basis of natural selection.
DASSIN, JULES (1911–2008), American filmmaker who relocated to France after being blacklisted under McCarthyism; works include the 1955 Rififi, for which he won Best Director at Cannes.
DOS PASSOS, JOHN (1896–1970), American writer whose novels include Manhattan Transfer (1925) and the trilogy U.S.A. (1937).
DOSTOEVSKY, FYODOR (1821–1881), Russian novelist, author of such works as Crime and Punishment (1866) and The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880).
DUNHAM, KATHERINE (1909–2006), American dancer and choreographer who is recognized today as one of the pioneers of African-American dance theater.
EHRENBURG, ILYA (1891–1967), Soviet novelist and poet whose 1955 work The Thaw was openly critical of life in the USSR.
EINSTEIN, ALBERT (1879–1955), German-born American physicist who introduced his theory of relativity in 1918; awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.
EISENSTEIN, SERGEI (1898–1948), Russian filmmaker known for his influential montage techniques; works include the 1926 Potemkin.
ENOMOTO BUYŌ (1836–1908), samurai who fought on the side of the Tokugawa shogunate against the newly formed Meiji government; subject of Abe’s 1965 novel of the same name.
FAULKNER, WILLIAM (1897–1962), American novelist and short-story writer whose works employ stream of consciousness techniques and deal with problems of the American South; received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949.
FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE (1821–1880), French novelist whose naturalist works include Madame Bovary (1856) and L’éducation sentimentale (1869).
FREUD, SIGMUND (1856–1939), Austrian founder of psychoanalysis whose theories of the unconscious included insights into repression, hysteria, and dreams.
FUKUZAWA YUKICHI (1835–1901), social reformer, author, and educator; one of the leading advocates of Japan’s “civilization and enlightenment.” Founded Keio University in 1868.
GAZZO, MICHAEL V. (1923–1995), American playwright who later acted in film and television; wrote the 1955 Broadway play A Hatful of Rain.
GOLDSTÜCKER, EDUARD (1913–2000), noted Kafka scholar and first Czech ambassador to Israel who participated in the Prague Spring of 1968.
GOMBROWICZ, WITOLD (1904–1969), Polish novelist known for his realist fiction, in particular his 1937 work Ferdydurke.
GORKY, MAKSIM (1868–1936), Russian writer who emerged from the ranks of the proletariat; author of The Lower Depths (1902). Helped found socialist realism.
GREENE, GRAHAM (1904–1991), English writer whose works range from novels and short stories to plays and travel books; The Quiet American appeared in 1955.
GUEVARA, CHE (1928–1967), Argentine physician, intellectual, and Marxist revolutionary who helped lead the Cuban Revolution.
HEIDEGGER, MARTIN (1899–1976), German philosopher whose influential notions of ontology were introduced in his 1927 Sein und Zeit.
HEMINGWAY, ERNEST (1899–1961), American novelist and short-story writer most remembered for such works as The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929).
HIJIKATA TOSHIZŌ (1835–1869), coleader of the Shinsengumi who died in battle fighting against the imperial forces of the Meiji government.
HOFFMEISTER, ADOLF (1902–1973), Czech poet and novelist who briefly served as ambassador to France before running afoul of the communist regime.
HOFMANNSTHAL, HUGO VON (1874–1929), Austrian playwright and poet whose works explore the difficulties inherent in linguistic expression.
INFORMEL PAINTING, postwar art movement centered in France that valued spontaneity as part of its critique of formal structure.
IONESCO, EUGÈNE (1909–1994), Romanian-French playwright and one of the central figures of the theater of the absurd; elected to the Académie Française in 1971.
ITARD, JEAN-MARC GASPARD (1774–1838), French physician famous for treating the so-called Wild Boy of Aveyron.
ITŌ SEI (1905–1969), novelist and literary critic who translated Lady Chatterley’s Lover into Japanese; awarded the Kikuchi Kan Prize in 1963.
JASIEŃSKI, BRUNO (1901–1938), Polish poet and one of the leaders of the Polish futurist movement who was executed in a Moscow prison.
JOYCE, JAMES (1882–1941), Irish novelist and short-story writer whose use of interior monologue and invented words can be seen most prominently in Ulysses (1921) and Finnegans Wake (1939).
KAFKA, FRANZ (1883–1924), Austrian novelist whose works explore issues of alienation, absurdity, and family tension; author of The Metamorphosis (1915) and Amerika (1927).
KAMEI KATSUICHIRŌ (1907–1966), nationalist critic who committed tenkō in 1935, the same year he cofounded the journal The Japanese Romantic School.
KATSU KAISHŪ (1823–1899), Japanese statesman knowledgeable in western military technology who served as commissioner of the Tokugawa navy.
KAUFMAN, GEORGE S. (1889–1961), American playwright and drama critic who won a Pulitzer Prize for the 1932 musical Of Thee I Sing.
KEENE, DONALD (b. 1922), noted scholar and translator of Japanese literature whose works include the 1984 Dawn to the West.
KELLER, HELEN (1880–1968), American writer whose memoirs and essays recount her own experience as both blind and deaf.
KHRUSHCHEV, NIKITA (1894–1971), Soviet head of state from 1958 to 1964 whose leadership was marked by a growing period of de-Stalinization.
KONDŌ ISAMI (1834–1868), Japanese Tokugawa government official and commander of the Shinsengumi.
LENIN, VLADIMIR ILYICH (1870–1924), Russian communist leader who successfully led the revolution of 1917, leading to the creation of the Soviet Union.
LIPS, JULIUS E. (1895–1950), German ethnologist who fled Nazi Germany to teach in the United States; works include the 1947 The Origin of Things.
LONDON, JACK (1876–1916), American writer known for such adventure novels as the 1903 The Call of the Wild.
LÖWITH, KARL (1897–1973), German philosopher and student of Heidegger who was forced to flee Nazi Germany for Japan and the United States; author of the 1949 Meaning in History.
LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA (ca.120–200), Greek satirist and author of such works as A True Story and Dialogues of the Gods.
LU XUN (1881–1936), the pioneer of modern Chinese literature whose many short stories and essays offer a critique of traditional Chinese culture; educated as a medical doctor in Japan.
MAILER, NORMAN (1923–2007), American writer and multiple Pulitzer Prize winner who first emerged on the literary scene with his World War II novel The Naked and the Dead (1948).
MALAMUD, BERNARD (1914–1986), American novelist and short-story writer whose works often deal with Jewish life; author of the 1966 The Fixer.
MANDELSTAM, OSIP (1891–1938), Russian essayist and poet of the Acmeist school persecuted under Stalinism.
MAO ZEDONG (1893–1976), chairman of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to 1959.
MARX, KARL (1818–1883), German socialist whose critique of capitalism and theories of dialectical materialism were expounded in such works as Das Kapital (1867).
MATHIEU, GEORGES (b. 1921), French painter associated with lyrical abstraction and the Informel school.
MATSUKAWA INCIDENT, series of events in which a fatal train accident that took place in August 1949 was blamed by the government on the Japan Communist Party.
MAYAKOVSKY, VLADIMIR (1893–1930), Russian futurist poet whose work, such as the 1914–1915 “A Cloud in Trousers,” was noted for its break with the symbolists.
MCLAREN, NORMAN (1914–1987), Scottish-born Canadian film director and animator known for his innovative techniques combining animation and sound.
MELVILLE, HERMAN (1819–1891), American novelist and short-story writer best known for his 1851 masterpiece Moby Dick, or The Whale.
MEYERHOLD, VSEVOLOD (1874–1940), Russian theater director who experimented with the use of symbolist techniques; author of the 1913 On Theatre.
MILLER, ARTHUR (1915–2005), American playwright whose best known work, the 1949 Death of a Salesman, depicts the sense of failure and eventual suicide of its protagonist, Willy Loman.
MILLET, JEAN-FRANÇOIS (1814–1875), French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school; known for his paintings of rural life and peasants.
MISHIMA YUKIO (1925–1970), Japanese writer and right-wing nationalist who committed ritual suicide; author of such novels as Confessions of a Mask (1949) and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (1956).
NADER SHAH (1698–1747), military leader who united Persia and ruled as king of Persia from 1736 until his assassination.
NAKAYA KEN’ICHI (1910–1987), Japanese scholar of American history at Tokyo University whose wartime research focused on the Philippines.
NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH (1844–1900), German philosopher who criticized systematic philosophy and Christianity for its rejection of life; author of Beyond Good and Evil (1886) and Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883–1885).
NUSINOV, YITZHAK (1889–1950), Russian literary critic whose disagreements with the Stalinist regime led to his death in prison.
ŌE KENZABURŌ (b. 1935), Japanese novelist and short-story writer whose works, such as the 1967 The Silent Cry, helped earn him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994.
OLESHA, YURI (1899–1960), Russian novelist and short-story writer best known for his 1927 work Envy.
O’NEILL, EUGENE (1888–1953), American playwright known for his psychological insight and innovative use of symbolism; works include The Emperor Jones (1920) and Mourning Becomes Electra (1931).
ONSTOTT, KYLE (1887–1966), American novelist whose experiences as a dog breeder informed the writing of his most famous work, the 1957 Mandingo.
PASTERNAK, BORIS (1890–1960), Russian poet and novelist, best remembered for his 1957 work Doctor Zhivago; awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature the following year.
PAVLOV, IVAN (1849–1936), Russian physiologist whose widely influential notion of conditioned response led to his winning the Nobel Prize in 1904.
PICASSO, PABLO (1881–1973), Spanish artist and one of the cofounders of cubism; painted Guernica in 1937.
PILNYAK, BORIS (1894–1941), Russian novelist whose elaborate prose can be found in such works as his 1928 The Naked Year.
PINTER, HAROLD (1930–2008), English dramatist influenced by Kafka and Beckett whose major works include The Birthday Party (1958) and Betrayal (1980).
POE, EDGAR ALLAN (1809–1849), American short-story writer and poet whose best works include the 1845 “The Purloined Letter.”
PROUST, MARCEL (1871–1922), French novelist whose notions of time and memory appear powerfully in his masterpiece, the 1913–1927 Remembrance of Things Past.
PUSHKIN, ALEKSANDR (1799–1837), Russian writer who created lasting works in poetry, fiction, and theater; author of Eugene Onegin (1831) and Boris Godunov (1825).
RACINE, JEAN (1639–1699), French playwright and one of the cornerstones of French literary tradition whose works include the 1677 Phèdre.
RAUSCHNING, HERMANN (1887–1982), German conservative who broke with Nazism and defected to the United States, where he became one of Nazi Germany’s most influential critics.
RICHIE, DONALD (b. 1924), scholar of Japanese culture and film best known for his work on Kurosawa Akira.
RIESMAN, DAVID (1909–2002), American sociologist and educator who attacked social conformity in the United States in his 1950 The Lonely Crowd.
RILKE, RAINER MARIA (1875–1926), German poet whose works powerfully influenced the young Abe; wrote The Duino Elegies, published in 1923.
ROTH, PHILIP (b. 1933), American novelist whose works often deal with such themes as male sexuality and Jewish identity; his Portnoy’s Complaint was published in 1969.
RYSKIND, MORRIE (1895–1985), American dramatist and screenplay writer who won a Pulitzer Prize for the 1932 musical Of Thee I Sing.
SAIGŌ TAKAMORI (1827–1877), one of the leaders of the Meiji Restoration whose unsuccessful rebellion against the central government in 1877, known as the Sein-an War, forced him to commit suicide.
SALACROU, ARMAND (1899–1989), French playwright who experimented with temporal sequence in his works; his La terre est ronde was published in 1938.
SALINGER, J. D. (1919–2010), American novelist and short-story writer who won enormous critical and popular acclaim for his 1951 The Catcher in the Rye.
SARTRE, JEAN-PAUL (1905–1980), French philosopher, novelist, and playwright and one of the founders of existentialism; declined the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964.
SASAKI KIICHI (1914–1993), Japanese literary critic who translated György Lukács and helped launch the journal Kindai bungaku.
SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD (1856–1950), Irish playwright, essayist, and social reformer known for his socialist views and attacks on conventional morality. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.
SHAW, IRWIN (1913–1984), American writer who produced novels as well as works for radio and television; author of the 1948 The Young Lions.
SHINSENGUMI, group loyal to the Tokugawa shogunate who were charged with the task of preserving peace in Kyoto during the 1860s.
SIMA QIAN (ca. 145 B.C.–86 B.C.), Han-dynasty official remembered for founding the field of Chinese historiography; author of Records of the Grand Historian.
SIMMEL, GEORG (1858–1918), German sociologist and philosopher who wrote theoretical works on culture and society, such as the 1903 The Metropolis and Mental Life.
SPILLANE, MICKEY (1918–2006), American writer of detective fiction who created the character of Mike Hammer; known for the graphic violence in his works.
STALIN, JOSEPH (1879–1953), Russian political leader who succeeded Lenin, ruling as premier from 1941 to 1953.
SUGAWARA TAKASHI (1903–1970), Japanese dramatist and director who studied theater at Columbia University; translated and staged The Death of a Salesman in 1954.
TOLSTOY, LEO (1828–1910), Russian novelist and social reformer known for such works as War and Peace (1865–1869) and Anna Karenina (1875–1877).
TSURUMI SHUNSUKE (b. 1922), philosopher and social critic who wrote on such diverse topics as American pragmatism, tenkō, and popular culture; cofounder of the Institute of the Science of Thought (1946).
TWIGGY (b. 1949), English model and actress who gained fame in the 1960s for her thin frame and short hair.
WERFEL, FRANZ (1890–1945), Austrian novelist, playwright, and poet who fled the Nazis in 1938; author of the 1941 The Song of Bernadette.
WESKER, ARNOLD (b. 1932), English dramatist whose strong socialist beliefs inform much of his work; author of the 1962 Chips with Everything.
WHITMAN, WALT (1819–1892), American poet known for his democratic convictions; wrote his masterpiece Leaves of Grass originally in 1855.
ZENGAKUREN, leftist student league in Japan that was first officially organized in 1948.
ZENKYŌTŌ (All-Campus Joint Struggle Council), student movement during the 1960s and early 1970s that protested against such issues as the Vietnam War and the Japanese university education system.
ZHDANOV DOCTRINE, cultural policy set forth in the Soviet Union in 1946 that resulted in tighter government control over the arts.