Literature
Novelists, poets and journalists, remembered by their readers. 113 people are remembered here. Light a candle, read their story, and add a memory of your own.
Wendell Berry1934 – 2026 · PoetKentucky farmer-poet who taught that affection for place is the measure of a durable culture.
327 candles · 14 tributes
Gloria Steinem1934 – 2026 · JournalistThe journalist who gave a movement its words, and spent sixty years on the road repeating them.
308 candles · 11 tributes
Ernest Hemingway1899 – 1961 · Novelist and journalistThe world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.
238 candles · 13 tributes
Terry Pratchett1948 – 2015 · NovelistNo one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.
235 candles · 15 tributes
Mario Vargas Llosa1936 – 2025 · NovelistNobel Boom novelist who mapped power, liberty, and Peru for the world.
208 candles · 18 tributes
William Shakespeare1564 – 1616 · Playwright and poetWe are such stuff as dreams are made on.
208 candles · 13 tributes
Jane Austen1775 – 1817 · NovelistThe person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
196 candles · 10 tributes
Toni Morrison1931 – 2019 · NovelistIf there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.
160 candles · 11 tributes
Charles Dickens1812 – 1870 · NovelistIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
117 candles · 15 tributes
Gabriel García Márquez1927 – 2014 · NovelistWhat matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.
112 candles · 15 tributes
Louis Caron1942 – 2026 · NovelistQuebec novelist and Lance et compte co-creator who made local history feel alive.
100 candles · 9 tributes
Tony Harrison1937 – 2025 · PoetPublic poet of Leeds: verse for page, stage and screen.
98 candles · 8 tributes
Annie Dillard1945 – 2026 · AuthorPulitzer-winning pilgrim of Tinker Creek who taught readers to see creation whole.
97 candles · 8 tributes
Jilly Cooper1937 – 2025 · AuthorQueen of the British bonkbuster; wit, horses, dogs, and joyous mischief.
95 candles · 7 tributes
Rachel Blau DuPlessis1941 – 2026 · PoetFeminist poet-critic whose life poem Drafts remade the American long poem.
90 candles · 10 tributes
Jeon Gyeong-cheol1962 – 2026 · AuthorPeter Pan Dad who searched a thousand doors so his son could live with dignity.
89 candles · 5 tributes
Didier Decoin1945 – 2026 · NovelistGoncourt storyteller; Cotentin sea; high idea of language.
87 candles · 9 tributes
John Crowley1942 – 2026 · Novelist (fantasyFantasy novelist of Little, Big who blurred dream and history into living story.
86 candles · 7 tributes
Pel Schlechter1921 – 2026 · Graphic designerComic pioneer who drew Luxembourg's posters and wrote a century in its own language.
85 candles · 6 tributes
William G. Anderson1927 – 2026 · Osteopathic physician and surgeonAlbany Movement leader and first Black AOA president who healed patients and challenged a segregated nation.
85 candles · 6 tributes
Blanche d'Alpuget1944 – 2026 · BiographerAustralian biographer of Bob Hawke, novelist of power, and the writer who asked to be remembered by one line: love one another.
79 candles · 6 tributes
Peter Nadas1942 – 2026 · WriterHungarian novelist of memory and the body; author of A Book of Memories and Parallel Stories.
75 candles · 7 tributes
Shinichi Abe1950 – 2026 · Manga artistGaro artist who turned Asagaya love and later illness into private manga that outlived the silence.
70 candles · 10 tributes
Edward Field1924 – 2026 · PoetVillage poet who stood up, friend, for a century.
67 candles · 4 tributes
Mireille Calle-Gruber1945 – 2026 · Literary criticCritic and professor who kept Claude Simon, Butor and the créatrices vividly alive.
65 candles · 8 tributes
Laura Claridgeb. 1952 · BiographerBiographer who restored complexity to Rockwell, Post, Lempicka, and Blanche Knopf.
60 candles · 7 tributes
Javad Mojabi1939 – 2026 · PoetIranian poet, satirist and art critic of Night of the Locust and modern visual arts.
58 candles · 4 tributes
Eva Olsson1924 – 2026 · Holocaust survivorI need to speak for them because their voices were silenced by hate.
53 candles · 4 tributes
Iván Carvajal1948 – 2026 · PoetEl poema se nos impone; no es solo expresión de la subjetividad.
50 candles · 7 tributes
Johan Mijail1990 – 2026 · WriterDominican writer and performer who made Afro-Caribbean dissident bodies speak on the page, the altar, and the stage.
50 candles · 5 tributes
Peter Gill1939 – 2026 · PlaywrightCardiff-born writer and director who made ordinary lives the centre of British theatre.
49 candles · 8 tributes
Ketaki Kushari Dyson1940 – 2026 · PoetBilingual Bengali-English poet and Tagore translator who kept faith with two literary worlds.
48 candles · 6 tributes
Bill Schmidt1947 – 2026 · Olympic javelin throwerFrom Southview coal camp to Munich bronze and Be Like Mike: the last U.S. men's Olympic javelin medalist.
47 candles · 4 tributes
Frances Stonor Saunders1966 – 2026 · HistorianHistorian who exposed how the CIA paid the piper of Cold War culture.
44 candles · 7 tributes
Resil Mojares1943 – 2026 · HistorianVisayan Titan of Letters who made Cebuano memory a national archive.
40 candles · 4 tributes
KM Abbas† 2026 · Farmers' leader and writerCumbum farmers' leader who fought for three decades for Mullaperiyar water.
10 candles · 1 tributes
Mykhailo Didyshyn† 2026 · Local historianKosmach's keeper of the Dovbush legend, who built a museum out of memory.
10 candles · 1 tributes
Anis Uz Zaman1947 – 2026 · PoetAssamese poet and National Poet whose verse travelled far beyond Assam.
10 candles · 1 tributes
Ursula Hegi1946 – 2026 · German-born American novelist best known for Stones From the RiverGerman-born novelist of Stones From the River who wrote about silence, memory, and postwar Germany.
10 candles · 1 tributes
Fernando Serrano Migallón1945 – 2026 · Jurist and historianSon of the Spanish exile who taught Mexico the history of its constitutions.
9 candles · 1 tributes
Russell Stone1923 – 2026 · Historian and academicThe father of Auckland history, still sharing what he knew at 103.
9 candles · 1 tributes
Kuroi Senji1932 – 2026 · NovelistNovelist who found quiet drama in the ordinary lives of Japan's suburbs and workplaces.
9 candles · 1 tributes
Joe Harkness1986 – 2026 · AuthorNorfolk teacher and naturalist who showed how birds and wild nature can steady a troubled mind.
9 candles · 1 tributes