May 13

Born:

1840 - Alphonse Daudet
French novelist of the naturalist movement.

1907 - Daphne du Maurier
English author and playwright, many of whose books were adapted into films.

1937 - Roger Zelazny
American science fiction and fantasy author, best known for his Chronicles of Amber series.

1938 - Francine Pascal
American author; creator of the Sweet Valley series of young adult novels.

1940 - Bruce Chatwin
English novelist and travel writer.

1944 - Armistad Maupin
American writer known for the San Francisco-set series Tales of the City.

1947 - Charles Baxter
American author and poet, 2000 National Book Award Finalist.

1947 - Stephen R. Donaldson
American science fiction and fantasy writer most famous for his ten-novel series The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

1947 - Alexander Keyssar
American historian, author of The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the U.S.

1950 - Manning Marable
American professor and author who won the Pulitzer Prize for History in for his book Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.

1957 - Koji Suzuki
Japanese author whose Ring books were adapted into a manga series and then a feature film.






1967 - Masha Gessen
Russian-American journalist, author and translator, winner of the National Book Award in 2017 for The Future is History.




Died:
1916 - Sholem Aleichem
1987 - Richard Ellmann
1997 - Laurie Lee
2001 - R.K. Narayan