Aeschylus

c. 525 BCE – c. 456 BCE (aged 69)

Ancient Greek

Aimé Césaire

1913 – 2008 (aged 95)

Martinican

Albert Camus

1913 – 1960 (aged 47)

French-Algerian

Aldous Huxley

1894 – 1963 (aged 69)

English

Alexander Pope

1688 – 1744 (aged 56)

English

Alexander Pushkin

1799 – 1837 (aged 38)

Russian

Alexandre Dumas

1802 – 1870 (aged 68)

French

Alfred Döblin

1878 – 1957 (aged 79)

German

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

1809 – 1892 (aged 83)

English

Allen Ginsberg

1926 – 1997 (aged 71)

American

Andrew Marvell

1621 – 1678 (aged 57)

English

Anna Akhmatova

1889 – 1966 (aged 77)

Russian

Anne Frank

1929 – 1945 (aged 16)

German-Dutch

Anton Chekhov

1860 – 1904 (aged 44)

Russian

Aristophanes

c. 446 BCE – c. 386 BCE (aged 60)

Ancient Greek

Aristotle

c. 384 BCE – c. 322 BCE (aged 62)

Ancient Greek

Arthur Koestler

1905 – 1983 (aged 78)

Hungarian-British

Arthur Miller

1915 – 2005 (aged 90)

American

Arthur Schopenhauer

1788 – 1860 (aged 72)

German

August Strindberg

1849 – 1912 (aged 63)

Swedish

Bertolt Brecht

1898 – 1956 (aged 58)

German

Blaise Pascal

1623 – 1662 (aged 39)

French

Boethius

477 – 524 (aged 47)

Roman

Boris Pasternak

1890 – 1960 (aged 70)

Russian

Bruno Schulz

1892 – 1942 (aged 50)

Polish

C.P. Cavafy

1863 – 1933 (aged 70)

Greek

Cao Xueqin

1715 – 1763 (aged 48)

Chinese

Carson McCullers

1917 – 1967 (aged 50)

American

Charles Baudelaire

1821 – 1867 (aged 46)

French

Charles Darwin

1809 – 1882 (aged 73)

English

Charles Dickens

1812 – 1870 (aged 58)

English

Charlotte Brontë

1816 – 1855 (aged 39)

English

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

1860 – 1935 (aged 75)

American

Chinua Achebe

1930 – 2013 (aged 83)

Nigerian

Christopher Marlowe

1564 – 1593 (aged 29)

English

Clarice Lispector

1920 – 1977 (aged 57)

Brazilian

Cormac McCarthy

1933 – 2023 (aged 90)

American

Czesław Miłosz

1911 – 2004 (aged 93)

Polish

D.H. Lawrence

1885 – 1930 (aged 45)

English

Daniel Defoe

1660 – 1731 (aged 71)

English

Danilo Kiš

1935 – 1989 (aged 54)

Serbian

Dante Alighieri

1265 – 1321 (aged 56)

Italian

David Foster Wallace

1962 – 2008 (aged 46)

American

Derek Walcott

1930 – 2017 (aged 87)

Saint Lucian

Dino Buzzati

1906 – 1972 (aged 66)

Italian

Djuna Barnes

1892 – 1982 (aged 90)

American

Don DeLillo

b. 1936 (age 90)

American

Dylan Thomas

1914 – 1953 (aged 39)

Welsh

E.M. Forster

1879 – 1970 (aged 91)

English

Edgar Allan Poe

1809 – 1849 (aged 40)

American

Edmund Spenser

1552 – 1599 (aged 47)

English

Edward Albee

1928 – 2016 (aged 88)

American

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1806 – 1861 (aged 55)

English

Elizabeth Bishop

1911 – 1979 (aged 68)

American

Emily Brontë

1818 – 1848 (aged 30)

English

Emily Dickinson

1830 – 1886 (aged 56)

American

Epictetus

50 – 135 (aged 85)

Ancient Greek

Erich Maria Remarque

1898 – 1970 (aged 72)

German

Ernest Hemingway

1899 – 1961 (aged 62)

American

Eugène Ionesco

1909 – 1994 (aged 85)

Romanian-French

Eugene O'Neill

1888 – 1953 (aged 65)

American

Euripides

c. 480 BCE – c. 406 BCE (aged 74)

Ancient Greek

Evelyn Waugh

1903 – 1966 (aged 63)

English

Ezra Pound

1885 – 1972 (aged 87)

American

F. Scott Fitzgerald

1896 – 1940 (aged 44)

American

Federico García Lorca

1898 – 1936 (aged 38)

Spanish

Ferdowsi

940 – 1020 (aged 80)

Persian

Fernando Pessoa

1888 – 1935 (aged 47)

Portuguese

Flannery O'Connor

1925 – 1964 (aged 39)

American

Ford Madox Ford

1873 – 1939 (aged 66)

English

François Rabelais

1494 – 1553 (aged 59)

French

Franz Kafka

1883 – 1924 (aged 41)

Czech

Friedrich Engels

1820 – 1895 (aged 75)

German

Friedrich Nietzsche

1844 – 1900 (aged 56)

German

Fyodor Dostoevsky

1821 – 1881 (aged 60)

Russian

Gabriel García Márquez

1927 – 2014 (aged 87)

Colombian

Geoffrey Chaucer

1343 – 1400 (aged 57)

English

George Eliot

1819 – 1880 (aged 61)

English

George Orwell

1903 – 1950 (aged 47)

English

Georges Perec

1936 – 1982 (aged 46)

French

Gerard Manley Hopkins

1844 – 1889 (aged 45)

English

Giacomo Leopardi

1798 – 1837 (aged 39)

Italian

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

1896 – 1957 (aged 61)

Italian

Graham Greene

1904 – 1991 (aged 87)

English

Günter Grass

1927 – 2015 (aged 88)

German

Gustave Flaubert

1821 – 1880 (aged 59)

French

Guy de Maupassant

1850 – 1893 (aged 43)

French

H.G. Wells

1866 – 1946 (aged 80)

English

Halldór Laxness

1902 – 1998 (aged 96)

Icelandic

Hannah Arendt

1906 – 1975 (aged 69)

German-American

Haruki Murakami

b. 1949 (age 77)

Japanese

Henrik Ibsen

1828 – 1906 (aged 78)

Norwegian

Henry David Thoreau

1817 – 1862 (aged 45)

American

Henry James

1843 – 1916 (aged 73)

American

Herman Melville

1819 – 1891 (aged 72)

American

Hermann Hesse

1877 – 1962 (aged 85)

German-Swiss

Homer

c. 800 BCE – c. 701 BCE (aged 99)

Ancient Greek

Immanuel Kant

1724 – 1804 (aged 80)

German

Imre Kertész

1929 – 2016 (aged 87)

Hungarian

Iris Murdoch

1919 – 1999 (aged 80)

Irish-British

Isaac Bashevis Singer

1902 – 1991 (aged 89)

Polish-American

Italo Calvino

1923 – 1985 (aged 62)

Italian

Ivan Goncharov

1812 – 1891 (aged 79)

Russian

Ivan Turgenev

1818 – 1883 (aged 65)

Russian

J.D. Salinger

1919 – 2010 (aged 91)

American

J.M. Coetzee

b. 1940 (age 86)

South African

J.R.R. Tolkien

1892 – 1973 (aged 81)

English

Jack Kerouac

1922 – 1969 (aged 47)

American

James Baldwin

1924 – 1987 (aged 63)

American

James Joyce

1882 – 1941 (aged 59)

Irish

Jane Austen

1775 – 1817 (aged 42)

English

Jean Racine

1639 – 1699 (aged 60)

French

Jean Rhys

1890 – 1979 (aged 89)

Dominican-British

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

1712 – 1778 (aged 66)

Swiss

Jean-Paul Sartre

1905 – 1980 (aged 75)

French

Joan Didion

1934 – 2021 (aged 87)

American

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1749 – 1832 (aged 83)

German

John Donne

1572 – 1631 (aged 59)

English

John Edward Williams

1922 – 1994 (aged 72)

American

John Keats

1795 – 1821 (aged 26)

English

John Milton

1608 – 1674 (aged 66)

English

John Steinbeck

1902 – 1968 (aged 66)

American

Jonathan Swift

1667 – 1745 (aged 78)

Irish

Jorge Luis Borges

1899 – 1986 (aged 87)

Argentine

José Saramago

1922 – 2010 (aged 88)

Portuguese

Joseph Conrad

1857 – 1924 (aged 67)

Polish-British

Joseph Heller

1923 – 1999 (aged 76)

American

Joyce Carol Oates

b. 1938 (age 88)

American

Juan Rulfo

1917 – 1986 (aged 69)

Mexican

Julio Cortázar

1914 – 1984 (aged 70)

Argentine

Karl Marx

1818 – 1883 (aged 65)

German

Kazuo Ishiguro

b. 1954 (age 72)

Japanese-British

Knut Hamsun

1859 – 1952 (aged 93)

Norwegian

Kōbō Abe

1924 – 1993 (aged 69)

Japanese

Kurt Vonnegut

1922 – 2007 (aged 85)

American

La Rochefoucauld

1613 – 1680 (aged 67)

French

Langston Hughes

1901 – 1967 (aged 66)

American

Laozi

c. 600 BCE – c. 500 BCE (aged 100)

Chinese

László Krasznahorkai

b. 1954 (age 72)

Hungarian

Laurence Sterne

1713 – 1768 (aged 55)

Irish

Leo Tolstoy

1828 – 1910 (aged 82)

Russian

Lewis Carroll

1832 – 1898 (aged 66)

English

Li Bai

701 – 762 (aged 61)

Chinese

Lord Byron

1788 – 1824 (aged 36)

English

Lorraine Hansberry

1930 – 1965 (aged 35)

American

Louis-Ferdinand Céline

1894 – 1961 (aged 67)

French

Lu Xun

1881 – 1936 (aged 55)

Chinese

Ludwig Wittgenstein

1889 – 1951 (aged 62)

Austrian-British

Luigi Pirandello

1867 – 1936 (aged 69)

Italian

Machado de Assis

1839 – 1908 (aged 69)

Brazilian

Malcolm Lowry

1909 – 1957 (aged 48)

English

Marcel Proust

1871 – 1922 (aged 51)

French

Marcus Aurelius

121 – 180 (aged 59)

Roman

Margaret Atwood

b. 1939 (age 87)

Canadian

Marguerite Duras

1914 – 1996 (aged 82)

French

Marguerite Yourcenar

1903 – 1987 (aged 84)

French-Belgian

Marilynne Robinson

b. 1943 (age 83)

American

Marina Tsvetaeva

1892 – 1941 (aged 49)

Russian

Mark Twain

1835 – 1910 (aged 75)

American

Martin Buber

1878 – 1965 (aged 87)

Austrian

Martin Luther King Jr.

1929 – 1968 (aged 39)

American

Mary Shelley

1797 – 1851 (aged 54)

English

Matsuo Bashō

1644 – 1694 (aged 50)

Japanese

Matthew Arnold

1822 – 1888 (aged 66)

English

Michel de Montaigne

1533 – 1592 (aged 59)

French

Miguel de Cervantes

1547 – 1616 (aged 69)

Spanish

Mikhail Bulgakov

1891 – 1940 (aged 49)

Russian

Mikhail Lermontov

1814 – 1841 (aged 27)

Russian

Milan Kundera

1929 – 2023 (aged 94)

Czech-French

Molière

1622 – 1673 (aged 51)

French

Murasaki Shikibu

978 – 1014 (aged 36)

Japanese

Naguib Mahfouz

1911 – 2006 (aged 95)

Egyptian

Nathaniel Hawthorne

1804 – 1864 (aged 60)

American

Natsume Sōseki

1867 – 1916 (aged 49)

Japanese

Niccolò Machiavelli

1469 – 1527 (aged 58)

Italian

Nikolai Gogol

1809 – 1852 (aged 43)

Russian

Orhan Pamuk

b. 1952 (age 74)

Turkish

Oscar Wilde

1854 – 1900 (aged 46)

Irish

Ovid

c. 43 BCE – 17 (aged 60)

Roman

Pablo Neruda

1904 – 1973 (aged 69)

Chilean

Paul Celan

1920 – 1970 (aged 50)

Romanian-French

Penelope Fitzgerald

1916 – 2000 (aged 84)

English

Percy Bysshe Shelley

1792 – 1822 (aged 30)

English

Philip Larkin

1922 – 1985 (aged 63)

English

Philip Roth

1933 – 2018 (aged 85)

American

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

1741 – 1803 (aged 62)

French

Plato

c. 428 BCE – c. 348 BCE (aged 80)

Ancient Greek

Primo Levi

1919 – 1987 (aged 68)

Italian

Rabindranath Tagore

1861 – 1941 (aged 80)

Indian

Rainer Maria Rilke

1875 – 1926 (aged 51)

Austrian

Ralph Ellison

1913 – 1994 (aged 81)

American

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1803 – 1882 (aged 79)

American

Raymond Carver

1938 – 1988 (aged 50)

American

Richard Wright

1908 – 1960 (aged 52)

American

Robert Browning

1812 – 1889 (aged 77)

English

Robert Frost

1874 – 1963 (aged 89)

American

Robert Louis Stevenson

1850 – 1894 (aged 44)

Scottish

Robert Lowell

1917 – 1977 (aged 60)

American

Robert Musil

1880 – 1942 (aged 62)

Austrian

Roberto Bolaño

1953 – 2003 (aged 50)

Chilean

Rumi

1207 – 1273 (aged 66)

Persian

Saint Augustine

354 – 430 (aged 76)

North African

Salman Rushdie

b. 1947 (age 79)

Indian-British

Samuel Beckett

1906 – 1989 (aged 83)

Irish

Samuel Pepys

1633 – 1703 (aged 70)

English

Samuel Richardson

1689 – 1761 (aged 72)

English

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1772 – 1834 (aged 62)

English

Sappho

c. 630 BCE – c. 570 BCE (aged 60)

Ancient Greek

Saul Bellow

1915 – 2005 (aged 90)

American

Seamus Heaney

1939 – 2013 (aged 74)

Irish

Sei Shōnagon

966 – 1025 (aged 59)

Japanese

Seneca

c. 4 BCE – 65 (aged 69)

Roman

Shirley Jackson

1916 – 1965 (aged 49)

American

Sigmund Freud

1856 – 1939 (aged 83)

Austrian

Simone de Beauvoir

1908 – 1986 (aged 78)

French

Simone Weil

1909 – 1943 (aged 34)

French

Sophocles

c. 496 BCE – c. 406 BCE (aged 90)

Ancient Greek

Søren Kierkegaard

1813 – 1855 (aged 42)

Danish

Susan Sontag

1933 – 2004 (aged 71)

American

Sylvia Plath

1932 – 1963 (aged 31)

American

T.S. Eliot

1888 – 1965 (aged 77)

American-British

Tayeb Salih

1929 – 2009 (aged 80)

Sudanese

Ted Hughes

1930 – 1998 (aged 68)

English

Tennessee Williams

1911 – 1983 (aged 72)

American

Thomas Bernhard

1931 – 1989 (aged 58)

Austrian

Thomas Gray

1716 – 1771 (aged 55)

English

Thomas Hardy

1840 – 1928 (aged 88)

English

Thomas Mann

1875 – 1955 (aged 80)

German

Thomas Paine

1737 – 1809 (aged 72)

English

Thomas Pynchon

b. 1937 (age 89)

American

Tom Stoppard

b. 1937 (age 89)

Czech-British

Tomas Tranströmer

1931 – 2015 (aged 84)

Swedish

Toni Morrison

1931 – 2019 (aged 88)

American

Truman Capote

1924 – 1984 (aged 60)

American

Umberto Eco

1932 – 2016 (aged 84)

Italian

Ursula K. Le Guin

1929 – 2018 (aged 89)

American

Victor Hugo

1802 – 1885 (aged 83)

French

Viktor Frankl

1905 – 1997 (aged 92)

Austrian

Virgil

c. 70 BCE – c. 19 BCE (aged 51)

Roman

Virginia Woolf

1882 – 1941 (aged 59)

English

Vladimir Nabokov

1899 – 1977 (aged 78)

Russian-American

Voltaire

1694 – 1778 (aged 84)

French

Vyasa

Indian

W.B. Yeats

1865 – 1939 (aged 74)

Irish

W.G. Sebald

1944 – 2001 (aged 57)

German

W.H. Auden

1907 – 1973 (aged 66)

English-American

Wallace Stevens

1879 – 1955 (aged 76)

American

Walt Whitman

1819 – 1892 (aged 73)

American

William Faulkner

1897 – 1962 (aged 65)

American

William Golding

1911 – 1993 (aged 82)

English

William James

1842 – 1910 (aged 68)

American

William Makepeace Thackeray

1811 – 1863 (aged 52)

English

William Shakespeare

1564 – 1616 (aged 52)

English

William Wordsworth

1770 – 1850 (aged 80)

English

Witold Gombrowicz

1904 – 1969 (aged 65)

Polish

Wole Soyinka

b. 1934 (age 92)

Nigerian

Yasunari Kawabata

1899 – 1972 (aged 73)

Japanese

Yukio Mishima

1925 – 1970 (aged 45)

Japanese

Zhuang Zhou

c. 369 BCE – c. 286 BCE (aged 83)

Chinese

Zora Neale Hurston

1891 – 1960 (aged 69)

American