Famous Fiction Authors a to z

Jack Kerouac was an American writer best known for the novel On the Road, which became an American classic, pioneering the Beat Generation in the 1950s.

Imre Kertész is a Hungarian writer who survived the Holocaust and went on to win the 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Novelist Ken Kesey wrote One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, which in the U.S. became one of the most widely read books of the 1960s.

Stephen King is a New York Times-bestselling novelist who made his name in the horror and fantasy genres. Much of his work has been adapted into films.

Jerzy Kosinksi was a Polish-American novelist. He wrote Being There in 1971, which was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film in 1979.

Julia Kristeva is a psychoanalyst, critic and novelist, known for her writings in structuralist linguistics, psychoanalysis and philosophical feminism.

Louis L'Amour was a prolific and hugely popular writer of mostly Western novels and short stories.

Tim LaHaye is an evangelical Christian minister who helped found the Moral Majority and co-wrote the best-selling Left Behind series.

Charles Lamb was an English poet and essayist who wrote Tales from Shakespeare and "Essays of Elia."

Stieg Larsson was the Swedish author best known for his Millenium novels, including The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

D.H. Lawrence is best known for his infamous novel Lady Chatterley's Lover, which was banned in the United States until 1959, and is widely regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.

Henry Lawson was a revered Australian writer of short stories and poetry.

Author John Le Carré’s first published novel, Call for the Dead, introduced his ‘anti-hero’ George Smiley, who appears in most of his stories.

Harper Lee is best known for writing the Pulitzer Prize-winning best-seller To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)—her one and only published novel.

Stan Lee is a revered comic-book creator who co-launched superheroes like the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and the X-Men for Marvel Comics.

Author Ira Levin wrote some of the gripping novels of the 1960s and 1970s, including Rosemary's Baby and The Boys from Brazil.

Sinclair Lewis was a journalist and Nobel Prize winning novelist known for 20th century works like Main Street, Elmer Gantry and Babbitt.

Writer and aviation pioneer Anne Morrow Lindbergh was married to aviator Charles Lindbergh. The couple’s child was kidnapped for ransom and murdered in 1932.

Jack London was a 19th century American author and journalist, best known for the adventure novels White Fang and The Call of the Wild.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a famed 19th century scholar, novelist and poet known for works like Voices of the Night, Evangeline and The Song of Hiawatha.

Horror fiction author H.P. Lovecraft wrote short stories, novels and novellas, including "The Call of Cthulhu" and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

Author Norman Mailer used a style combining fiction and journalism to write the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Executioner's Song.

Bernard Malamud was an American writer known for his novels and short stories of the Jewish-American life in the first half of the 20th century.

William Manchester was a historian who notably wrote about American president John F. Kennedy and Winston Churchill.

Writer Katherine Mansfield is best known for creating the story collections Bliss and The Garden Party.

Fantasy writer George R. R. Martin created A Song of Ice and Fire, one of the most popular book series today and includes 1996's Game of Thrones

Comedian and comedy writer Steve Martin found fame starring in such films as The Jerk, Little Shop of Horrors, and Father of the Bride.

Colum McCann is an Irish born writer best known for his works of fiction published as novels and short stories.

American politician Eugene J. McCarthy challenged Lyndon B. Johnson in the race for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination, which led to Johnson's withdrawal.

The work of Carson McCullers, author of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and The Member of the Wedding, is must-read southern gothic fiction.

Claude McKay was a Jamaican-born poet and novelist whose Home to Harlem (1928) was the most popular novel written by an American black to that time.

Best-selling African-American novelist Terry McMillan wrote Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got her Groove Back. Both became films starring Angela Bassett.

Writer Larry McMurtry is noted for his novels set on the frontier, in contemporary small towns, and in increasingly urbanized and industrial areas of Texas.

Herman Melville wrote the classic American novel Moby-Dick (1851), a whaling adventure which regarded as one of the greatest literary works of all time.

Stephenie Meyer is best known for authoring the Twilight book series, which was later adapted for a film franchise.

John Stuart Mill, who has been called the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the 19th century, was a British philosopher, economist, and moral and political theorist. His works include books and essays covering logic, epistemology, economics, social and political philosophy, ethics, and religion, among them A System of Logic, On Liberty, and Utilitarianism.

Henry Miller was a 20th century American writer, who created a new sort of novel—later characterized as a fictionalized autobiography.

Author A.A. Milne wrote beloved classic children's books about the adventures of Christopher Robin and the toy animal Winnie-the-Pooh.

Anne Moody is an African-American author whose writings about her personal and political struggles during the American Civil Rights Movement became classic.

Prolific novelist Iris Murdoch won a Booker Prize for The Sea, the Sea. In 2001, she was portrayed by Kate Winslet and Judy Dench in the biographical film Iris.

Writer Gabriel García Márquez, author of Love in the Time of Cholera, has gained worldwide readership with his brand of magical realism.

Sir V.S. Naipaul is a Trinidadian-British writer of Indian descent known for his novels set in developing countries. He won the Nobel Prize in 2001 for his novel, Half a Life.

Twice appointed the United States' poet laureate, Howard Nemerov was a writer with wit and illuminating irony.

Flannery O'Connor is considered one of the best short story authors of the 20th century. She wrote about religious themes and southern life.

Juan Carlos Onetti was an Uruguayan novelist and short-story writer whose existential works, including A Brief Life, chronicled the decay of modern urban life.

George Orwell was an English novelist, essayist, and critic most famous for his novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949).

Ann Patchett is an American novelist best known for her PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novel Bel Canto.

James Patterson is an author of popular thrillers. He is best known for the Womens Murder Club series, and for his books starring psychologist Alex Cross.

Walker Percy was a novelist known chiefly for his first novel, The Moviegoer, which explored spiritual emptiness.

I.L. Peretz was a Jewish author who gained fame after writing folktales, ballads and plays about the ideals of Judaism.

Charles Perrault was a French poet and author known for writing the Mother Goose fairy tales.

British author Chapman Pincher has concentrated on history and espionage-related topics in his investigative journalism as well as his fiction writing.

Sylvia Plath was a gifted, troubled poet, known for the confessional style of her work. She wrote the novel The Bell Jar.