August 17

Herta Müller

Herta Müller (born August 17, 1953)- German-Romanian novelist, poet; winner, 2009 Nobel Prize, Literature – Everything I Possess I Carry With Me / Atemschaukel (2009)

Read more about Müller in this 2012 Guardian article

Her fiction charts fragile acts of resistance in a surreal totalitarian bureaucracy of lies, spies and intimate betrayals. "Ceausescu was mad and he made half of Romania mad," she says. "I'm mad because of him."

Watch Müller talk about the lasting effects of living under a dictarship
 here


Gene (Geneva) Stratton-Porter

Gene (Geneva) Stratton-Porter (born August 17, 1863) U.S. novelist, essayist, naturalist – Freckles (1904)

Read more about Geneva Stratton-Porter

Watch a short biography of Stratton-Porter
 here