Jaan Kross (born February 19, 1920) Estonian novelist, short story writer – Väljakaevamised / Excavations (1990)
Clifton Taulbert (born February 19, 1945) U.S. memoirist, motivational speaker, author – Once Upon A Time When We Were Colored
Read a bio and interview of Clifton Taulbert here
Watch Clifton Taulbert speak about inspiring Nelson Mandela
here
Eileen Jackson Southern (born February 19, 1920) U.S. musicologist, university professor – The Music of Black Americans: A History (1971)
Read the Harvard University obituary of Eileen Jackson Southern here
Read a biography of Eileen Jackson Southern here
Andre Breton (born February 19, 1896) French writer, poet, theorist of surrealism
Excerpt from Breton's 1924 Manifesto of Surrealism
We are still living under the reign of logic: this, of course, is what I have been driving at. But in this day and age logical methods are applicable only to solving problems of secondary interest.
The absolute rationalism that is still in vogue allows us to consider only facts relating directly to our experience. Logical ends, on the contrary, escape us.
It is pointless to add that experience itself has found itself increasingly circumscribed. It paces back and forth in a cage from which it is more and more difficult to make it emerge.
It too leans for support on what is most immediately expedient, and it is protected by the sentinels of common sense.
Under the pretense of civilization and progress, we have managed to banish from the mind everything that may rightly or wrongly be termed superstition, or fancy; forbidden is any kind of search for truth which is not in conformance with accepted practices.
Watch a review of Breton's novel Nadja
here