February 6

Read about Christopher Marlowe here

Read about Christopher Marlowe being credited as co-author of some of Shakespeare's dramas here

Excerpt from Doctor Faustus in Act 5, Scene 1:

Enter Helen again, passing over between two cupids.
Faustus
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.
Her lips suck forth my soul; see where it flies.
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
I will be Paris, and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy shall Wittenberg be sacked,
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colours on my plumed crest.
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.
O, thou art fairer than the evening's air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter,
When he appeared to hapless Semele,
More lovely than the Monarch of the sky,
In wanton Arethusa's azure arms,
And none but thou shalt be my paramour.

Read the Authors Calendar biography of Pramoedya Ananta Toer here

Read Toer's obituary in the New York Times here

"It was Mr. Pramoedya's ability to draw the "big picture" that set him apart from most post-World War II Asian novelists. A leftist and a supporter of the first Indonesian leader, Sukarno, Mr. Pramoedya was taken prisoner two weeks after an abortive coup attempt in September 1965 that eventually led to the coming to power of Suharto, a general and a tough anti-Communist. He was held without charges for 14 years on Buru, then kept under house arrest in Jakarta until 1992.
He made his first visit to the United States in 1999 to coincide with the publication in English of "The Mute's Soliloquy," a memoir of his years in the hard labor prison that details survival through foraging for worms and snakes."

Read Paul Doolan's analysis of Toer's writing here

For many western historical novelists, the former colonies simply form an exotic backdrop to the action, the natives provide little more than picturesque colour. All the more reason then to be grateful for the works of the late Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer. I don’t know of any other work that so clearly dissects the phenomenon of imperialism, reveals the haughty ignorance of the colonizer and the despair of the colonized, and exposes how colonialism poisoned the relationship between the so-called developed and lesser-developed countries.

Toer's novel The Girl from the Coast was inspired by his grandmother. Read about Toer and his novels here

"Suharto jailed Pramoedya for 17 years; despite being beaten and mistreated, and despite having his books banned and manuscripts destroyed, Pramoedya continued to “write” in jail, telling the other prisoners the stories that would become his most famous work, a series of four novels called the “Buru Quartet,” for the prison where he wrote them."

Read a chronology and biography of Tolson here