New Book of Biographies Covers 326 Notable Authors; Features Many First-Person Entries

New York, New York, October 30th, 2003
H.W. Wilson today announced the release of World Authors 1995-2000, a new biographical reference covering 326 novelists, playwrights, poets, essayists, historians, and others who have made exceptional contributions to contemporary literature. Representing a diverse range of ethnicities, this new reference book presents absorbing accounts of authors' lives, the circumstances under which works were produced, their literary significance, and critical response. Each profile (1,000-3,000 words) is accompanied by a bibliography of further reading, a list of the author's principal works with publication date, and most are accompanied by a photograph.

Featuring writers ranging from the popular novelist John Irving, to Gao Xingjian, the first Chinese writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, these profiles make fascinating reading and facilitate reliable research. Nearly a quarter of the authors have contributed autobiographical essays specifically for this book, including Tom Wolfe, acclaimed author of Bonfire of the Vanities; journalist Ann Crittenden, author of The Price of Motherhood; Elmer Kelton, one of the world's most prolific writers of novels in the Western genre, and others as notable.

A wide variety of opinions and experiences are recorded in the first-person, among them Tom Wolfe's "first exposure," at age seven, "to that most cutting of literary devices, irony"; Geoff Dyer's belief that "the theme running through all my work" is "a sense of purposelessness briefly evaded"; Martha Collins's discovery that "I didn't want to write about writers—I wanted to be one"; and Ted Walker's recalling, "I sat at the feet of Robert Graves when he delivered the Clarke Lectures. He told us that a poet a should never, never, never take a job as a teacher. 'Sweep the roads first,' he said."

Authors were selected for the volume based on literary merit, popularity, and, in the case of foreign writers, accessibility to English-language reader.

Described by the Journal of Modern Literature as a "primary source of almost inestimable value," the Wilson Authors Series comprises more than 20 volumes covering literature from classical times through today.

World Authors 1995-2000
September 2003 • 878 pp. • ISBN 0-8242-1032-8 • Photographs • $150 ($165 outside U.S. and Canada)

Contact: 
Roseward Sky
Phone (800) 367-6770, x2272
Email: rsky@hwwilson.com

Eileen Sutter
Phone (800) 367-6770, x2312
Email: esutter@hwwilson.com