(Encyclopedia) Kafka, FranzKafka, Franzfränts käfˈkä [key], 1883–1924, German-language novelist, b. Prague. Along with Joyce, Kafka is perhaps the most influential of 20th-century writers. From a…
(Encyclopedia) harmony, in music, simultaneous sounding of two or more tones and, especially, the study of chords and their relations. Harmony was the last in the development of what may be…
(Encyclopedia) Basquiat, Jean-MichelBasquiat, Jean-Michelbäsˌkē-ätˈ [key], 1960–88, American painter, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. Born into a middle-class Haitian and Puerto Rican family, he was a 1980s art…
(Encyclopedia) Webb, Beatrice Potter, 1858–1943, English socialist economist; daughter of a wealthy industrialist. She took an early interest in social problems and worked with Charles Booth on his…
(Encyclopedia) Veblen, ThorsteinVeblen, Thorsteinthôrˈstīn vĕbˈlən [key], 1857–1929, American economist and social critic, b. Cato Township, Wis. Of Norwegian parentage, he spent his first 17 years…
(Encyclopedia) Berry, Wendell Erdman, 1934–, American farmer, environmentalist, and writer, b. Henry co., Ky., grad. Univ of Kentucky (B.A., 1956; M.A., 1957). He taught at various colleges including…
(Encyclopedia) Wilson, August, 1945–2005, American playwright and poet, b. Pittsburgh as Frederick August Kittel, Jr. Largely self-educated, Wilson first attracted wide critical attention with his…
(Encyclopedia) Sebald, W. G. (Winfried Georg Maximilian Sebald), 1944–2001, German novelist, grad. Freiburg Univ. (1965). Sebald's novels are dense, elegiac, and meditative. They mingle fiction with…
(Encyclopedia) Rao, RajaRao, Rajaräˈjə [key]Rao, Raja rou [key], 1909–2006, Indian novelist, b. Hassan, Mysore (now Karnataka), as Raja. Rao took his surname as an adult, and was educated in India…