Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Ferrante, Elena, pseud. of the contemporary writer often considered the finest Italian novelist of her generation; the details of her personal life are a closely guarded secret. Her novels, the first ...

(Encyclopedia) Gates, Sir Thomas, fl. 1585–1621, English colonial governor of Virginia. He was knighted for his services under the 2d earl of Essex in the successful expedition against Cádiz in 1596. Gates, who h...

(Encyclopedia) López, Vicente Fidel lōˈpās [key], 1815–1903, Argentine historian, journalist, and politician; son of Vicente López y Planes. A member of the group that opposed the dictatorship of Juan Manuel...

(Encyclopedia) Los Angeles Opera Company, also known as LA Opera, founded 1986; it performs at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Los Angeles Music Center. It grew out of the Los Angeles Civic Grand Opera Associat...

(Encyclopedia) Ottawa, river, c.700 mi (1,130 km) long, largest tributary of the St. Lawrence River, Canada. It rises in the Laurentian Highlands, SW Que., and flows generally W through La Vérendrye Provincial Park...

(Encyclopedia) Marden, Brice, 1938–, American painter, b. Bronxville, N.Y.; grad Boston Univ. (B.F.A., 1961), Yale Univ. (M.A., 1963). Marden began exhibiting his work in the 1960s, becoming known for minimalist a...

(Encyclopedia) Mariátegui, José Carlos hōsāˈ kärˈlōs märēäˈtāgē [key], 1895–1930, Peruvian writer and political leader. Of a poor family, he was a tubercular from childhood but rose to prominence as ...

(Encyclopedia) Du Bellay, Joachim bĕlāˈ [key], 1522?–1560, French poet of the Pléiade (see under Pleiad). He wrote their manifesto, La Deffence et illustration de la langue francoyse (1549), which urges the s...

(Encyclopedia) Blanco Fombona, Rufino ro͞ofēˈnō blängˈkō fōmbōˈnä [key], 1874–1944, Venezuelan poet, essayist, and novelist, one of the leaders of modernismo. Active in Venezuelan political affairs, he ...

(Encyclopedia) Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente vēthānˈtā bläˈskō ēbäˈnyāth [key] 1867–1928, Spanish novelist and politician, b. Valencia. Outspoken against the monarchy, Blasco Ibáñez published a radical rep...