Ellen Glasgow

popular name: Samuel Beckett

date_of_death: December 22, 1989

age: 83

cause_of_death: Respiratory failure

claim_to_fame: Writers and Poets

best_know_for: Samuel Beckett was an enigmatic and reclusive Irish playwright, poet and novelist who won a Nobel Prize for literature and who was best known for his 1952 drama, "Waiting for Godot". Beckett was considered one of the primary exponents of a dramatic style that came to be known as theater of the absurd, an art form in which events and reality seem to have little relationship with one another, plots lack sense and logic, and time is out of order. His work was tragic and comical at the same time, despairing yet hopeful, and it profoundly affected the course and development of 20th century theater.

popular name: Herman Melville

date_of_death: September 28, 1891

age: 72

cause_of_death: Heart disease

claim_to_fame: Writers and Poets

best_know_for: Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. Although his reputation was not high at the time of his death, the centennial of his birth in 1919 was the starting point of a Melville revival, and Moby-Dick grew to be considered one of the great American novels.

popular name: Franz Kafka

date_of_death: June 3, 1924

age: 40

cause_of_death: Laryngeal tuberculosis and starvation

claim_to_fame: Writers and Poets

best_know_for: Franz Kafka was a German-speaking Bohemian writer born on July 3, 1883, in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now the Czech Republic). He is widely regarded as one of the most influential literary figures of the 20th century. Kafka was born into a middle-class Jewish family and had a complicated relationship with his domineering father, which deeply influenced his writing. He studied law at the University of Prague and worked for much of his life in insurance, writing in his spare time. Kafka’s works often explore themes of alienation, absurdity, and the oppressive power of bureaucracy, with his most famous stories including The Metamorphosis, The Trial, and The Castle. His distinctive style blends realism with surreal, nightmarish scenarios, reflecting a sense of existential dread. Despite writing prolifically, Kafka published only a few works during his lifetime and instructed his friend Max Brod to destroy his manuscripts after his death. Brod ignored these wishes and instead edited and published much of Kafka’s work, securing his posthumous reputation. Upon his passing, the grave of Franz Kafka can be found at New Jewish Cemetery in Prague, Czechoslovakia.