Jules Renard

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.

popular name: Sylvia Beach

date_of_death: October 5, 1962

age: 75

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Writers and Poets

best_know_for: In the 1920s and 1930s, Sylvia Beach owned and ran Shakespeare and Company, a Paris bookshop. The shop became the community center for "lost generation" intellectuals from Britain and America, including James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Stephen Spender, Djuna Barnes, Kay Boyle, Natalie Barney, Mina Loy, Margaret Anderson , and Gertrude Stein , as well as for prominent French writers like Paul Valéry, André Gide, and Paul Claudel. In 1959, Beach published her memoirs, Shakespeare and Company, a lively conversational account of the shop during the interwar years. She had a large collection of James Joyce's first editions, manuscripts and memorabilia, and as Joyce's reputation continued to grow—though he had died in 1940—Beach was approached by dozens of Joyce scholars for access to her collection.

popular name: Tom Wolfe

date_of_death: May 14, 2018

age: 88

cause_of_death: Infection

claim_to_fame: Writers and Poets

best_know_for: Tom Wolfe was an innovative journalist and novelist whose technicolor, wildly punctuated prose brought to life the worlds of California surfers, car customizers, astronauts and Manhattan’s moneyed status-seekers in works like "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" (a highly experimental account of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters) “The Right Stuff” and “Bonfire of the Vanities.” But as an unabashed contrarian, he was almost as well known for his attire as his satire. He was instantly recognizable as he strolled down Madison Avenue — a tall, slender, blue-eyed, still boyish-looking man in his spotless three-piece vanilla bespoke suit, pinstriped silk shirt with a starched white high collar, bright handkerchief peeking from his breast pocket, watch on a fob, faux spats and white shoes. Once asked to describe his get-up, Mr. Wolfe replied brightly, “Neo-pretentious.”