On this day, April 13, in 1909, was born in Jackson, Mississippi. Author of over forty short stories, five novels, three works of nonfiction, and one children’s book, she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award and numerous O. Henry Awards, and was honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, a National Medal of Arts, the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, as well as being named a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur by the French government. Her works captured the quintessential Southern voice with an emphasis on family and customs, with a strong sense of place. She died from natural causes in 2001; she was 92.

On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.

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