Librartist

In 1993, Toni Morrison was the first black woman who won the Nobel Prize in Literature. This was the conclusion of successful publishing and academic career. The list of awards she had received is long, and it includes the American Book Award, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and many others. In 2006, The New York Times Book Review chose her novel Beloved as the best work in American fiction in the previous 25 years! Ms. Morrison died in 2019 at the age of 88.

Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) published his works under tens of pen-names. His fame came posthumously. Today, he is seen as one of the greatest Portuguese poets and one of the most significant twentieth-century writers.

Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kerouac and others! In short, the Beat Generation!

With this image, we celebrate Chilean singer, song-writer, poet, and freedom fighter Victor Jara.

In the life of Langston Hughes, art and the fight for justice and equality were indistinguishable. He was the Harlem Renaissance leader and a prominent author of the movement that was called jazz poetry. His verse is simple, communicative, his ideas bright. His poems are printed all over the world.

Artaud was a part of the surrealist movement, wrote poetry, acted in films, directed and produced theatre plays, wrote a script for the first surrealist film that influenced Bunuel and Dali, etc. He was everywhere, and he left a deep mark in our culture.

This exceptional writer gave us at least one true masterpiece - The Old Man and the Sea. Many writers deeply respected Hemingway's work; the list includes Hunter S. Thompson and Charles Bukowski.

Georges Bataille was a French poet and novelist, but is better known as an intelectual whose philosophical, social and even economic theories had wide appeal and influenced the Western thought. One of his most famous books is La Part Maudite (The Accursed Share).

Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita was published twenty-six years after the writer's death. It is one of the masterpieces of the twentieth century.

American writer Henry Miller developed a new type of prose, a semi-autobiographical novel. Born in New York, he spent some of his best years in France, rubbed off surrealism, the stream of consciousness, and some other vibrant Paris art scene benefits.

With this image, we celebrate American writer Kurt Vonnegut.

Most people know about writer, poet, and actor Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) through Paul Schrader's movie Mishima. It examined his attempt to execute coup Coup d'état. After it failed, Mishima committed seppuku, a ritual suicide. He is still a controversial topic in Japan, but nobody can dispute that he is one of the most important Japanese writers of the twentieth century. In 1968, he almost got The Nobel Prize in Literature. His opus includes 34 novels, 50 plays, 25 books of stories, and 35 books of essays!

With this image, we celebrate the uniqueness of Chilean poet and writer Roberto Bolaño.

Jasujiro Ozu is a favorite film director of many film directors. Seemingly ordinary stories are elevated to the level of poetry and spirituality. In the 2012 poll by magazine Sight & Sound, Ozu's Tokyo Story was voted the best film of all time. His other famous titles are Late Spring, Floating Weeds, An Autumn Afternoon.

A tough and traumatic childhood didn't stop Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) from becoming one of the essential modernist writers. She was a pioneer of stream of consciousness narration. Her most famous works are the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927).

Mishima is one of the most important Japanese writers of the twentieth century.His opus includes 34 novels, 50 plays, 25 books of stories, and 35 books of essays!

Dashiell Hammett is the father of a hard-boiled detective novel and an American classic.

Victor Hugo's work output was so big, diverse, and fruitful that it is hard to describe it in several sentences. A poet, writer, playwright, and statesman of The Third Republic, Hugo was one of the best French artists of his time. Everybody heard of his novels Les Misarables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

Who is the best writer of the last several centuries? Most likely, it is Dostoevsky. Note: There are two transliterations of his last name that are in use, Dostoevsky and Dostoyevsky.

English poet, painter, and illustrator William Blake (1757-1827) is usually associated with the Romantic Age but is hard to put on any shelf. Both in his visual arts and his literature, Blake often elaborates motifs from the religious narrative. He did it with the passion and brilliancy of a genius. Even though he was almost unknown in his lifetime, every century that passed held Blake in higher regard.

Uvavnuk was an Inuit woman who lived at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. One night, a ball of light descended from the sky and struck her. Her body was filled with light and she lost consciousness. From that day, she was different and started writing poetry, became a seer and a shaman. This is one of many pictures we made inspired by her experience and poetry.

Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) was one of the major Russian and Slavic poets of the twentieth century. As a young revolutionary, only sixteen years of age, he ended up in the Moscow Butyrka prison. It was in a solitary confinement cell that he wrote his first poems.

This image celebrates youthful James Joyce.

With this image, we celebrate American writer Ralph Ellison, the author of Invisible Man.

With this image, we celebrate Ernest Hemingway, one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century.

Here, we are showing four stages in the life of American poet Ezra Pound.

This native of Buenos Aires was one of the prominent short story writers of the 20th century. His first books were an opening chapter of the glorious boom of South-American literature.

Aleph is one of the best stories by Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges, one of the best writers of short stories of the twentieth century.

Pier Paolo Pasolini was one of the most famous Italian film directors, but he was also an important poet and writer. Pasolini lived in a turbulent time, and he navigated it with courage.

In the twentieth century, Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges was one of the indisputable masters of the short story. He was obsessed with labyrinths and libraries.

With this image, we celebrate Chilean singer, song-writer, poet, and freedom fighter Victor Jara.

With this image, we celebrate Federico Fellini, one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema. He directed such classics as Nights of Cabiria, La Strada, 81/2, La Dolce Vita, Amarcord, Juliet of the Spirits, Satyricon, Roma, etc.

Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kerouac - the Beat Generation!

When William S. Burroughs met Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, it was an event that would stay recorded in the history of literature. Burroughs was an interesting character and a man of substance.

John Cassavetes was an A-list actor, but he shined as a maverick-director and independent film pioneer. His films were revolutionary; they offered a truthful picture of reality executed in an anti-Holywood style. Many of his movies are world heritage, like Shadows, Faces, Opening Night, Minnie and Moskowitz, A Woman Under Influence, or Love Streams.

A portrait of director Sam Peckinpah! Perhaps, his most praised film was The Wild Bunch, the western that was so good that it ended the genre.