We often wonder what minds authors work with and how vast their inner worlds have to be in order to be able to write such great works of art for others to read.
Authors have contributed so much knowledge and insight to people all around the world. They have taken us to places where our feet haven’t touched and introduced us to so many characters and scenarios, playing with our imagination. Authors are image builders and reformers to the world at large and many just want to know where they get the things that inspire them.
Of all things that make authors who they are, their geographic origins usually have a major impact on their writing. Research has shown that a person’s thoughts and actions are informed partly by their immediate environment. For many authors, their hometowns are a part of what influences their writing, even the fictional works too. In no particular order, here is a list of some of the world’s famous authors and their hometowns:
Ernest Hemingway
Born in 1899, Ernest Miller Hemingway was not just an author but also an American journalist. He is the author of ‘The Sun Also Rises’ and ‘The Old Man and the Sea’. He had won many prizes including the Nobel prize in Literature and a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Ernest Hemingway was enlisted in World War I as an ambulance driver but got seriously injured and had to return home. He was born in Oak Park, Illinois and was dutifully raised there by his parents. There are so many tourist attractions in Oak Park Illinois like the Oak Park conservatory, there are the Hemingway Museum and so many other things.
Ian Fleming
Best known for writing the James Bond spy novels series, Ian Fleming was born in London in 1908. The first Bond novel Casino Royale was published in 1953. During the second world war, Fleming was involved with two intelligence units, 30 Assault Unit and T-Force. This background alongside his career as a journalist were the ground in which he planted the literatury seeds which would become the James Bond novels. Fleming had a reputation of being a skilled gambler with a passion for playing bridge at private clubs in London. A personal incident at a casino in Portugal is believed to have been the inspiration for Casino Royal and the famous quote not to “mistake bad play for bad luck”. The novel was turned into a film in 2006, featuring Daniel Craig as James Bond and the movie is considered the most famous casino title of all times.
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare has left the world shaken with his evergreen works of literature and writing style. William Shakespeare is known for writing hugely successful theatre plays, he is often called England’s national poet and the greatest dramatist of all time. He was born in Stratford upon Avon, in Warwickshire, England. The town is now commonly known as just Stratford, a market town. Warwickshire houses the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Stratford receives approximately 2.5 million visitors a year owing to it housing the birthplace and gravesite of the greatest dramatist of all time, William Shakespeare. This year the popular Stratford Literary Festival was held virtually due to the pandemic but hopefully, visitors will soon fill up the Stratford Hotels again.
Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf was an English writer born in 1882. She was popularly known for pioneering the use of stream of consciousness and was considered one of the most important modernist authors. She wrote the popular novels ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ (1925) and ‘To the Lighthouse’ (1927). She was from an affluent household and was born in South Kensington, London. South Kensington is quite attractive to tourists because it houses the National History Museum Ice Rink, Queen’s Tower and other interesting things to see.
JK Rowling
Popular for the Harry Potter fantasy series with translation in over eighty languages and sold over five hundred million copies. Joanne Rowling is a British writer who has won multiple awards and writes crime fiction under the pen name Robert Galbraith. She is a philanthropist and has had her series break records as the best-selling book series in history. She was named the Most Influential Woman in Britain in 2010. She was born in Yate, a civil parish in South Gloucestershire, England. Yate has a couple of top sights that are lovely to see like Kingsgate Park, Viaduct Animal Sanctuary, Brandy Bottom Colliery and other great spots.
Alice Walker
Alice Walker is one of the queens of world literature. She is a novelist, short story writer and poet. She is also a social activist and is famous for her best-selling novel, The Color Purple. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1983. The Colour Purple generated a lot of public attention and earned her a lot of recognition. Alice Walker is an African American woman born in Eatonton in 1944. Eatonton is a city in Putnam County, Georgia, United States. The people of Eatonton value history and there are so many places to explore in this city.
Chimamanda Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian author and feminist. She is a novelist, short story and non-fiction writer. She has written world-recognized novels like Purple Hibiscus, Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun. Her novels have also been adapted into movies over the years. She hails from Enugu state in Nigeria and was born to two honoured academic figures. Enugu is in the South-Eastern part of Nigeria and is fully rich in its preservation of culture and history. There are amazing places to visit like the Ngwo Pine Forest and Nike Lake. There are also museums to visit to learn more about the Igbo culture.
Seeing the world through the eyes of an author is one of the very beautiful things offered to the world. Traveling to experience what the author has described is another. It is quite inspiring and interesting to be able to see the immediate surrounding of authors and things that inspired their work. A great choice would be to see for yourself the places where your favorite pieces of literature were birthed.
As the famous quote by B.J. Neblett, “we are the sum total of our experiences” and what better way to understand an Author than getting to know where they grew up.
