Famous English Poets and Writers

William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. His famous works are: Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, Midsummer night dream, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, etc.

John Griffith "Jack" London (born John Griffith Chaney, January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. He is best remembered as the author of Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen", and of the San Francisco Bay area in The Sea Wolf.

London was a passionate advocate of unionization, socialism, and the rights of workers and wrote several powerful works dealing with these topics such as his dystopian novel, The Iron Heel and his non-fiction exposé, The People of the Abyss.

Famous Kazakh Poets and Writers

Abay (Ibrahim) Qunanbayuli (August 10, 1845 – July 6, 1904) was a great Kazakh poet, composer and philosopher. He was also a cultural reformer toward European and Russian cultures on the basis of enlightened Islam. Abay's main contribution to Kazakh culture and folklore lies in his poetry, which expresses great nationalism and grew out of Kazakh folk culture. Before him, most Kazakh poetry was oral, echoing the nomadic habits of the people of the Kazakh steppes. During Abay's lifetime, however, a number of important socio-political and socio-economic changes occurred. Russian influence continued to grow in Kazakhstan, resulting in greater educational possibilities as well as exposure to a number of different philosophies, whether Russian, Western or Asian. Abay Qunanbayuli steeped himself in the cultural and philosophical history of these newly-opened geographies. In this sense, Abay's creative poetry affected the philosophical thinking of educated Kazakhs. Abay also translated into Kazakh the works of Russian and European authors, mostly for the first time. Translations made by him include poems by Mikhail Lermontov, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Lord Byron, Ivan Krylov's Fables and Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Abay's major work is The Book of Words (Kazakh: қара сөздері, Qara sözderi), a philosophic treatise and collection of poems where he encourages his fellow Kazakhs to embrace education, literacy, and good moral character in order to escape poverty, enslavement and corruption. In Word Twenty Five, he discusses the importance of Russian culture, as a way for Kazakhs to the world's cultural treasures.

Mukhtar Omarkhanuli Auezov (September 28, 1897 — June 27, 1961) was a prominent Kazakh writer, known best for his work as a playwright. Auezov is best known for his plays. The first play he authored was Enlik-Kebek, a story of two young lovers which bears a great resemblance to Romeo and Juliet. He authored more than twenty plays which dealt with issues relevant to Socialism in Kazakhstan. After writing plays, Auezov changed his focus to writing novels. Two novels - Abay and The Path of Abay - dealing with the life of Kazakh poet Abay Qunanbayuli were the product of the last twenty years of his life. Auezov's other projects included drawing and translating literature into the Kazakh language. Some translations made by him include Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector and Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. His famous works: Abay, The Path of Abay, The Hour of Trial, The Guard of Honor.