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The Biography Portal

Biography (from the Greek words bíos (βίος), meaning 'life', and gráphein (γράφειν), meaning 'to write') is a genre of literature or film which presents a relatively full account of the most interesting and important events of a notable person's life. While a biography may focus on a fictional person, the term usually refers to non-fiction works. As opposed to summaries of people's lives, such as profiles or curriculum vitae, a biography is a continuous narrative which interprets and explains the person's character, personality, and social context.

Featured biography

Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, Brahmo philosopher, visual artist, playwright, composer, and novelist whose avant-garde works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A celebrated cultural icon of Bengal, he became Asia's first Nobel laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature. His home schooling, life in Shelidah, and extensive travels made Tagore an iconoclastic pragmatist; however, growing disillusionment with the British Raj caused the internationalist Tagore to back the Indian Independence Movement and befriend Mahatma Gandhi. Despite the loss of virtually his entire works included Gitanjali and Ghare-Baire, while his verse, short stories, and novels — many defined by rhythmic lyricism, colloquial language, meditative naturalism, and philosophical contemplation — received worldwide acclaim. (read more...)

Selected portrait

The only known photograph of Frédéric François Chopin (IPA: [fʁedeʁik fʁɑ̃swa ʃɔpɛ̃]), (March 1, 1810¹ – October 17, 1849). Chopin was a Polish piano composer of the Romantic period, widely regarded as one of the most famous, influential and prolific composers for piano, and Poland's most significant composer. (read more...)

Photograph believed to have been taken by Louis-Auguste Bisson in 1849.

¹Some sources give February 22, for an explanation see here.

Did you know...

• 
  ... that botanist Thomas Frederic Cheeseman (pictured) had a wide range of interests: he also described a few species of marine gastropods?
• ... former Regimental Sergeant Major Harry Lapwood was known as having the loudest voice in the New Zealand House of Representatives?
• ... that in 1951, Bulgarian politician and exile G. M. Dimitrov helped found the first Bulgarian NATO company?
• ... that Edith Killgore Kirkpatrick published a short book of favorite songs titled Louisiana Let's Sing in honor of her husband Claude's unsuccessful candidacy for Governor of Louisiana in 1963?
• ... that canal engineer Hugh Henshall was both pupil of and brother-in-law to James Brindley, the famous canal architect of the Industrial Revolution?
• ... that it took Peter Steinfeld six and a half weeks to write the opening eleven pages of his first screenplay, Drowning Mona?

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See also: Biographies of living persons • Manual of Style (biographies)

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On this day – January 7

Births

• 1800 - Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the United States (d. 1874)
• 1891 - Zora Neale Hurston, American author (d. 1960) (pictured)
• 1939 - Maury Povich, American TV host
• 1939 - Prince Michael of Greece and Denmark
• 1957 - Katie Couric, American television host
• 1964 - Nicolas Cage, American actor

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• 1536 - Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII of England (b. 1485)
• 1619 - Nicholas Hilliard, English painter (bc. 1547)
• 1920 - Edmund Barton, first Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1849)
• 1943 - Nikola Tesla, Serbian-born inventor and electrical engineer (b. 1856)
• 1989 - Hirohito, Emperor of Japan (b. 1901)

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