Who is James Blunt?

His life

James Hillier Blount, famous as James Blunt, is an English singer, songwriter and musician, and former army officer. He was born on 22 February 1974 at an army hospital in Tidworth, Wiltshire, England. He spent his childhood living in England, Cyprus, and Germany, while his father, a Colonel in the British Army Air Corps, and military helicopter pilot, was posted at various times. James Blunt has two younger siblings. His father instilled in him a love of flying, and he earned his pilot's licence at age 16. The Blount family has a long history of military service, dating from the 10th century. He became an officer in the Life Guards, a Cavalry regiment of the British Army, and served under NATO in Kosovo during the conflict there in 1999. While posted to Kosovo, Blunt was introduced to the work of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF or "Doctors Without Borders"). Since then, Blunt has supported MSF by holding meet-and-greet auctions at many of his concerts. He also fights for environmental causes.

His career

James Blunt's debut album, Back to Bedlam and single releases, including You're Beautiful and Goodbye My Lover, made him famous in 2005. His repertoire can be best described as a mix of acoustic-tinged pop, rock and folk. After recording on the independent American label Custard Records, Blunt won two BRIT Awards (the British Phonographic Industry's annual pop music awards), two Ivor Novello Awards (named after the Cardiff born entertainer Ivor Novello- These are awards for songwriting and composing), and by 2006 was nominated for five Grammy Awards. The following year, he released his second album All the Lost Souls (2007). Blunt's third studio album, Some Kind of Trouble, was released in November 2010. Worldwide, Blunt has sold over 15 million albums.

Who is Laurence Fishburne?

Laurence Fishburne

Laurence John Fishburne is an American actor of screen and stage, as well as a playwright, director, and producer. Fishburne was born in Augusta, Georgia, on July 30, 1961, the son of Hattie Bell, a junior high school mathematics and science teacher, and Laurence John Fishburne, Jr., a juvenile corrections officer. His parents divorced during his childhood and he moved with his mother to Brooklyn, New York.

Career

Layrence Fishburne started acting at the age of twelve, getting his first job in 1973 but his real career started during the 80s when he had a minor role in Steven Spielberg film The Color Purple. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Morpheus in the Matrix science fiction film trilogy, and as singer-musician Ike Turner in the Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do With It. He became the first African American to portray Othello in a motion picture by a major studio when he appeared in Oliver Parker's 1995 film adaption of the Shakespearean play. Currently, he stars as Dr. Raymond Langston on the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Family

Fishburne married actress Hajna O. Moss in 1985, in New York. They have two children together: a son, Langston, born in 1987, and a daughter, Montana, born in 1991, a pornographic actress. Fishburne is now married to actress Gina Torres, whom he wed on September 22, 2002. They have a child, Delilah (born in 2007), and live in Hollywood.

Scandal

Fishburne's daughter became a pornographic actress and released her first adult video. She told the press:

"I hope it's not hurting him. It wasn't done to hurt him," Montana tells PEOPLE. "But I think it will take time and talking through the issues. Eventually, I hope he will be proud of me."

Montana filmed the video, under the alias Chippy D, before telling her family, so they couldn't try to talk her out of it.

"Being in an adult film is not a big deal to me," Montana says. "It's something I always wanted to do. I have always been comfortable in my body and with my sexuality."

Laurence Fishburne reportedly reacted with "stunned silence" when he heard the news.

Project

Fishburne is a big fan of Paulo Coelho and plans to produce a movie based on the novel, The Alchemist.

Who is Aristotle?

Aristotle

Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), whose writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology, was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.

Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics.

Aristotle's life

• Aristotle was born in Stageira, Chalcidice, in 384 BC, about 55 km (34 miles) east of modern-day Thessaloniki. 
• His father Nicomachus was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. 
• Aristotle was trained and educated as a member of the aristocracy. 
• At about the age of eighteen, he went to Athens to continue his education at Plato's Academy. 
• Aristotle remained at the academy for nearly twenty years before quitting Athens in 348/47 BC.
• He then traveled with Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor. 
• Aristotle married Hermias's adoptive daughter (or niece) Pythias. 
• She bore him a daughter, whom they named Pythias. Soon after Hermias' death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander the Great in 343 BC
• Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave lessons not only to Alexander, but also to two other future kings: Ptolemy and Cassander. 
• By 335 BC he had returned to Athens, establishing his own school there known as the Lyceum. Aristotle conducted courses at the school for the next twelve years. *
• While in Athens, his wife Pythias died and Aristotle became involved with Herpyllis of Stageira, who bore him a son whom he named after his father, Nicomachus.
• It is during this period in Athens from 335 to 323 BC when Aristotle is believed to have composed many of his works.
• Aristotle not only studied almost every subject possible at the time, but made significant contributions to most of them.
• The works that have survived are in treatise which include Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul) and Poetics. 
•  Near the end of Alexander's life, Alexander began to suspect plots against himself, and threatened Aristotle in letters. A widespread tradition in antiquity suspected Aristotle of playing a role in Alexander's death, but there is little evidence for this
•  Upon Alexander's death, anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens once again flared. Aristotle fled the city to his mother's family estate in Chalcis, explaining, "I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy, a reference to Athens's prior trial and execution of Socrates.
• However, he died in Euboea of natural causes within the year (in 322 BC). Aristotle named chief executor his student Antipater and left a will in which he asked to be buried next to his wife. 

Source: Wikipedia

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Who is Antoine de Saint-Exupery

• Saint-Exupery, Antoine de (1900-1944), was a French writer and aviator. He is best known for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince), and for his books about aviation adventures, including Night Flight and Wind, Sand and Stars.
• He was a successful commercial pilot before World War II, 
• He joined the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force) on the outbreak of war.
• He disappeared on a reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean in July 1944.

Early life

• Antoine de Saint Exupéry was born in Lyon to an old family of provincial nobility, the third of five children of Marie de Fonscolombe and Viscount Jean de Saint Exupéry, an insurance broker who died before his son was even four.
• After failing his final exams at preparatory school, Saint-Exupéry entered the École des Beaux-Arts to study architecture.
• In 1921, Saint Exupery began his military service with the 2nd Regiment of Chasseurs (light cavalry), and was then sent to Strasbourg for training as a pilot. 
• The following year, he obtained his license and was offered transfer to the air force. 
• He became one of the pioneers of international postal flight, in the days when aircraft had few instruments.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery's Crash

On 30 December 1935 at 14:45 after a flight of 19 hours and 38 minutes Saint-Exupéry, along with his navigator, André Prévot, crashed in the Libyan Sahara desert en route to Saigon.They survived the crash and Exupéry's fable The Little Prince, which begins with a pilot being marooned in the desert, is in part a reference to this experience.

Selected books

• L'aviateur (The Aviator, 1926)
• Courrier sud (Southern Mail, 1929)
• Vol de nuit (Night Flight, 1931) 
• Terre des Hommes (Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939)
• Pilote de Guerre (Flight to Arras, 1942 )
• Lettre à un Otage (Letter to a Hostage, 1943) 
• Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince, 1943)
• Citadelle (The Wisdom of the Sands, posthumous - 1948),

who is Tahar Benjeloun?

Tahar Benjeloun is a Moroccan novelist and poet. The entirety of his work is written in French, although his first language is Arabic.

Early life and studies

• Tahar benjeloun was born in Fes on December 1st, 1944.
• After first having attended the local coranic school, he switched to the bilingual (French-Moroccan) primary school the age of 6.
• Ben Jalloun studied French in Tangier, Morocco until he was 18 years old.
• He obtained my baccalaureate in 1963 and continued his studies in philosophy at Mohammed-V University in Rabat.
• On March 23, 1965 because of student demonstrations in larger Moroccan cities there were a lot of repression and arrests.
• On July 1966 his philosophy studies were interrupted; he was sent to a disciplinary camp run by the army together with 94 other students suspected of having organized the March 65 demonstrations.
• In January 1968, he was liberated and returned to university.
• In October 1968 he got his first teaching assignment. The same year he published his first poem “l’Aube des dalles” in the magazine “Souffles”. He wrote the poem in secret at the camp.
• After this point, he worked as a teacher in Morocco, teaching philosophy first in Tetouan and then in Casablanca. 
• Then he left teaching after the arabization of the philosophy department, unable or unwilling to teach in Arabic. He moved to Paris to continue his studies in psychology, and began to write more extensively. 
• Starting in 1972, he began to write articles and reviews for the French newspaper [Le Monde], and in 1975 he received his doctorate in social psychiatry. Using his experience with psychotherapy as both a reference and an inspiration, he wrote the book La Réclusion solitaire in 1976.
• n 1985 he published the novel "L'Enfant de sable," which was widely celebrated. He won the Prix Goncourt in 1987 for his novel La Nuit Sacrée. 
• In 1997 he saw his novel Le Racisme expliqué à ma fille published, wherein he "explains racism to his daughter," using his family as inspiration for his novels. Ben Jalloun is regularly asked to give speeches and lectures at universities worldwide - both in Morocco, and all over Europe.
• In 2004 he was awarded the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for This Blinding Absence of Light (translated from the French by Linda Coverdale). He was rewarded the Prix Ulysse in 2005 for the entirety of his work
• In September 2006, he was awarded a special prize for "peace and friendship between people" at Lazio between Europe and the Mediterranean Festival.
• On 1 February 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy awarded him the Cross of Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur.
• Ben Jelloun is married and father of 4 children. He lives in Paris.
• In his novel, Leaving Tangier, Ben Jelloun writes about a Moroccan brother and sister who leave their impoverished home in search of better lives in Spain.
• His novels L'Enfant de sable and La Nuit sacrée are translated into 43 languages. Le racism expliqué à ma fille has been translated into 33 languages. He has participated in translating many of his works.  

Selected works

• Solitaire (1976)
• The Sand Child (1985)
• The Sacred Night (1987)
• Silent Day in Tangiers (1990)
• With Downcast Eyes (1991)
• Corruption (1995)
• The Fruits of Hard Work (1996)
• Praise of Friendship (1996)
• L'Auberge des pauvres, (1997)
• Racism Explained to My Daughter (1998)
• Islam Explained (2002)
• This Blinding Absence of Light (2003)
• La Belle au bois dormant, (2004)
• The last friend, (2006)
• Yemma, (2007)
• Leaving Tangier, (2009)
• The Rising of the Ashes, (2009)

Source:Wikipedia and Tahar Benjelloun's official site

Gabriel García Márquez

 

Gabriel García Márquez

• Gabriel García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist.  
• García Márquez, affectionately known as Gabo throughout Latin America, is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. 

Early life

• Gabriel José de la Concordia "Gabo" García Márquez was born March 6, 1927.
• When his parents fell in love, their relationship met with resistance from Luisa Santiaga Marquez's father, the Colonel. 
• Gabriel Eligio García was not the man the Colonel had envisioned winning the heart of his daughter: he (Gabriel Eligio) was a Conservative, and had the reputation of being a womanizer.
• He was brought up by his grandparents who had an important influence on his education.
  

Success

• In 1958, he married Mercedes Barcha; they have two sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo.
•  He pursued a self-directed education that resulted in his leaving law school for a career in journalism.
•  He started as a journalist, and has written many acclaimed non-fiction works and short stories, but is best-known for his novels, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985).
• From early on, he showed no inhibitions in his criticism of Colombian and foreign politics.
• Gabriel García Márquez was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. 
• His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style labeled as magical realism, which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations. 
• Some of his works are set in a fictional village called Macondo, and most of them express the theme of solitude.

Illness

• Gabriel García Márquez was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 1999. 
• His impeding death was was incorrectly announced by Peruvian daily newspaper in 2000. 
• Later newspapers published Garcia Marquez’s alleged farewell poem, “La Marioneta” (“the puppet”). 
• However shortly afterwards García Márquez denied being the author of the poem. 
• In fact, it was was the work of a Mexican ventriloquist. The poem is republished below. I think it may constitute a very good piece of material to teach English.

Works

Novels

• In Evil Hour 1962
• One Hundred Years of Solitude 1967
• The Autumn of the Patriarch 1975
• Love in the Time of Cholera 1985
• The General in His Labyrinth 1989
• Of Love and Other Demons 1994

Novellas

• Leaf Storm 1955
• No One Writes to the Colonel published 1961 in Spanish (written in 1956-1957)
• Chronicle of a Death Foretold 1981
• Memories of My Melancholy Whores 2004

Short Story Collections

• Innocent Eréndira, and Other Stories 1978
• Collected Stories 1984
• Strange Pilgrims 1993

Non Fiction

• The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor 1970
• The Solitude of Latin America 1982
• The Fragrance of Guava 1982, with Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza
• Clandestine in Chile 1986
• News of a Kidnapping 1996
• A Country for Children 1998
• Living to Tell the Tale 2002

Related Links about Gabriel García Márquez

• Wikipedia
• Gabriel García Márquez - Alleged poem

Who is Ernest Hemingway?

Ernest Hemingway

• Ernest Hemingway was born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois on July 21, 1899.
• He was an American writer and journalist.
• When he left high school, he worked for a few months as a reporter.
• He later became an ambulance driver during World War I.
• His first novel, The Sun Also Rises>, was written in 1924.
• He returned to the United Sates in the following year because he was seriously wounded.
• Ernest Hemingway married 4 times.
  
• He first married Hadley Richardson in 1922 with whom he travelled to Paris.
• In Paris he met famous expatriate who who formed a community called the lost generation.
• After divorcing Hadley Richardson in 1927 Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer.
• They divorced following Hemingway's return from covering the Spanish Civil War.
• After the Spanish Civil war he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls.
• He then married Martha Gellhorn in 1940, but he left her for Mary Welsh Hemingway after World War II,
• During World War II, was present at D-Day and the liberation of Paris.
• In 1952 Hemingway went on safari to Africa, where he was almost killed in a plane crash that left him in pain or ill-health for much of the rest of his life.
• Before he went to Africa, he published The Old Man and the Sea. for which he got a Nobel Prize in 1954.
  
• In 1959 he moved from Cuba to Idaho, where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961.
• Hemingway's distinctive writing is called the iceberg theory is characterized by economy and understatement.
• Hemingway's fiction is considered successful because the characters he presents exhibit an authenticity that reverberates with the audience.

Works

Some of Ernest hemingway's works:

• "Indian Camp" (1926)
• The Sun Also Rises (1927)
• A Farewell to Arms (1929)
• "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" (1935)
• For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
• The Old Man and the Sea (1951)
• True at First Light (1999)

Who is Charles Baudelaire?

Charles Pierre Baudelaire

• Charles Baudelaire was born on April 9, 1821.
• He died on August 31, 1867.
• He was a nineteenth-century French poet, critic, and translator.
• Famous for his book of poetry Les fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil)
• Baudelaire's father, François Baudelaire, a senior civil servant and amateur artist, was 34 years older than his mother, Caroline.
  
• Baudelaire's father died during his childhood and remained very close to his mother.
• Charles Baudelaire's relationship with his mother was comlex and dominated his life.
• His mother married Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Aupick a year after his father's death.
• Charles Baudelaire was forced to to board away from his mother (even during holidays) and accept his stepfather's rigid methods.
• Baudelaire
  
• Baudelaire's stepfather was concerned about his future.
• At 18 years old, Charles was still undecided about his future.
• He began to frequent prostitutes.
  
• Trying to change Charles' mind and behavior, his stepfather sent him to India.
• The arduous trip, however, did nothing to turn Baudelaire's mind away from a literary career or from his casual attitude toward life.
• He retuned home and spent a life of and squandred his money and his inheritance and even gone into depth.
• The most important work Baudelaire wrote was "Les fleurs du mal". When it was first published it was criticised and found a small, appreciative audience. But later "Les fleurs du mal" was supported by a number of notables like Victor Hugo and Flaubert
  

Charles Baudelaire's Work

BEAUTY
by: Charles Baudelaire

AM as lovely as a dream in stone,

And this my heart where each finds death in turn,

Inspires the poet with a love as lone

As clay eternal and as taciturn.




Swan-white of heart, a sphinx no mortal knows,

My throne is in the heaven's azure deep;

I hate all movements that disturb my pose,

I smile not ever, neither do I weep.




Before my monumental attitudes,

That breathe a soul into the plastic arts,

My poets pray in austere studious moods,




For I, to fold enchantment round their hearts,

Have pools of light where beauty flames and dies,

The placid mirrors of my luminous eyes.

'Beauty' is reprinted from The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire. Ed. James Huneker. New York: Brentano's, 1919.
More poems here:
Poems by Charles Baudelaire