Famous Writers: Ranked by Popularity (Page 20 of 20) | Who Shares My BirthdayThe most famous writers in history, ranked by historical popularity: novelists, poets and playwrights with their birthdays and best-known works.A writer becomes notable when their words keep finding new readers. Many of the names on this list wrote books, poems or plays that are still taught in schools, translated into dozens of languages and adapted for stage and screen. Others shaped how people think about politics, faith or society.This list covers the novelists, poets, playwrights, essayists and other authors in our database, from ancient poets to contemporary bestsellers. We rank them by historical popularity rather than by literary prizes, so the order shows whose work and lives the world still reads about most.Who is included: everyone in our database whose primary occupation matches this list. Each person must have an English Wikipedia article and a full date of birth recorded on Wikidata. A growing share of people also have an original profile, written to our editorial rules and marked with a Last reviewed date.Most famous writer: Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Highest historical popularity score (HPI 93.2).Most common birth month: November. 93 of 973 were born in November.Living vs deceased: 134 / 839. 14% are still living.Most common nationality: American. 193 people, 20% of the list.Editor-written profiles: 307. 32% have a full original profile so far.951. Rupi Kaur (1992), Canadian: Indian-born Canadian poet whose Milk and Honey made her the leading star of Instagram poetry.952. Sally Rooney (1991), Irish: Irish novelist behind Normal People and Conversations with Friends, celebrated for sharp stories of young love and class.953. Colleen Hoover (1979), American: American novelist whose books, including It Ends with Us and Verity, became huge bestsellers thanks to TikTok.954. Leïla Slimani (1981), French: French-Moroccan novelist who won the Prix Goncourt for Lullaby, a thriller about a deadly nanny.955. Veronica Roth (1988), American: American novelist whose Divergent trilogy became a bestselling young adult series and a Hollywood film franchise.956. Marie Kondō (1984), Japanese: Japanese tidying expert whose KonMari method of keeping what sparks joy became a worldwide phenomenon.957. Madeline Miller (1978), American: American novelist who retold ancient Greek myths in the bestselling novels The Song of Achilles and Circe.958. Yaa Gyasi (1989), Ghanaian: Ghanaian writer959. Édouard Louis (1992), French: French novelist whose autobiographical books, starting with The End of Eddy, explore class, sexuality and violence.960. Alejandro Rejón Huchin (1997), Mexican: Mexican poet and cultural organiser from Mérida in the Yucatán.961. Alice Oseman (1994), British: English author and illustrator who created Heartstopper, the queer love story that became a hit Netflix series.962. Caroline Criado-Perez (1984), British: British feminist author, journalist and activist963. Lucas Rijneveld (1991), Dutch: Dutch writer whose debut novel The Discomfort of Evening made him the youngest winner of the International Booker Prize.964. Tahereh Mafi (1988), American: Iranian-American author of the bestselling Shatter Me series and A Very Large Expanse of Sea.965. Abby Stein (1991), American: American former Hasidic rabbi and author of Becoming Eve, a leading voice for trans people of faith.966. Alexis Jenni (1963), French: French novelist and biology teacher967. Anna Todd (1989), American: American novelist whose Wattpad story After became a bestselling book series and a popular film franchise.968. Claudia Rankine (1963), American: Jamaican-American poet, essayist, playwright, and the editor of several anthologies969. Jenna Bush Hager (1981), American: American TV host and author, daughter of George W. Bush, who co-hosts NBC's Today and runs Read with Jenna.970. Yahya Hassan (1995–2020), Danish: Danish poet of Palestinian descent whose fierce debut collection became a national bestseller and sparked fierce debate.971. Deborah Feldman (1986), American: American-German writer whose memoir Unorthodox, about leaving her Hasidic community, became an award-winning Netflix series.972. Irving Finkel (1951), British: English philologist and Assyriologist973. Joan Carreras i Goicoechea (1962), Spanish: Spanish journalist, screenwriter and writer in the Catalan languageHow we rank and selectRanking: people are ordered by their Historical Popularity Index (HPI) from Pantheon. HPI combines how many Wikipedia language editions have an article about a person, how many page views those articles get, how evenly the views are spread across languages and how long ago the person lived. People Pantheon does not yet cover are listed after them, ordered by our own popularity score (the number of Wikipedia language editions with an article about them).Membership: each person appears in one occupation list only, based on their primary occupation as classified by Pantheon (for example, a queen who wrote poetry is listed as royalty, not as a writer). Kings, queens, emperors, sultans and royal consorts are not listed as politicians or writers: anyone who held a monarch's office on Wikidata, and never served as a president or head of government, counts as royalty. For the few people Pantheon does not cover, we use the primary field recorded in our database.One-line summaries: each summary is an original line written for this site with AI assistance under our editorial rules, then checked against the Wikipedia introduction so no wording is copied.Statistics: every figure on this page is calculated live from our database each time the page loads, so it changes as we add people.Last reviewed: October 2026Sources: Pantheon: Historical Popularity Index (HPI) rankings, Wikidata: birth dates, death dates and occupations, Wikipedia: biographies behind our summaries and popularity scores. Who Shares My Birthday.

Madeline Miller

Alejandro Rejón Huchin

Caroline Criado-Perez

Lucas Rijneveld

Claudia Rankine

Jenna Bush Hager

Deborah Feldman

Joan Carreras i Goicoechea

Who Shares My Birthday.

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Famous Writers

The best-known novelists, poets and playwrights in our archive, ranked by historical popularity.

974 writers in our database, ranked by historical popularity. Page 20 of 20.

Most famous writer

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Highest historical popularity score (HPI 93.2)

Most common birth month

November

93 of 974 were born in November

Living vs deceased

135 / 839

14% are still living

Most common nationality

American

194 people, 20% of the list

Editor-written profiles

307

32% have a full original profile so far

The ranked list (from #951)

How we rank and select

Ranking: people are ordered by their Historical Popularity Index (HPI) from Pantheon. HPI combines how many Wikipedia language editions have an article about a person, how many page views those articles get, how evenly the views are spread across languages and how long ago the person lived. People Pantheon does not yet cover are listed after them, ordered by our own popularity score (the number of Wikipedia language editions with an article about them).
Membership: each person appears in one occupation list only, based on their primary occupation as classified by Pantheon (for example, a queen who wrote poetry is listed as royalty, not as a writer). Kings, queens, emperors, sultans and royal consorts are not listed as politicians or writers: anyone who held a monarch's office on Wikidata, and never served as a president or head of government, counts as royalty. For the few people Pantheon does not cover, we use the primary field recorded in our database.
One-line summaries: each summary is an original line written for this site with AI assistance under our editorial rules, then checked against the Wikipedia introduction so no wording is copied.
Statistics: every figure on this page is calculated live from our database each time the page loads, so it changes as we add people.

Further reading

Reviewed by the Who Shares My Birthday editorial team.

Last reviewed: October 2026

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