Many works, including Siddhartha (1922) and Steppenwolf (1927), of German-born Swiss writer Hermann Hesse concern the struggle of the individual to find wholeness and meaning in life; he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1946. Other best-known works of this poet, novelist, and painter include The Glass Bead Game , which, also known as Magister Ludi, explore a search of an individual for spirituality outside society. In his time, Hesse was a popular and influential author in the German-speaking world; worldwide fame only came later. Young Germans desiring a different and more "natural" way of life at the time of great economic and technological progress in the country, received enthusiastically Peter Camenzind , first great novel of Hesse. Throughout Germany, people named many schools. In 1964, people founded the Calwer Hermann-Hesse-Preis, awarded biennially, alternately to a German-language literary journal or to the translator of work of Hesse to a foreign language. The city of Karlsruhe, Germany, also associates a Hermann Hesse prize.

John Hoyer Updike was an American writer. Updike's most famous work is his Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and Rabbit Remembered). Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest both won Pulitzer Prizes for Updike. Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class," Updike is well known for his careful craftsmanship and prolific writing, having published 22 novels and more than a dozen short story collections as well as poetry, literary criticism and children's books. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems have appeared in The New Yorker since the 1950s. His works often explore sex, faith, and death, and their inter-relationships. He died of lung cancer at age 76.

Антон Павлович Чехов (English: Anton Chekhov) (17 [29] января 1860, Таганрог, Екатеринославская губерния (теперь Ростовская область) – 2 [15] июля 1904, Баденвайлер) – русский писатель, общепризнанный классик мировой литературы. По профессии врач. Почётный академик Императорской Академии наук по Разряду изящной словесности (1900–1902). Один из самых известных драматургов мира. Его произведения переведены более чем на 100 языков. Его пьесы, в особенности "Чайка", "Три сестры" и "Вишнёвый сад", на протяжении более 100 лет ставятся во многих театрах мира. За 25 лет творчества Чехов создал около 900 различных произведений (коротких юмористических рассказов, серьёзных повестей, пьес), многие из которых стали классикой мировой литературы. Особенное внимание обратили на себя "Степь", "Скучная история", "Дуэль", "Палата № 6", "Рассказ неизвестного человека", "Мужики" (1897), "Человек в футляре" (1898), "В овраге", "Детвора", "Драма на охоте"; из пьес: "Иванов", "Чайка", "Дядя Ваня", "Три сестры", "Вишнёвый сад". Страница автора на других языках: Anton Chekhov أنطون تشيخوف