Find Biographies - Author Info - ENGL 112 Introduction to Fiction - Green River LibGuides at Green River College

Learn about your Author

Researching your Author

You can start your research by reading about your author and the times in which they lived. Consider the databases linked below as a starting place.

Using Gale Literature

Gale Literary Sources has a range of information on literature.

You can find:

Author interviews
Author and work overviews
Reviews
Critical biographies
Scholarly literary criticism

Gale Literature This link opens in a new window
Search for literary work overviews and author biographies plus scholarly literary criticism and analysis of authors and their works - novels, short stories, poetry, and drama including Shakespeare plays.

Search Tips

To get started with author biographies and interviews search by author name
When you see a list of results, you can then limit by document type as shown in the image below.
- Here, the search is limited to just Biographies
Notice the various tools to the right of the results - here you can see more options to limit by document type, specific works, and more.

(click on image to enlarge)

Using Biography in Context

Use the library's Biography in Context database to find information on your author. This database contains over 700,000 biographies!

Biography in Context (Gale) This link opens in a new window
Full-text reference entries, magazine and journal articles, primary sources, videos, podcasts, and images covering a vast array of people from historically significant figures to present-day news makers.

Search Tips

Search this database by searching for an author's name or use the Browse People tool to see a list of names by topic/theme.

(click on image to enlarge)

Author Names

Things to Consider

A Note About Names

Authors can be known by several names, especially when names are transliterated, or translated from another alphabet. This means that there is no "official" way to spell them in English. Do the work to find any and all possible spellings of your author's name! For example:

Gao X = Gao Xingjian = Kao Hsing-chien = Xingjian Gao!

author gao X

A Note About Translations

You may read stories originally written in another language. You should know the original, non-English title as it may help you find information on the story.

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings = Un Senor Muy Viejo con Unas Alas Enormes

A Note About Original Publication

It might help you to know where your story was originally published. While you may not be able to find references to your short story, you may be able to find references to the book in which it was originally published.

Saboteur published in the book The Bridegroom

Image sources:

Ekstromer, Jonas. Gao Xingjian, 2000. 2000. Encyclopædia Britannica,

www.britannica.com/biography/ Gao-Xingjian#/media/1/735572/181016. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020.

Book cover for 'A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings'. Goodreads, www.goodreads.com/book/show/

34675665-a-very-old-man-with-enormous-wings. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020.

Book cover for 'he Bridegroom: Stories'. Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/335

61.The_Bridegroom? from_search=true&from_srp=true&

qid=grtnfNaaiJ&rank=1. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020.