Liu Xiaobo, a prominent independent intellectual in China, is a long-time advocate of political reform and human rights in China and an outspoken critic of the Chinese communist regime; Liu has been detained, put under house arrest and imprisoned many times for his writing and activism. According to his lawyers’ defence statement in his 2009…

His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is the spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people. He was born in a small village called Taktser in northeastern Tibet. Born to a peasant family, His Holiness was recognized at the age of two, in accordance with Tibetan tradition, as the reincarnation of his predecessor…

I was born in the city of Hamadan [northwestern Iran] in 1947. My family were academics and practising Muslims. At the time of my birth my father was the head of Hamedan’s Registry Office. My father, Mohammad Ali Ebadi, one of the first lecturers in commercial law, had written several books. He passed away in…

  Le Duc Tho did not submit a biography.

Tobias Michael Carel Asser (April 28, 1838-July 29, 1913) was born in Amsterdam into a family with a tradition in the field of law, both his father and his grandfather having been well-established lawyers and his uncle having served as the Dutch minister of justice. A brilliant student, young Asser won a competition in 1857…

Mo Yan – The Story of My Life I was born on the 25 of March 1956* into a peasant family in the Ping’an Village Production Brigade of the Heya People’s Commune, Northeast Gaomi Township, Shandong Province, the People’s Republic of China. The youngest of four children, I have two older brothers and a sister.…

Frits Zernike was born in Amsterdam, 16th July 1888, as the second son in a family of six children. His father, Carl Frederick August Zernike, was teacher in mathematics and head of a primary school in Amsterdam, and was a highly gifted man having interests in many branches of science; he compiled numerous elementary books…

By Andy Crump. In Japan’s rural Yamanashi prefecture in the mid-1930s, times were harsh and resources were scarce. The local environment had to provide all the  agrarian communities with most of the necessities that they needed for survival. This constituted a valuable and unforgettable lesson for Satoshi Ōmura during his formative years. A oneness with,…

I was born in Springside, a village close to Todmorden in west Yorkshire on July 14th, 1921. The house where I was born and indeed most of the village has been demolished by the local council as being unfit for habitation. My father, and his father, also Geoffrey, were both master house painters and decorators,…

I was born on September 23, 1915 to my parents, David H. and Daisy B. Shull, in the section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, known as Glenwood, which obviously relates to their selection of my middle name. I was preceded by an older sister, Evalyn May, and an older brother, Perry Leo, so that I grew up…