World's Most Famous Writers Were Engaged In Their 20s

We do not often think of Samuel Beckett, Edith Wharton, Toni Morrison and other writers, as a 20-year-old young men and women, but before they took their seats in the literary hall of fame, these well-known authors have struggled with minor and self-doubt, as we do today. By Franz Kafka and Thomas Mann to Cheryl Streyed and Stephen King, events in the life of these writers that have occurred to them for their twenties, soothe, inspire, and - if you aspire to become a writer yourself - give you a detailed motivational kick.  

1. Edith Wharton.  

In 1885, at the age of 23 years, Edith Jones married Edward Wharton, thus creating a 30-year-old union, which most biografistov called "disastrous." Edward suffered from terrible depression, but both managed to achieve success in life. But the first decade of marriage was not for Wharton quite so awful. Her famous novels are "House of Joy" and "Ethan Frome", rife with romantic outbursts and inner rise is feelings which, of course, gave her first years of marriage.  

2. Samuel Beckett.  

Career Beckett got the jump early in his twenties when he came under the tutelage ancestor modernism of James Joyce. Beckett assisted Joyce in Finnegan's study should be, and his first published work, written in 1929, at age 23, was a critical analysis of Joyce's "Dante ... Bruno. Vico ... Joyce. "  

3. Zudi Smith.  

Novice writers, prepare to hate themselves: Debut novel and smash hit Zudi Smith's "White Fang" was released when the British author was only 24 years old. The book was auctioned to publishers as a manuscript three years before, while Smith was unmoving at Cambridge. She received an advance of £ 250,000.  

4. Franz Kafka.  

Difficulties Kafka during his twenties will resonate with any writer, struggling to focus on his craft while maintaining a full time job. At age 24, he worked at several jobs, including the processing of insurance claims, also sold   telesopy   and sovmestistelstvu asbestos factory manager. Given his commitment to writing and marked aversion to social interaction, Kafka was angry from work, even though she helped him evade military conscription in 1915. In any case, he was able to write a novel, ponemnogo only a few hours a day, but it ended up "America" ​​about 1912, in 29, although it was not published until his death. It remains one of his most widely read work.  

5. Stephen King.  

Career At King horror had a bad start. After graduating from the University of Maine in 1970, the author of thrillers made ​​a living as a "blue collar" and selling short stories to men's magazines. He has had problems with alcohol, and he threw the manuscript of his first novel published in the trash, but his wife regained her and persuaded to show publishers. That novel, "Carrie", was published in 1973, when Stephen was only 26 years old. He earned $ 400,000 for him alone on the rights to the book in paperback and continues to be one of his most beloved works.  

6. Norman Mailer.  

If Norman Mailer's biography you've ever run into the definition of "proud", it is clearly about him. A native of New Jersey was a shy, precocious writer who published his first short story at age 18, and compared himself to Theodore Dreiser. His novel "The Naked and the Dead," in print when he was just 25 years old, remains one of the most respected novels about World War II all the time. But soon the fate taught him a lesson: His next two novels, "Barbary Shore" and "Deer Park", published at the end of his third and early fourth dozens were sharply criticized.  

7. Thomas Mann.  

German author Thomas Mann published his first novel, the epic "Buddenbrooks", in 1901, when he was only 26 years old. At more than 700 pages, he describes generation of German merchant family and a large plot, taken from the history of his own clan Mann. By the time he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929, homosexual novelist wrote several other works, such as "The Magic Mountain" and "Death in Venice", which was perhaps better known. But due to the conservatism of the awards ceremony, he was presented only this early (and undeniably great) work.  

8. Susan Sontag.  

At 24 Susan Sontag was already married, had a child and has established itself in the academic environment of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sontag knew that her professional and domestic unpretentiousness of it does not come close to the true desire to write fiction. Therefore, in the mid-twenties, she went to Paris, where he joined the avant-garde writers and thinkers, continued business and developed a particularly critical approach that has made ​​her a sensation in the intellectual States. Glory finally found her when she was at the age of 31, and published her 1964 essay "Notes on Camp."  

9. John Updike.  

John Updike may take the prize for the most beautiful job after college in the recent history of literature. After graduating from Harvard with honors, in 1954, he went to work in The New Yorker on the advice of EB White, which Updike met on drawing lessons in England. Thankless and difficult job it was not: Updike wrote reviews for the magazine for two years, until the birth of his son was not forced him to move to the suburbs.  

10. Don DeLillo.  

Supporters escape from corporate hell can find a brother in spirit in Don DeLillo, author of "White Noise," "Angel Esmeralda" & "Underworld". After graduate from Fordham in 1958, DeLillo went to work in the New York advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather as a composer of advertising slogans and worked there for five years. When he left in 1964 at age 28, his friends suggested that he wanted to devote himself to writing. But DeLillo said, "I leave my job to go to the movies on weekdays."  

11. Cheryl Streyd.  

Several setbacks, including the death of his mother and nasty, drawn-out divorce, spodvigli Streyd in 26 years to make a trip to the more than 1,000 miles along the Pacific coast alone. It was a crazy idea, you can even say wild, but the events of travel and the ability to penetrate into the essence of things and the wisdom that she has acquired, make it one of the most sincere of American writers. 

12. Ernest Hemingway.  

Shortly after marrying his first wife, Hadley Richardson, in 1921, 23-year-old Hemingway moved to Paris, where he dominated modernism. Although he worked as a foreign correspondent, to earn money, his true occupation (as recorded in his biography) was what eventually became known as the "Lost Generation." He published his first novel "The Sun Also rise" in early 1926, at his age of 27 years.  

13. Toni Morrison.  

receive the Nobel Prize author of "Beloved" and "Sula" start writing career as an academic, and most of the twenties had spent studying or teaching at universities. After graduating from Harvard in 1953, she continued to receive an education at Cornell, where she wrote theses on the subject of suicide in the works of Virginia Woolf & William Faulkner. She then return to Howard at the early age of 26 years, to teach English, and it was a time when she began to develop the idea for his first novel, "The Bluest Eye." The novel was not published until 1970, when Morrison was 39 years old.  

14. Christopher Hitchens.  

Poison "antiteist" wasted no time wasted. After graduating from Oxford in 1971, he worked in a number of news outlets, including the International Socialism, Times Higher Education Supplement and the New Statesman, where he met with Martin Amis & Ian McEwan. They remained friends for life.  

15. James Baldwin.  

In 1948, wanting to avoid rampant prejudice against blacks and gays in America, 24-year-old James Baldwin moved to Paris. Although he remained in France most of his adult life, the distance helped him to get a glimpse of his life in New York. His first published novel, "Go Tell it on the Mountain", semi auto biographical story of life in Harlem, which was published when he was 29 years old.  

16. George Bernard Shaw.  

Hard to imagine the playwright "Pygmalion". Who spend a period of life on something less grandiose? But the show, like many in his 20-plus years spent on heavy office work. At age 14 he left school and went to work in the office of a real estate agent, and continued to hold such jobs to 23 years old when he left his job in the Edison Telephone Company, to live with his mother at London and then he write. The first play of his life, "The House of a widower" debuted only 16 years later.  

17. Gore Vidal.  

Biography Gore Vidal novel known as "Who's Who in America." His entourage included politicians, military heroes, Broadway actresses and foster home Jacqueline Onassis. Aspiring writer found himself in the company early, when he published his first novel, "Williwaw" in 1921 and the following "The City and the Pillar" two years later. This - the last book, which describes the fate of Vidal and as a literary superstar, and as unflappable homosexual writer in the middle of the 20th century, in which contempt for homosexuality remained the norm.  

18. Janet Wall.  

Author "Castle Of Glass" Janet Wall dispels doubt that poluzapuschennaya journalistic work can pave the way to writing. With 27 years of Wall column headed "Secret Agent" in New York magazine before becoming the voice of gossip columns MSNBC.  

19. F. Scott Fitzgerald.  

In early twenties while living in Alabama at the end of the First World War, Fitzgerald fell in love with Zelda Sayre, debutante society Montgomery. To get her hand and heart, Fitzgerald had to prove that it can be financially secure. His first attempt to make money after the war was the creation of advertisements in New York, but he failed. But when Fitzgerald published his first novel, "This Side of Paradise" at 23 years old, the family Zelda finally gave them a blessing.  

20. Jack London.  

In 1897, at age 21, Jack London sailed with his brother-in Alaska in order to participate to the Gold Rush. This did not make them rich, and London got scurvy, which resulted in the loss of four teeth. But experience has given inspiration to some of the earliest stories of London and filled born in San Francisco writer lifelong admiration Alaska.