||||| Claude Levi-Strauss
20th century's leading ethnologist, anthropologist and member of the Academie Francaise. Since the 1930s, he has conducted his fieldwork in Brazil and elsewhere. He established "structuralism" with his writings Elementary Structures of Kinship, Tristes Tropiques, and The Savage Mind, which had enormous impact on all fields of modern philosophy. Born in 1908.
||||| Freeman Dyson
Astrophysicist. Born in England in 1923 and now living in the United States. He discovered an equation to integrate the theory of relativity and quantum dynamics (Dyson's equation) at the age of twenty-four. He is known to be one of the most important theoretical physicists of the 20th century. Dyson has profound knowledge in many fields such as science, art, religion, and philosophy and has thus gained wisdom to speak on the future of mankind from the cosmological perspective. Dyson is the author of many books, including Infinite in All Directions, Disturbing the Universe, and Imagined Worlds. He received the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 2000.
||||| Zheng Yi
Born in 1947. Zheng Yi is a leading writer from the Chinese Cultural Revolution generation. In 1968, he was sent away to mountain villages and coalmines to engage in physical labor for several years in Shanxi province. He went back to his education in 1977 and published his first book in 1979. Zheng Yi's literary acclaim was established with Old Well in 1985. After the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, he hid from the government in various locations in China and escaped to the United States in 1993.
"SHENSHU" (1996) is reviewed as a Chinese One Hundred Years of Solitude.
||||| Natsuki Ikezawa
Novelist, born in 1945. Ikezawa has lived in Greece and the Micronesian islands, written poetry, and translated Greek poetry and American literature. He received the Akutagawa Prize for his novel Still Lives in 1987, the Yomiuri Literature Prize for Hahanaru Shizen No Oppai (Mother Nature's Breasts) in 1992, and the Tanizaki Prize for Masias Guili No Shikkyaku (Masias Guili's Downfall) in 1993. He publishes his critiques of civilization on the Internet as well as working on his publications.
http://www.cafeimpala.com/indexE.html
||||| Abbas Kiarostami
Iranian film director, born in 1940. Kiarostami made his first film in 1974. He received international acclaim with Khane-ye Doust Kodjast? (Where is the Friend's Home?). He has captured many fans with his quiet vision in such works as Zendegi Edame Darad (And Life Goes On), winning the Rossellini Prize at Cannes; Zire Darakhatan Zeyton (Through the Olive Trees); and Ta'ame Gilas (Taste of Cherry), winning the Palme d'or at Cannes. Kiarostami's documentary film, ABC Africa, depicting Ugandan children suffering from AIDS, will be released in 2002.