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Synopsis This unique book is about millennium's twenty-nine greatest writers, who made distinctive contributions to the literary heritage of the world in style, in theme, or in ideas.  They not only captured the color and the flavor of their times, but also left behind a lasting message for posterity through enchanting tales, impertinent satires, breath taking dramas and engrossing travelogues and also through flaming defiance of injustice and oppression. With wit, humor and empathy, Achala Moulik describes the charming Murasaki in the imperial court of tenth-century Japan, the somber poet Danta of Florence, the ecologist Saint Francis of Assisi, the intrepid travelers Marco Polo and Ibn Batuta, the saucy and the sagacious Wu-Cheng-En of Ming China, the effulgent Shakespeare, the majestic Russians, the romantic Goethe of Germany, the American prophets of liberty and quality and the heroes of reawakening India. She ends with Anne Frank, the courageous Jewish girl who wrote a moving diary before her death in a Nazi camp. Through twenty-nine literary figures, the author depicts the painful progress of civilization in this millennium.