20th-century essayists

Maria Dąbrowska ([dɔmˈbrɔfska]; born Maria Szumska; 6 October 1889 – 19 May 1965) was a Polish writer, novelist, essayist, journalist and playwright, author of the popular Polish historical novel Noce i dnie (Nights and Days) written between 1932 and 1934 in four separate volumes. The novel was made into a film by the same title in 1975 by Jerzy Antczak. Besides her own work, she was also known for translating Samuel Pepys' Diary into Polish. In addition, Dąbrowska was awarded the prestigious Golden Laurel of the Polish Academy of Literature in 1935, and she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature eleven times between 1939 and 1965.

Luis Cardoza y Aragón (June 21, 1904 - September 4, 1992) was a Guatemalan writer, essayist, poet, art critic, and diplomat. Born in Antigua Guatemala, he spent part of his life living in exile in Mexico.
Cardoza attended primary school in Antigua Guatemala and at the Colegio Centroamericano in Guatemala City. His received a secondary education in the city's Instituto Nacional Central para Varones. In the 1920s, Cardoza moved to Paris, France where he became friends with André Breton. Influenced by the avant-garde members of the surrealist movement, his first work titled "Luna Park" was published in 1923 and dedicated to the Guatemalan writer Enrique Gómez Carrillo (1873–1927). He also got to know fellow Guatemalan writer Miguel Ángel Asturias who came to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. Decades later in 1991 Cardoza wrote a book entitled Miguel Ángel Asturias, Casi Novela (Ediciones Era) about their time in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s that earned him the 1992 Mazatlan Literature award in Mexico.

Rolf Kristian Eckersberg Stenersen (13 February 1899 – 15 October 1978) was a Norwegian businessman, non-fiction writer, essayist, novelist, playwright and biographer. He was also a track and field athlete and art collector.

Leif Longum (19 November 1927 – 5 May 1997) was a Norwegian essayist and literary researcher. He was born in Oslo. He was assigned to the Nansen Academy from 1960 to 1972, and the University of Bergen from 1972 to 1995; from 1992 as a professor. He published the textbook Å lese skuespill in 1976. His principal work is an analysis of the "cultural radicalism" in Norway in the interwar years, with particular focus on the troika Sigurd Hoel, Helge Krog and Arnulf Øverland. He published the essay collection Å krysse sine spor in 1995, while the collection På fallrepet was published posthumously in 1998.

Pablo Antonio Cuadra (November 4, 1912 – January 2, 2002) was a Nicaraguan essayist, art and literary critic, playwright, graphic artist and one of the most famous poets of Nicaragua.

Jorge González von Marées (4 April 1900 – 14 March 1962), also known as El Jefe (Spanish: The chief, analogous to the Führer) was a Chilean political figure and author who served two terms as a member of the Chamber of Deputies and as mayor of Ñuñoa.
Born in Santiago to Sofía von Marées Sommer, a German noble mother and niece of Hans von Marées, and Marcial González Azócar, physician and founder of Clínica Alemana. He studied in Instituto Nacional General José Miguel Carrera, an elite public school back then, later studying Law and Engineering, the latter incomplete, in Universidad de Chile, Chile's most prestigious public university. He was ideologically influenced by Oswald Spengler. On 5 April 1932 he founded the National Socialist Movement of Chile to oppose democratism, americanism, and communism.
González von Marées organized a failed coup d'état attempt on 5 September 1938, in which 60 young nacista members were shot to death by carabineros, in what became known as the Seguro Obrero massacre. He was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, but subsequently pardoned by president Pedro Aguirre Cerda. After this, he became leader of the far-right Popular Socialist Vanguard until 1943, when the Chilean Nazi movement disbanded due to the country cutting off all relations with Germany in World War II.

Panait Istrati (Romanian: [panaˈit isˈtrati]; sometimes rendered as Panaït Istrati; August 10, 1884 – April 16, 1935) was a Romanian working class writer, who wrote in French and Romanian, nicknamed The Maxim Gorky of the Balkans. Istrati appears to be the first Romanian author explicitly depicting a homosexual character in his work.

Hans Heiberg (28 January 1904 – 6 December 1978) was a Norwegian journalist, literary critic, theatre critic, essayist, novelist, playwright, translator and theatre director.

Pedro Salinas y Serrano (27 November 1891 – 4 December 1951) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27, as well as a university teacher, scholar and literary critic. In 1937, he delivered the Turnbull lectures at Johns Hopkins University. These were later published under the title Reality and the Poet in Spanish Poetry.

Julio Torri Maynes (June 27, 1889 in Saltillo, Coahuila – May 11, 1970 in Mexico City) was a Mexican writer and teacher who formed part of the Ateneo de la Juventud (1909–1914). He wrote mainly in the essay form, although his limited production included short stories and scholarly works as well. Considered one of the best prose stylists of Latin America, he was admitted to the Academia Mexicana de la Lengua in 1952.
His parents were Julio S. Torri and Sofía Maynes de Torri.