We thought it would be fun to find the tallest authors out there and compiled this list. See if your favorite writer is in the tall club!
Maya Angelou: 6’0’’
Maya Angelou was an American poet and civil rights activist, publishing seven autobiographies, three books of essays and multiple books of poetry. During her life she received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Her first autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, published in 1969, brought her international recognition and acclaim.
Franz Kafka: 6’0’’
Kafka was born into a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague. He became a novelist and short story writer and is considered one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His works bring together realism and fantasy, putting his protagonists in surreal predicaments. His best know works are “Die Verwandlung” (“The Metamorphosis”), Der Process (The Trial) and Das Scholoss (The Castle).
Ernest Hemingway: 6’0’’
Hemingway was an American journalist war correspondent, short-story writer and novelist. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Much of his work is considered classics of American literature. He is often portrayed as one with a short-temper and a drink in his hand.
Jane Smiley: 6’2’’
Jane Smiley won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for her best-selling novel A Thousand Acres, which was adapted into a film in 1997. In 2006 she received the Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature. She taught English and creative writing at Iowa State University and currently teaches at the University of California.
Oscar Wilde: 6’2’’
Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. He became one of the most popular playwrights in London during the early 1890s. He’s best known for his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and the play The Importance of Being Earnest.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: 6’2’’
Conan Doyle was the creator of the famous characters Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick, Dr. Watson. He also wrote fantasy, science fiction, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels. (Also, the character of Sherlock Holmes is described as being “rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller.” He would have been a good candidate for a Tall Slim Tee if he actually existed.)
Ta-Nehisi Coates: 6’4’’
Coates is the writer of the Black Panther series for Marvel Comics. He also is a famed American journalist and has written two books, The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood and Between the World and Me.
Thomas Wolfe: 6’6’’
Wolfe was an American novelist in the early twentieth century. He was one of masters of autobiographical fiction. After his death, author William Faulkner said that Wolfe may have been the greatest talent of their generation.
Robert E. Sherwood: 6’8’’
Sherwood was an American playwright and screenwriter. He started as a film critic in the 1920’s. He won four Pulitzer Prizes over his career. He also served as a speechwriter for President Franklin D Roosevelt. Groucho Marx, the comedian and friend of Robert Sherwood, told the joke, I asked Bob Sherwood, “’What do you say to people when they ask you how the weather is up there?’ He said, ‘I spit in their eye and tell ‘em it’s raining.’”
Michael Crichton: 6’9’’
Crichton, who brought the world Jurassic Park, has sold over 200 million copies of his books worldwide. Over a dozen of his books have been adapted into films. He wrote and directed a handful of them. When he first started publishing work while still in medical school, he wrote under the pen names “John Lange” and “Jeffrey Hudson”, both in reference to his height. (Lange, a German surname meaning “long” and Sir Jeffrey Hudson was a famous dwarf in the court of Queen consort Henrietta Maria in the 17th-century in England.)
