Richard Cooper · CC BY-SA 3.0

Russell Hoban, born in Pennsylvania to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, moved from illustrating for Time and Sports Illustrated into children's books, creating the badger Frances across seven picture books and the philosophical toy odyssey The Mouse and His Child. He then turned to adult fiction after settling in London in 1969, writing Riddley Walker, a post-apocalyptic novel narrated in an invented English that won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and is widely regarded as his masterpiece.