Problem: Background: Haruki Murakami (Cun Shang  Chun Shu , Murakami Haruki, born January 12, 1949) is a Japanese writer. His books and stories have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally, with his work being translated into 50 languages and selling millions of copies outside his native country. The critical acclaim for his fiction and non-fiction has led to numerous awards, in Japan and internationally, including the World Fantasy Award (2006) and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award (2006). His oeuvre received, for example, the Franz Kafka Prize (2006) and the Jerusalem Prize (2009).
Context: Sputnik Sweetheart was first published in 1999, followed by Kafka on the Shore in 2002, with the English translation following in 2005. Kafka on the Shore won the World Fantasy Award for Novels in 2006. The English version of his novel After Dark was released in May 2007. It was chosen by The New York Times as a "notable book of the year". In late 2005, Murakami published a collection of short stories titled Tokyo Kitanshu, or Dong Jing Qi Tan Ji , which translates loosely as "Mysteries of Tokyo." A collection of the English versions of twenty-four short stories, titled Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, was published in August 2006. This collection includes both older works from the 1980s as well as some of Murakami's more recent short stories, including all five that appear in Tokyo Kitanshu.  In 2002, Murakami published the anthology Birthday Stories, which collects short stories on the theme of birthdays. The collection includes work by Russell Banks, Ethan Canin, Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace, Denis Johnson, Claire Keegan, Andrea Lee, Daniel Lyons, Lynda Sexson, Paul Theroux, and William Trevor, as well as a story by Murakami himself. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, containing tales about his experience as a marathon runner and a triathlete, was published in Japan in 2007, with English translations released in the U.K. and the U.S. in 2008. The title is a play on that of Raymond Carver's short story collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.  Shinchosha Publishing published Murakami's novel 1Q84 in Japan on May 29, 2009. 1Q84 is pronounced "ichi kyu hachi yon", the same as 1984, as 9 is also pronounced "kyu" in Japanese. The book was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2011. However, after the 2012 anti-Japanese demonstrations in China, Murakami's books were removed from sale there, along with those of other Japanese authors. Murakami criticized the China-Japan political territorial dispute, characterizing the overwrought nationalistic response as "cheap liquor" which politicians were giving to the public. In April 2013, he published his novel "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage". It became an international best seller but received mixed reviews.
Question: How were the books received
Answer: Kafka on the Shore won the World Fantasy Award for Novels in 2006.

Problem: Background: Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 - June 11, 1936) was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He is well known for his character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre. Howard was born and raised in Texas. He spent most of his life in the town of Cross Plains, with some time spent in nearby Brownwood.
Context: Howard was born January 22, 1906 in Peaster, Texas, the only son of a traveling country physician, Dr. Isaac Mordecai Howard, and his wife, Hester Jane Ervin Howard. His early life was spent wandering through a variety of Texas cowtowns and boomtowns: Dark Valley (1906), Seminole (1908), Bronte (1909), Poteet (1910), Oran (1912), Wichita Falls (1913), Bagwell (1913), Cross Cut (1915), and Burkett (1917).  During Howard's youth his parents' relationship began to break down. The Howard family had problems with money which may have been exacerbated by Isaac Howard investing in get-rich-quick schemes. Hester Howard, meanwhile, came to believe that she had married below herself. Soon the pair were actively fighting. Hester did not want Isaac to have anything to do with their son. She had a particularly strong influence on her son's intellectual growth. She had spent her early years helping a variety of sick relatives, contracting tuberculosis in the process. She instilled in her son a deep love of poetry and literature, recited verse daily and supported him unceasingly in his efforts to write.  Other experiences would later seep into his prose. Although he loved reading and learning, he found school to be confining and began to hate having anyone in authority over him. Experiences watching and confronting bullies revealed the omnipresence of evil and enemies in the world, and taught him the value of physical strength and violence. Being the son of the local doctor gave Howard frequent exposure to the effects of injury and violence, due to accidents on farms and oil fields combined with the massive increase in crime that came with the oil boom. Firsthand tales of gunfights, lynchings, feuds, and Indian raids developed his distinctly Texan, hardboiled outlook on the world. Sports, especially boxing, became a passionate preoccupation. At the time, boxing was the most popular sport in the country, with a cultural influence far in excess of what it is today. James J. Jeffries, Jack Johnson, Bob Fitzsimmons, and later Jack Dempsey were the names that inspired during those years, and he grew up a lover of all contests of violent, masculine struggle.
Question: Where was he born?
Answer:
Peaster, Texas,