(1886-1968) Swiss Protestant theologian. A socialist in his political views, he attacked the Nazis. His Church Dogmatics 1932–62 makes the resurrection of Jesus the focal point of Christianity.
Barth is generally considered the greatest Christian theologian of the 20th century. His Theology of Crisis rejected liberal theology and stressed Scripture and the infinite gulf that separates God from humanity, which can be overcome only by the grace of God.

John (1930-) US novelist and short-story writer. He was influential in the “academic” experimental movement of the 1960s. His works, typically encyclopedic in scale, are usually interwoven fictions based on language games, his principal concerns being the nature of narrative and the relationship of language to reality. His novels include The Sot-Weed Factor 1960, Giles Goat-Boy 1966, Letters 1979, Sabbatical: A Romance 1982, and The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor 1991.
He also wrote the novella Chimera 1972 and Lost in the Funhouse 1968, a collection of short stories whose title refers to the ironic relation of the author to his own creations.

(1821-1865) German geographer and explorer who in explorations of N Africa between 1844 and 1855 established the exact course of the river Niger.
He studied the coast of N Africa from Tunis to Egypt 1844–45, traveled in the Middle East 1845–47, crossed the Sahara from Tripoli 1850, and then spent five years exploring the country between Lake Chad and Cameroon which he described in the five-volume Travels and Discoveries in Central Africa 1857–58.