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Babel
Russian short-story writer. Born Jewish in Ukraine, Babel grew up in an atmosphere of persecution that is reflected in his stories. M. Gorky encouraged him to travel abroad to expand his horizons. Out of his experience as a soldier in the war with Poland came the stories in Red Cavalry (1926). His Odessa Tales (1931) include realistic and humorous sketches of the Jewish ghetto outside Odessa. Initially well regarded in the Soviet Union, in the late 1930s Babel's writing was found incompatible with official literary doctrine. He was arrested in 1939 and died in a Siberian prison camp. He is often thought of as Russia's greatest writer of short stories after A. Chekhov.

In the Old Testament, a high tower built in Shinar (Babylonia). According to Genesis 11:1-9, the Babylonians wanted to build a tower "with its top in the heavens." Angry at their presumption, God disrupted the enterprise by confusing the languages of the workers so that they could no longer understand each other. The tower was left unfinished and the people dispersed over the face of the earth. The myth may have been inspired by a tower temple located north of the Marduk temple and known as Bab-ilu ("Gate of God").


Cabell
U.S. writer. Born in Richmond, Va. to a distinguished family, he attacked Amer. orthodoxies and institutions in his best-known novel, Jurgen (1919), a story replete with sexual symbolism. His other works, many of them allegories set in an imaginary medieval province, include The Cream of the Jest (1917), Beyond Life (1919), and The High Place (1923). Though much praised in the 1920s, his mannered style and skeptical view of human experience soon lost favor.


Albee
U.S. playwright. Born in Virginia, he was the adopted grandson and namesake of a well-known vaudeville theater manager. His first one-act play, The Zoo Story (1959), and other early plays, incl. The Sandbox (1960) and The American Dream (1961), were characteristic of the theater of the absurd. His Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962; film, 1966) was widely acclaimed. He won Pulitzer Prizes for A Delicate Balance (1966), Seascape (1975), and Three Tall Women (1991). He has also adapted other writers' works for the stage, incl. V. Nabokov's Lolita (1981).


Albert
Prince consort of Queen Victoria of Britain and father of Edward VII. Albert married Victoria, his first cousin, in 1840 and became in effect her private secretary and chief confidential adviser. Their domestic happiness helped assure the continuation of the monarchy, which had been somewhat uncertain. Though the German-born Albert was undeservedly unpopular, the British public belatedly recognized his worth after his death at 42 from typhoid fever. In the ensuing years, the grief-stricken queen made policy decisions based on what she thought Albert would have done.


Alberta
Province (pop., 1996: 2,847,000), Canada, westernmost of three Prairie ...

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