Who are the best writers who became politicians?

History has seen novelists, poets, and playwrights trade their pens for power — some changing nations as dramatically as they changed literature. Where do you stand?

Václav Havel

Czech playwright and dissident who became the first President of the Czech Republic after leading the Velvet Revolution.

1/14

Winston Churchill

British Prime Minister who was also a prolific historian and author, winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.

2/14

Thomas Jefferson

Principal author of the Declaration of Independence who became the third President of the United States.

3/14

Mario Vargas Llosa

Peruvian Nobel Prize-winning novelist who ran for president of Peru in 1990 and later served in the Spanish Senate.

4/14

Wole Soyinka

Nigerian Nobel Prize-winning playwright and poet who has been a prominent political voice and activist in Nigeria.

5/14

Victor Hugo

French poet and novelist who served as a senator and was exiled for his political opposition to Napoleon III.

6/14

Benjamin Disraeli

Victorian novelist who became one of the most influential British Prime Ministers of the 19th century.

7/14

Barack Obama

Author of Dreams from My Father who became the 44th President of the United States.

8/14

Léopold Sédar Senghor

Senegalese poet and co-founder of the Négritude movement who became the first President of Senegal.

9/14

Pablo Neruda

Chilean Nobel Prize-winning poet who served as a senator and was appointed ambassador to France by Salvador Allende.

10/14

Gabriele D'Annunzio

Italian poet and playwright who became a nationalist political leader and briefly seized the city of Fiume after WWI.

11/14

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Russian Nobel Prize-winning author of The Gulag Archipelago whose writings helped expose and undermine the Soviet system.

12/14

Al Gore

Author of Earth in the Balance and An Inconvenient Truth who served as 45th U.S. Vice President and won the Nobel Peace Prize.

13/14

Theodore Roosevelt

Prolific author of over 35 books on history and nature who became the 26th President of the United States.

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