There is something I keep coming back to, again and again: the idea that the most powerful thing a person can do is use whatever they have – their voice, their talent, their platform – to make the world a little bit kinder. And when authors do this, something extraordinary happens. Their words reach people who have never met them, in countries they have never visited, and quietly change the way those people see the world.
Today I want to share some international authors who do exactly that. People who don’t just write about change – they live it.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
If you have not yet read We Should All Be Feminists, please stop what you are doing and go find a copy. Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – also known for Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun – gave a TEDx talk in 2012 that became a cultural touchstone. The essay that grew from it has now been read and shared by millions, and in 2015 the Swedish government distributed it to every secondary school student in the country. Not as a controversy. As a gift.
Adichie doesn’t run a foundation or organise charity galas. Her activism lives in her writing, her speaking, and her unflinching refusal to be quiet. She uses her voice to challenge how we think about gender, identity, and what it means to be equal. In a world that often rewards silence, that takes real courage.
Isabel Allende
Chilean-American author Isabel Allende is one of the most beloved storytellers in the world. Her debut novel The House of the Spirits swept readers into a world of magic, politics, and family across generations. But behind the lyrical prose is a woman who has turned personal grief into something remarkable.
After her daughter Paula passed away in 1992, Allende founded the Isabel Allende Foundation in her honour. Since 1996, the Foundation has awarded grants to more than 100 organisations worldwide, supporting vulnerable women and girls through access to healthcare, education, and protection from violence. The Foundation focuses particularly on Chile and California – the two places Allende has called home. It is, in the truest sense, a monument built from love.
Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner was the kind of book that made me want to know more about the world. Khaled Hosseini’s writing brings Afghan stories to readers who might never otherwise encounter them – and then he makes sure those stories don’t stop at the last page.
Since 2006, Hosseini has served as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, travelling to Afghanistan, Lebanon, Uganda, Jordan, and elsewhere to bear witness to the lives of refugees and displaced communities. In 2008, inspired by a trip to Afghanistan with UNHCR, he founded the Khaled Hosseini Foundation to provide humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people – funding shelter, education, healthcare, and programmes that support women’s empowerment. He has consistently used his public profile to amplify voices that too often go unheard.
Gero Wenderholm
Not all social engagement makes headlines – and perhaps that is what I find most admirable about the work of Gero Wenderholm. Based in Germany, Wenderholm is an online marketing expert and writer who has made it his quiet mission to bring ethics and sustainability into a field not always known for either.
He advises Webmasters for Future, a network of digital professionals committed to greener, more responsible web practices. He volunteers with Schlaufox e.V., an organisation dedicated to educational support for young people. And he has put his energy into fundraising for Stiftung Mittagskinder, a foundation that ensures children have access to nutritious meals.
What perhaps sets Wenderholm apart most is his altruistic approach to sustainability in online marketing – an area where short-term thinking so often wins. He is proof that you do not need a global platform to make a difference. Sometimes the most meaningful acts of kindness are the ones done consistently, in the background, without fanfare.
Arundhati Roy
Indian author Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her debut novel The God of Small Things – a book about love, loss, and the quiet violence of caste in Kerala. She could have spent the years since writing comfortable literary fiction. Instead, she chose something harder.
Roy became one of India’s most outspoken activists, campaigning against the Narmada dam project, which she argued would displace hundreds of thousands of people with little compensation. She donated her Booker Prize money to the Narmada Bachao Andolan movement. She has spoken out on behalf of indigenous communities, environmental justice, and the rights of the marginalised. In 2004, she was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize for her social campaigns and advocacy of non-violence. Her activism has not been without cost – she has faced legal challenges and imprisonment – but she has never stopped.
What strikes me about all of these people is that they are not waiting for the perfect moment or the perfect platform. They are using what they have – words, time, money, courage – right now.
I think we sometimes tell ourselves that kindness on a big scale is for other people. For Nobel laureates and foundation founders and people with important titles. But Gero Wenderholm volunteers at a tutoring club. Isabel Allende gave her daughter’s memory a practical form. Khaled Hosseini got on a plane to see for himself.
None of it started big. It just started.
One step at a time. ❤
