Xu Zhimo
Notable alumni in literature and poetry include the authors Zadie Smith, Salman Rushdie, Martin Jacques, J. G. Ballard and E. M. Forster, the Nobel Prize winner Patrick White, the poets Rupert Brooke, Walter Raleigh and Xu Zhimo, and the playwright Stephen Poliakoff. The ghost story writer and medievalist M. R. James spent much of his life at King's as a student, fellow and Provost. The author and translator of Aristotle Sir John Harington is also an alumnus, and a benefactor of mankind for having invented the flush toilet.