Yoram Kaniuk was an Israeli writer, painter, journalist, and theatre critic.

Yoram Taharlev was an Israeli poet, lyricist, and author. He wrote lyrics for hundreds of songs recorded by prominent composers and performers.

Yordan Eftimov is a poet, writer and literary critic based in Sofia, Bulgaria. He has six poetry books awarded with national literary prizes. First of them, Metametaphysics (1993), won the National Debut Prize.

Yordan Radichkov was a Bulgarian writer and playwright.

Yordan Stefanov Yovkov was a prominent Bulgarian writer from the interwar period.

Yosano Akiko was the pen-name of a Japanese author, poet, pioneering feminist, pacifist, and social reformer, active in the late Meiji era as well as the Taishō and early Shōwa eras of Japan. Her name at birth was Shō Hō . She is one of the most noted, and most controversial, post-classical female poets of Japan.

Yosef Haim Brenner was a Hebrew-language author from the Russian Empire, and one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew literature.

Yosef Shagal is an Israeli politician and former journalist, of Azerbaijani Jewish origin. He served as a member of the Knesset for the Russian-immigrant dominated Yisrael Beiteinu between 2006 and 2009. From 2012 until 2015, he was the ambassador of Israel to Belarus.

Yosef Tunkel was a Jewish–Belarusian–American writer of poetry and humorous prose in Yiddish commonly known by the pen name Der Tunkeler or 'The dark one' in Yiddish.

Urabe Kenkō , also known as Yoshida Kenkō , or simply Kenkō (兼好), was a Japanese author and Buddhist monk. His most famous work is Tsurezuregusa, one of the most studied works of medieval Japanese literature. Kenko wrote during the Muromachi and Kamakura periods.