WORLD LITERATURE (OTHER THAN BRITISH)

 

AMERICAN LITERATURE

 

American Renaissance:

The period between 1830 and the start of the Civil War in 1861 is often referred to as the American Renaissance.

The term was coined by Harvard scholar F. O. Matthiessen in his book “American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman (1941)”

 

Ambrose: Known with his pen name God Grile.

1.     The Devil’s Dictionary: in it he criticized American culture and gave more practical meanings for common words.

 

Toni Morrison – Born as Chole Ardelia Wofford, Nobel in 1993, Pulitzer in 1988

1.   The Bluest Eyes: The novel is set in Lorain, Ohio in 1941 (Morrison's hometown), and tells the story of a young African-American girl named Pecola Breedlove who grew up following the Great Depression. she is consistently regarded as "ugly" due to her mannerisms and dark skin.

2.   Beloved: it won the Pulitzer Prize. Sethe is the principal character is a former slave haunted by the Ghost of her daughter, who was killed by her inorder to escape from the slaves. Opening line: “124 was spiteful. Full of Baby's venom.”

3.   Sula- Sula and Nell are major characters

 

Ralph Waldo Ellison (1913-1994) -American writer, literary critic, and scholar, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson

1.   Invisible Man (1952)- first novel, the only one published during his lifetime. making Ellison the first African-American writer to win the U.S. National Book award (in 1953). about the white dominated society.

The narrator, an unnamed black man, begins by describing his living conditions: an underground room wired with hundreds of electric lights, operated by power stolen from the city's electric grid. He reflects on the various ways in which he has experienced social invisibility during his life and begins to tell his story, returning to his teenage years.

The narrator in Invisible Man says, "I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either." Opening line: I am an invisible man”

2.     Juneteenth (1999)- is the second novel by Ellison. It was published posthumously

The Invisible Man (1897)- Sci-fi novel- by H G Wells.

Invisible Man (1952)-on black nationalism- by Ralph Ellison

 

Emily Dickinson – uses unconventional punctuation-dashes, capitals in her writing, spent all her life alone, never married.

1.     The Chariot - Because I could not Stop for Death

2.     Parting – My life closed twice before its, close

 

Henry David Thoreau: naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, best known for his book Walden.

1.   Walden, or Life in the Woods: Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau was influenced by Indian spiritual thought. In Walden, there are many overt references to the sacred texts of India.

2.   Civil Disobedience or Resistance to Civil Government, also called as On the Duty of Civil Disobedience is an essay. Mahatma Gandhi used it in his own satyagraha.

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson: He is the most important figure concerning the American Transcendentalism, and is known as ‘the sage of Concord’. Friedrich Nietzsche considered him "the most gifted of the Americans", and Walt Whitman referred to him as his "master".

1.   Nature 1836 – his theory of Transcendentalism was expounded in this book. It is known as the ‘manifesto’ or the Bible of the American Transcendentalism

2.   Brahma – famous poem

3.   Representative Men 1850 – is a collection of letters

 

William Faulkner: Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1950. His novels are set in Yokapatawpha country

1.   The Sound and the Fury: Its title is from Mac beth

2.   Light in August – Joe Christmas is hero, a man of mixed racial.

 

Benjamin Franklin

1.   Do good Papers

2.   Poor Richard’s Almanack

3.   Junto Club

 

Robert Frost (1874-1963): He won 4 pulitzers. He was invited by President John F. Kennedy to recite his patriotic poem ‘the Gift Outright’

1.   A Boy's Will (1913) – first collection of poems

2.   North of Boston (1914) – second collection of poems

a.   Mending Wall: famous line “good fences make good neighbors”

b.   After-Apple Pricking

c.   Home Burial 1914: a wife and husband's grief over losing their child.

3.   Mountain Interval (1916) – 3^rd collection

a.   The Road Not Taken: famous line: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”

b.   Birches: ‘Birches’ draws on Robert Frost’s childhood memories of swinging on birch trees as a boy. famous line: “Earth is the right place for love”

4.   New Hampshire (1923)- collection of poems

c.    Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening: famous line “The woods are lovely, dark and deep,But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.-These lines were dear to Jawahar Lal Nehru

5.   West-Running Brook (1928)- collection

 

 

Alice Walker:

1.   The Colour Purple 1982- her famous work- epistolary-won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (first black woman to win the prize) and the National Book Award for Fiction. Though the novel received critical acclaim, it also became controversial. Story of Celie is a 14-year-old African-American girl in rural Georgia in the early 1900s who writes letters to God because her father Alphonso beats and rapes her, resulting in two children, Olivia and Adam. A farmer named Albert, known as ‘Mister’ marries Celie and tortures her physically, sexually and verbally, and when Nettie runs away and stays with Celie, he makes advances toward her. Nettie and Celie reunite after 30 years. Opening line: “You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy."

2.   Coming Apart- She coined the term womenism in this short story

 

Nathaniel Hawthorne:

1.   The Scarlet Letter: best example for symbolism- Story of Hyster Pryne, arried woman, adultery with Arthur Dimmesdale, the minister. She has to wear Letter A around her neck (as symbol of adultery)

 

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961): American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1954. He committed suicide.

1.   The Sun Also Rises 1926- The novel is a roman à clef 

The Lost Generation is a group of American writers who came of age during World War I and established their literary reputations in the 1920s. The term is also particularly used to refer to a group of American expatriate writers living in Paris during the 1920s. Gertrude Stein is credited with coining the term, and it was subsequently popularised by Ernest Hemingway, who used it in the epigraph for his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises: "You are all a lost generation”. Other writers/works: Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night (1934) and Dos Passos’s The Big Money (1936).

 

2.   A Farewell to Arms 1929 – Novel- Story of Frederic Henry, an American expatriate, serving as a lieutenant in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army and his love affair with an English nurse, Catherine Barkley. It depicts Hemingway's life in Italy as an ambulance driver in events prior to his writing of A Farewell to Arms. (There is also a play with the same name by O’Neil)

3.   To Have and Have Not 1937- Life of Harry Morgan, a fishing boat captain during The Great Depression (1929-1937)

4.   For Whom the Bells Tolls 1940- title from John Donne’s poem “For whom the bell tolls” from Meditation XVII. story of Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer attached to a Republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War.

5.   Across the River and Into the Trees 1950- novel opens with Colonel Richard Cantwell, a 50-year-old US Army officer, duck hunting near Venice, Italy at the close of World War II.

6.   The Old Man and the Sea 1952– novella- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953, Story of Santiago, Old man, and his fight with Marlin (Fish). He not caught a fish in eighty-four days and is considered salao (very unlucky). Manolin, who had been trained by Santiago, has been forced by his parents to work on a different, luckier boat; Manolin still helps Santiago prepare his gear every morning and evening and brings him food.

On 85^th day, Santiago takes his small skiff far out into the Gulf Stream, hoping to catch a big fish. He eventually hooks a giant marlin, which he struggles with for three days and nights. Despite his exhaustion and pain, Santiago refuses to let go of the fish, seeing it as a worthy opponent and a symbol of his own struggle for dignity and respect as an old man.

Throughout the ordeal, Santiago's thoughts wander, reflecting on his past, his love for the sea, and his relationship with Manolin. He endures physical hardships, including hunger, thirst, and painful cramps, but his determination and resilience never waver. He talks to the fish, addressing it as a worthy adversary and expressing admiration for its strength and spirit.

On the third day, Santiago finally manages to kill the marlin and lash it to the side of his boat. However, as he begins the journey back to shore, he faces another challenge: sharks are drawn to the scent of blood and begin attacking the marlin. Santiago fights valiantly to protect his catch, using all his strength and cunning to drive off the sharks, but he is ultimately unable to save more than the marlin's skeleton.

Exhausted and defeated, Santiago returns to the shore with nothing but the marlin's bones. However, his epic struggle has not gone unnoticed. Despite his lack of physical evidence, the other fishermen recognize the greatness of his achievement, and Manolin reaffirms his loyalty to Santiago, promising to fish with him again.

Its central theme is: “Man may be destroyed but he cannot be defeated”

7.   The iceberg theory or theory of omission is a writing technique coined by American writer Ernest Hemingway. In chapter sixteen of Death in the Afternoon he compares his theory about writing to an iceberg. As a journalist, he practised minimalistic style with newspaper reports without contexts, which made him to believe that ‘the deeper meaning of a story should not be evident on the surface, but should shine through implicitly’.

8.   Less is more- concept- short story with 6 words: For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

 

Ernest Hemingway was sitting at a table, joking and laughing with friends and colleagues. Jovial conversation turns to money-making opportunity when his friends bet that he can not write his life story in only a few words. Hemingway, a master of brevity, immediately grabs a napkin and writes: "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn." He wins the bet.

 

Who, among the following, is reputed for the 'less is more' approach to short fiction?

(Best known for six-word novel)

 (a) Katherine Mansfield         (b) James Joyce

(c) Balzac                                 (d)Hemingway

 

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946): American novelist, poet, playwright.

1.   The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933)- quasi memoir, written in the voice of Alice B. Toklas, her life partner.

2.   “The Lost Generation” – term coined by her

3.   Two quotes have become widely known:

a.   "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" in the poem “Sacred Emily (1913)"

b.   "There is no there there" in her work “Everybody's Autobiography (1937)”

 

To whom, among the following, would you attribute the puzzling sentence "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose"? (a) Emily Dickinson     (b) Robert Frost (c) Ezra Pound             (d) Gertrude Stein Ans: written by Gertrude Stein as part of the 1913 poem "Sacred Emily"   "You are all a lost generation." This forms the epigraph of which of the following novels? (a) The Jazz                  (b) Catch-22 (c) The Sun Also Rises (d) The Great Gatsby

 

Henry James (1843-1916): American-British author. Brother of William James (psychologist), He is often known as the Shakespeare of American fiction.

1.   Watch and Ward

2.   Roderick Hudson

3.   The Portrait of a Lady 1881- masterpiece of James, story of a spirited young American woman, Isabel Archer, who, "affronting her destiny,"

4.   The Golden Bowl

5.   The Art of Fiction 1888- critical essay in collection of essays Partial Portraits, James' plea for the widest possible freedom in content and technique in narrative fiction. Henry James's attempt to rebuke the claims made in Sir Walter Besant's lecture "Fiction as One of the Fine Arts." Besant argued that fiction required both talent and the following of certain rules that govern the creation of an appropriate piece. James argues that an infinite pool of imagination is essential when crafting a fictional text

 

H W. (Henry Wadsworth) Longfellow (1807-1882)

1.   Hyperion: A Romance 1839- semi auto biographical romance, inspired by his trips to Europe. Story of a young American protagonist named Paul Flemming and his travels through Germany.

2.   Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie 1847 is an epic poem in dactylic hexameter, imitating Greek and Latin classics, idea for the poem came from his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne.

3.   The Song of Hiawatha 1855 - epic poem in trochaic tetrameter about the fictional adventures of an Ojibwe warrior named Hiawatha and the tragedy of his love for Minnehaha, a Dakota woman.

4.   Translation: first American to completely translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy

 

The fireside poets: also known as the schoolroom or household poets.

They were a group of 19th-century American poets associated with New England and popularly rivaled that of British poets.

The group includes: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Works: Longfellow's The Seaside and the Fireside 1850.; Lowell’s Fireside Travels in 1864

 

Arthur (Asher) Miller (1915-2005)- one of the three greatest American dramatists (Miller, Tennesse Williams, O’Neil), won Pulitzer for drama

1.   No Villain 1936- first work

2.   The Man Who Had All the Luck 1944- Second major play after No Villaian

3.   All my sons 1947-three act play, based upon a true story, which Arthur Miller's then mother-in-law pointed out in an Ohio newspaper about army inspection officers to approve defective aircraft engines

4.   Death of a Salesman 1949- His masterpiece, Based on American Dream, won 1949-Pulitzer.  Story of Willy Lowman, 63 years old, unstable, childlike salesman (Willy= Will he?, Lowman= Low man);  his wife Linda Lowman, loyal and loving wife; and his two sons: Biff Lowman (elder son), a high school football star, failed in mathematics and was therefore unable to enter a university, theif, ;  and Harold or Happy(younger son), a womanizer and takes bribes at work. Charley is a neighbour who always lends money and supports Willy. Bernard is the son of Charley who becomes a successful lawyer. Ben is Willy's deceased older brother, a diamond tycoon, a symbol of American Dream. Howard Wagner is Willy's boss.

Famous lines:

o  “You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit.”

o  “A man is not a bird, to come and go with the springtime.”

o  “The only thing you've got in this world is what you can sell.”

o  “Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there’s no rock bottom to the life.”

o  “I am not a dime a dozen! I am Willy Loman, and you are Biff Loman!”

o  “When I was seventeen, I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one, I walked out. And by God I was rich.”

5.   The Crucible 1953­- fictionalized story of the ‘Salem witch trials’ that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93

6.   A View from the Bridge 1955- narrated by Alfieri, who was raised in 1900s Italy but is now working as an American lawyer, thereby representing the "Bridge" between the two cultures.

 

Tennesse Williams (1911-1983): is the pen name of Thomas Lanier Williams III. Famous for one act plays. He coined the term Memory Play

1.   Glass Managerie 1944- his greatest play, He introduced "plastic theatre" in this play and it closely reflected his own unhappy family background: featuring characters based on its author, his histrionic mother, and his mentally fragile sister. Story of Amanda Wingfield abandoned by her husband, and who is trying to raise her two children: Tom Wingfield (works at a shoe warehouse, aspires to become a poet, longs to escape from reality.) and Laura Wingfield (shy, mentally fragile and has limp) under harsh financial conditions. Amanda is obsessed with finding a suitor to Laura who is shy and dropped out of school and spends much of her time polishing her collection of little glass animals (Glass Managerie). Tom invites Jim O'Connor, as auitor to Laura, home for dinner. Jim and Laura are left alone by candlelight in the living room, they had dinner and dance together breaking the horn of a glass unicorn (The unicorn represents Laura).  Laura asks him to take the broken unicorn as a gift and he then leaves. Amanda scolds Tom as Jum reveals that he is engaged. Play ends with Tom bidding farewell to his mother and sister and asks Laura to blow out the candles.

2.   A Streetcar Named Desire 1947- play centred on experiences of Blanche DuBois, after encountering a series of personal losses, moves into a shabby apartment in New Orleans rented by her younger sister Stella and brother-in-law Stanley.

 

Plastic theatre is a more symbolic and expressionist approach to presenting drama onstage. Its opposite is realism. It frequently employs recycled or artificial materials. In The Glass Menagerie, plastic theatre techniques in music and lighting are used to convey a sense of memory and to evoke the melancholy of the narrator.

 

Eugene (Gladstone) O’Neil (1888-1953): Irish American Playwright. Nobel in 1936, won 4 Pulitzers, who realized the real worth of life after recover from T. B. He is the first to introduce Realism into the U.S. drama.

1.   The Hairy Ape 1922 expressionist play in 8 scenes, about a beastly, unthinking laborer known as Bob Yank Smith. Mildred Douglas, rich daughter of an industrialist in the steel business, refers to him as a "filthy beast"

2.   Desire Under the Elms 1924- famous, adapt plot elements and themes of Greek tragedy to a rural New England setting. West coast is frontier. It’s a love triangle between father, son and step mother. The characters Eben, his stepmother Abbie Putnam, and his father Ephraim Cabot roughly correspond with Hippolytus, and his stepmother Phaedra, and his father Theseus respectively. Ephraim Cabot owns the farm in New England, and his three adult sons—Simeon, Peter (from his first marriage), and Eben (from his second marriage to ‘Maw’). Ageing Cabot marries Abbie Putnam, who later flirts with Eben. Abbie and Eben turn themselves in for murdering their baby, and they declare their love for each other.

 

Won Pulitzers for:

1.   Beyond the Horizon -Pulitzer in 1920, The play takes place on a farm in the Spring, and then moves forward three years later, in the Summer, and finally five years later, in late Fall. About particularly only two brothers Andrew and Robert.

2.   Anna Christie- Pulitzer in 1922, play in 4 acts, story of a former prostitute who falls in love, but runs into difficulty in turning her life around.

3.   Strange Interlude- Pulitzer in 1928¸ makes extensive use of a soliloquy technique, in which the characters speak their inner thoughts to the audience. centers on Nina Leeds, daughter of a professor, whose fiancé is killed in WW-I. Famous line: "Our lives are merely strange dark interludes in the electrical display of God the Father!"

4.   Long Day's Journey into Night- Pulitzer in 1957 (posthumoususly), set in Monte Cristo Cottage, Connecticut. The "long day" in the title refers to the setting of the play, which takes place during a single day in August 1912.

 

Oliver Henry- (William Sydney Porter)- Known for his surprise endings

1.   Gift of Magi 1905- famous short story – story of Jim and Della, (husband and wife) and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little money.

2.   The Ransom of Red Chief 1907- follows two men who kidnap and demand a ransom for a wealthy Alabamian's son. Eventually, the men are driven crazy by the boy's spoiled and hyperactive behavior, and they pay the boy's father to take him back.

3.   The Caballero's Way 1907 - most famous character, the Cisco Kid, is introduced

 

 

John Stein Beck- Nobel in 1962

1.   The Grapes of Wrath 1939- Greatest novel on conditions of refugees in the world.

 

Herman Melville- Novelist, short story writer

1.   Moby Dick (1851)- Opening line is “Call me Ishamel”. His master piece. Moby dick is a white whale that bit off Captain Ahab’s leg. In revenge Ahab is out on whaler ship name ‘pequod’

 

Edgar Allan Poe - father of short story; pioneer of detective stories. Emerson called him as Jingle man.

1.   The Murders in the Rue Morgue- detective story initiated with this tale

2.   The Fall of House of Usher- gothic story

3.   The Raven- famous poem

4.   The Black Cat

“The Rationale of Verse,” is critical essay by Poe conceived as a lecture and first published as Notes on English Verse in the March 1843 issue of the Pioneer.

Poe revised the essay and added material to expand the earlier emphasis on English verse.

For example, because Poe has in “The Poetic Principle” defined verse as “The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty”

 

 

Mark Twain: His real name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens

1.   Adventures of Tom Sawyer

2.   Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- sequel to Tom Sawyer. Based on Mississippi

 

Walt Whitman

1.   The Leaves of Grass- poetry collection

2.   When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd- elegy, on the death of President Abraham Lincoln.

3.   O Captain My Captain – on death of Lincoln

4.   A Passage to India- on completion of Suez Canal, (Passage to India- E M Foster)

 

Henry Louis Gates Jr- (See Criticism notes under post colonialism)

1.   The Signifying Monkey: A theory of African American Literary Criticism (1988)

 

F Scott Key Fitzgerald-

1.   The Great Gatsby (1925)- Based on Jazz Age/Roaring Twenties, Set in fictional town ‘West Egg”

 

Ray Bradbury- won Pulitzer 2007

1.   Fareheit 451 (1953)-3 parts, Dystopian novel, about book burning- 451 is the temperature at which book or paper catches fire. Guy Montag is a fireman, who steals a book and hids it under pillow.

 

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Colombian novelist (South America), Well known for “Magic Realism”

1.   One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)- landmark novel. story of seven generations of the Buendía Family in the town of Macondo.

2.   Love in the time of Cholera (1988)- The main characters of the novel are Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza, They fall in love and exchange letters. Lorenzo Daza, the father of Fermina warns her. Dr Juvenal Urbio, commits eradicate Cholera, weds Fermina and falls off from ladder and dies

 

The Frontier Thesis, also known as Turner’s Thesis, is a theory proposed by historian Frederick Jackson Turner first published in a paper entitled “The Significance of the Frontier in American History 1893”. According to this theory, the settlement and colonization of the American frontier played a crucial role in shaping the culture of American democracy.

 

Confessional Poets:

Deals with mental and physical experiences. It is against Eliot’s Theory of impersonality.

Driven Forward by Robert Lowell (America), Sylivia Plath, Anne Sexton etc.,

In 1959, M. L. Rosenthal first used the term "confessional" in a review of Robert Lowell's Life Studies entitled "Poetry as Confession".

 

 

Beat Generation:

Jack Kerouc introduced the phrase. They oftern perform in coffee shops, public places with drums and jazz music

Ex: Allen Ginsberg’s Howl 1956

William S Burrough’s Naked Lunch 1959

Jack Kerouc’s On the Road 1957

John Clellon Holmes’ Go (1952) is the first beat novel

 

CHILE

Pablo Neruda:  Nobel in 1971, Greatest poet of 20^th century in any language. Pen name of Richard Eliecer Neftali Reys Basotto. He wtote in Spanish Language (Chile)

1.   Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924). is his famous collection of poems

 

CANADIAN LITERATUE

Canadian literature is quite modern. It began to have an identity of its own in 1920s and 1930s.it bloomed after the two World Wars.

 

Stephen Gill: He is migrated to Canada from Pakistan.

1.   The Flowers of Thirsts

2.   The Dove of Peace

3.   From Both Sides of the Ocean

4.   Songs of Harmony

 

A.J. Smith

1.    Like an Old Proud King in A Parable

 

Irving Layton

1.   For My Neighbors in Hell

 

Jean Margaret Lawrence: She is the pioneer of the feminist movement in Canadian literature. She was known as "Peggy" during her childhood. She was also a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada, a non-profit literary organization that seeks to encourage Canada's writing community.

1.   This Side Jordan (1960)- first novel- deals with how old colonials and native Africans suffered through the exchange of power as Ghana became a nation

2.   The Stone Angel 1964- best-known of Laurence's series of five novels set in the fictitious town of Manawaka, Manitoba.  Story of a 90-year-old Hagar Currie Shipley and her struggles against being put in a nursing home, which she sees as a symbol of death. She shows favouritism towards her younger son, John. After Hagar separates from her husband, Hagar takes John with her. However, he ultimately returns to his father. When John dies, Hagar does not cry, and at that point, she turns into a "Stone Angel"

3.   A Jest of God 1966 and The Fire Dwellers 1969- about two sisters, a Manitoba schoolteacher and a Vancouver housewife, each trying to achieve personal fulfillment

4.   The Diviners 1974

 

Margaret Atwood- poet critic, novelist, teacher, environmental activist, inventor of Longpen device. Atwood is a founder of the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Writers' Trust of Canada. she has published eighteen books of poetry, eighteen novels, eleven books of non-fiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books, two graphic novels, and a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction.

1.   The Edible Women (1969)- first novel, about women and their relationships to men, to society, and to food and eating. Story begins with a first-person narrator in the voice of the female protagonist, Marian McAlpin. For the first several chapters Marian describes her relationships to her roommate, Ainsley; her boyfriend, Peter Wollander; and her pregnant friend, Clara Bates. Marian meets Duncan, an unconventional young man. Millie, Lucy, and Emmy are three single women who are known collectively as the Office Virgins

2.   Surfacing1972- second novel, unnamed progonist returned to Canada to find her missing father

3.   The Handmaid’s Tale 1985- The title echoes to Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Dystopian Novel, OffRed(literally offered)-progonist, set in Republic of Gilead¸ "Offred" is also a pun on the word "offered", as in "offered as a sacrifice", and "of red" because the red dress assigned for the Handmaids in Gilead.

4.   Oryx and Crake (2003)

5.   The Testaments 2019.- A sequel novel to The Handmaid’s Tale

Note:

6.   Maddaddan Triology: Oryx and Crake(2003), The Year of Flood(2009) and Maddaddan(2013)

7.   Poetic collections: Double persephone(1961), The Circle Game(1964)

8.   Two booker prizes for: Blind Assasin(2001), The Testaments(2019)

 

George Ryga (dramatist)

1.   The Ecstasy of Rita Joe – one of the finest tragedies in Canadian literature.

 

Yann Martel – Spanish born Canadian Author

1.   Life of Pi (2001)- protagonist is Piscine Molitor Pi Patel, an Indian boy from Pondicherry, survives 227 days after a shipwreck while stranded on a life boat in Pacific Ocean with Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker

 

 

AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE

Judith (Arundell) Wright: poet, environmentalist and campaigner for Aboriginal land rights

1.   The Moving Image 1946- first book of poetry

2.   Woman to Man 1949- second collection of poems

3.   Woman to Child 1949

4.   The Old Prison 1949

5.   Birds: Poems 1962

6.   Train Journey 1978

 

Patrick (Victor Martindale) White:  Nobel in 1973

1.   Happy Valley 1939- first novel

2.   The Living and the Dead 1941- set in 1930s London. Story of the Standishes—mother Catherine, son Elyot and daughter Eden—who lead disparate lives under the one roof.

3.   Voss 1957- 5^th published novel­­- based upon the life of the 19th-century Prussian explorer and naturalist Ludwig Leichhardt, who disappeared while on an expedition into the Australian outback. Novel centres on two characters: Voss, a German, and Laura, a young woman, orphaned and new to the colony of New South Wales.

4.   Riders in the Chariot 1961- Sixth published novel, story of the lives of four loosely connected people, whose common link is the mystic experience of the chariot

 

David (George Joseph) Malouf

1.   Neighbours in a Thicket: Poems (1974) -collection of 34 poems- features childhood memories, his mother, his sister, travelling in Europe and war

2.   Johnno 1975- first novel- semi-autobiographical

3.   The Great World (1990) tells the story of two Australians and their relationship amid the turmoil of two World Wars, including imprisonment by the Japanese during World War II

4.   Remembering Babylon 1993: set in northern Australia during the 1850s amid a community of English immigrant farmers (with one Scottish family) whose isolated existence is threatened by the arrival of a stranger, a young white man raised from boyhood by Indigenous Australians.

 

A.D. (Alec Derwent) Hope (1907-2000)

1.   The Wandering Islands (1955) was his first collection

 

Chris Koch

1.   Boys in the Island

2.   Across the Sea Wall

3.   The Year of Living Dangerously – it is based on Indonesian and Indian myths.

 

David Robert

1.   Shantaram– it is the story of a runaway Australian convict on the mean streets of Mumbai metropolis.

 

AFRICAN LITERATURE

Chinua Achebe: Nigerian, Used Igbo Language.  Often reffered as Father of African Literature, but he rejects it.

1.   Things Fall apart 1958- first novel, about pre colonial life in Nigeria and arrival of Europeans in late 19^th century. The title is drawn from W B Yeats’s The Second Coming poem, “Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;”

2.   No Longer at Ease 1960 – story of an Igbo man Obi Okonkwo, grand son of Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart

3.   Arrow of God 1964 (these three works known as African Triology)-

4.   A Man of people 1966- Story of a teacher Odili Samalu enters into politics and hos conflict with the minister Nanga

5.   Anthills of Savannah- (1987)

6.   Where angels fear to tread – is a 1962 essay

7.   An image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness- a famous lecture in 1975, He criticized Joseph Conrad as “Bloody Racist”

 

Wole Soyinka:  Nigerian, Wrote in Yoruba Language, He was awarded Nobel Prize in 1986. He is the major writers of Nigeria.

1.   The Lion and the Jewel 1959-play theme of corrupted African culture. Takes place over a span of aday (on Sunday)- in 3 parts: Morning, Noon and Night.Story of Baroka, The lion fights with the Modern Lakunle over the right to marry Sidi, the titular Jewel.

2.   A Dance on the Forests 1960-play

3.   The Strong Breed 1963-play

4.   Kongi’s Harvest: 1965 play. It was premiered in Dakar, Senegal at the first Negro Arts festival in 1966.

5.   The Swamp Dwellers- short play about Nigerian family

6.   The interprers -1965 First Novel about Biafra.

 

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:   Nigerian

1.   Purple Hibiscus 2003- set in poscolonial Nigeria

2.   Half a Yellow Sun- 2006- story of Biafran War

3.   Americanah 2013- Tells the story of a young Nigerian woman Ifemelu leaves Africa for studying in US and her love with Obinze. Americanization is one of the most prominent themes in it: She adopts American slang, sorroundings and American politics. She started a blog entitled “Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks by a Non-­American Black”. A co-worker shouts at Obinze, “His knee is bad because he’s a knee-grow!”

4.   We should all be Feminists: A critical essay

 

Buchi Emcheta: Nigerian born British Novelist

1.   Bride Price (1975): Problems of women in post colonial Nigeria

2.   The Slave Girl (1977): Story of a young girl Ogbanje Ojebeta

3.   Joys of Motherhood (1979): Basis for this novel is “Necessity for a woman to be fertile and above all to give birth to sons”

 

Ben Okri: He is practitioner of Magic realism

1.   The Famished Road: A Booker Prize winning novel (1991)- story of Azaro, harassed by her siblings’ spirits who want him to leave his mortal life and return to the world of spirits.

 

Nadine Gordimer- First South African Nobel Winning Author in 1991 (second winner is J M Coetzee)

1.   A World of Strangers – 1958 Novel

2.   The Late Bourgeois World 1966 Novel

3.   The Conservationalist 1974- Booker prize , Mehering is the protagonist and antihero of the novel

4.   Burger’s Daughter 1979- Political historical novel, Rosa is the daughter os Lionel Burger and Cathey Burger.

5.   July’s People 1981- Set in near future version of south Africa where apartheied ended theough a civil war. July is a black servant,

 

John Maxwell Coetzee: Southa African novelist, 2003 nobel, - Booker in 1983 and 1999.

1.   Life and Times of Micheal K (1983 booker)- The novel is a story of a man with cleft lip named Michael K, who makes an arduous journey from Cape Town to his mother's rural birthplace, amid a fictitious civil war during the apartheid era, in the 1970-80s.

2.   Disgrace (1999 Booker)- about a south African English professor who lost everything

3.   Waiting for Barbarians (1980)- The story is narrated in the first person by the unnamed magistrate of a settlement that exists on the territorial frontier of "The Empire".

4.   Jack Maggs- modelled on Dicken’s Great Expectations

 

Leon Damas- related to the Negritude Movement along with Amie cesaire and Loepard Senghol.

1.   Black Orphans – ‘Black Dolls’ is a famous poem in it.

 

Ngugi Wa Thiongo: He is a Kenyan Novelist, wrote in Gikuyu language.

1.   Weep Not Child 1964 – debut novel,

2.   The River between 1965- novel

3.   A Grain of Wheat 1967-

4.   Petals of Blood (1977)

5.   On the Abolition of English Department: is a critical essay (see criticism notes)

 

Flora Nwapa 1931-1993- Called as “Mother of modern African Literatue”. Founded “Tana Press” (first African woman publisher)

1.   Efuru – first book to be published in English  (internationally) by any African woman. she creats the ideal of African womanhood in the character of 'Efuru (an Igbo woman)’ who heroically faces the cruelty of her two selfish husbands. Efure’s mother-in-law’s words: “Two woman do not live together”  convinced Adizua to remarry since Efuru is childless.

 

Christina Ama Ata Aidoo 1942-2023: Ghanian author, minister of Education in Ghana.

1.   The Dilemma of a Ghost 1965- Her first play made her the first play to be published by a female African dramatist

2.   Our Sister Kiilljoy: or Reflections from a Black-eyed Squint (1977): Her first novel, about a young African woman Sissie, who goes Europe to study. It is in 4 parts: Bad Dream. The Plums, England is another thing, A Love letter. Famous Quote in part one: “Power to decide, who is to live and who is to die”

 

CARRIBEAN (North America)

Franz Omar Fanon 1925-1961: Francophone Afro-Caribbean writer, Psychiatrist, philosopher.

1.   Black Skin, White Masks (1952)- written in the style of autoethnography, with his own experiences, effects of racism and dehumanization. (see criticism notes under post-colonialism)

2.   The Wretched of the Earth (1961)- about the role of violence in decolonization struggle. In 191 edition of his preface, Jean-Paul Sartre supported Frantz Fanon's advocacy of violence by the colonized people against the colonizer, but in the foreword to the 2004 edition, Homi K. Bhabha criticized Sartre's introduction.

 

Jean Rhys 1890-1979: born as Ella Gwendolyn Rees Williams in Carribbean island of Dominica. Her best-known work is Wide Sargasso Sea.

1.   Quartet 1928- is Jean Rhys's debut novel, set in Paris's bohemian café society. Quartet is based on two couples. It is autobiographical, and roman à clef based on her extramarital affair and acrimonious breakup with her literary mentor Ford Madox Ford, the English author and editor of The Transatlantic Review literary magazine. Marya (nicknamed Mado) is the counterpart of Jean Rhys.

2.   Good Morning, Midnight (1939)- continuation of Rhys' three other early novels, Quartet (1928), After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie (1931) and Voyage in the Dark (1934).

3.   Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)- Prequel to Jane Eyre (Of Charles Bronte)- portrays the mad woman, Mrs Rochester’s marriage from the point-of-view of his wife Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress. Antoinette Cosway is Rhys's version of Brontë's "madwoman in the attic" Antoinette's story is told from the time of her youth in Jamaica, to her unhappy marriage to an English gentleman, Mr. Rochester, who renames her Bertha, declares her mad, takes her to England, and isolates her from the rest of the world in his mansion. (see Jane Eyre)

 

Edward Kamau Brathwaite: Barbadian poet in Carribea (North America)

1.   To sir, with love (1959) autobiographical novel. Based on true events concerned with Braithwaite taking up a teaching post in a school in East End of London

 

FRENCH LITERATURE

Albert Camus: contributed to the rise of Absurdism, second youngest to recive Nobel in 1957 (First youngest to receive Nobel is Kipling in 1907)

1.   The Stranger (L’Estranger in French) (1942)-  (U.S. title, The Stranger; British title, The Outsider) The first of Camus' novels published in his lifetime, the story follows Meursault, an indifferent settler in French Algeria, who, weeks after his mother's funeral, kills an unnamed Arab man in Algiers. The story is divided into two parts, presenting Meursault's first-person narrative before and after the killing. Opening line: “Mother died today. Or maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure.” “Any man who doesn’t weep at his mother’s funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death”- Camus.

2.   The Myth of Sysiphus- a 1942 Philosophical essay introduced Absurdism- see cricisim under existentialism

3.   The Plague 1947 (‘La Peste’ in French)- Story of Plague (epidemic) sweeping the French Algerian City of Oran.

4.   L’Homme révolté (1951; The Rebel)- 2nd essay, a treatise against political revolution, was disliked by both Marxists and existentialists and provoked a critical response from French writer Jean-Paul Sartre in the review Les Temps modernes (1952).

 

Jean Paul Satre- Nobel in 1964, key figue of existentialism and phenomenology (see criticism notes)

1.   Existentialism is a Humanism (1946)

2.   Being and Nothingness (1943)

 

Dominique Lapierre- French Author

1.   City of Joy (1985)-Novel- Calcutta is the city of joy, about heroes of Philkhana slum. The story revolves around the trials and tribulations of a young Polish priest, Father Stephan Kovalski (a French priest named Paul Lambert in the original French version), the hardships endured by a rickshaw puller, Hasari Pal in Calcutta (Kolkata), India, and in the second half of the book, also the experiences of a young American doctor, Max Loeb.

 

Benjamin Constant:

1.   Adolphe (1816)- is a classic French novel. It tells the story of an alienated young man, Adolphe, who falls in love with an older woman, Ellénore, the Polish mistress of the Comte de P***. He travels to the town of D*** in Germany

 

Lord Montaigne- French Philosopher, commonly known as Michel de Montaigne, was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance.best known for popularizing the essay as literary genre.

1.   Essais (1580) - collection of large number of short subjective treatment of various topics

 

Stendhal: pen name of Marie Henrie Beyle

1.   The Red and the Black (1830)- historical psychological novel in 2 volumes- story of Juliam Soren, son of a carpenter.

2.   The Charter House of Parma (1839)- story of an Italian Noble man in the Nepoleonic era

 

Hanore De Balzac: French Novelist, related to Naturalism. (see Naturalism under criticism notes)

     1.The Human Comedy- (La Comedie Humaine in French)- Novel sequence- His magnum opus.

 

Emilie Zola: Father of Naturalism (see criticism notes)

1.   Nana (1880)- Novel- sequence of 20 novels -Best example of Naturalism, The title character is an untalented actress, turns as courtesan (prostitute).

 

Alexander Dumas:     known for classic noels, nearly 200 films were made on his novels.

1.   The Count of Monte Cristo 1844

2.   The Three Musketeers 1844- adventures of a youngman named d’Artagnan

3.   Twenty years after – seqel to Three musketeers

 

Gustav Falubert: best known for his novel Madame Bovary

1.   Madame Bovary (1857)- story of a shy oddly dressed teenager Charles Bovary and his study at medical college. He becomes an officer in public health department and marries Heloise Dubuc, a woman chosen by his mother, When Heloise unexpectedly dies, he marries Emma and moves to a town. The novel’s focus shifts to Emma Bovary (She is the Madame Bovary). She gives birth to a daughter Berthi, but disappointed with motherhood, infatuated with an intelligent man Leon Bupis, also begins an affair with a land owner Radolphe Boulanger. Boulanger sends an apology letter placed in a basket of apricots and breaks the relationship. Emma falls deathly ill and recovers. Then, Emma travels to city each week to meet Loen, while Charles believs that she is taking Piano classes. Emma indulges her fancy for luxury goods. As debts increase, she takes arsenic and dies. Heartbroken Charles abandons himself, stops working, lives by selling off his possessions. He preserves Emma’s room as shrine. When he finds the love letters of Emma, he breaks down ad dies. Bethi works in a cotton mill in the end.

 

Marcel Proust: Best known for his novel ‘In search of Lost Time’

1.   In search of Lost Time (French: A la recherche du temps perdu) 1913- novel in 7 volumes. Focusses the narrator's recollections of childhood and experiences into adulthood in the late 19th-century and early 20th-century high-society France, while reflecting on the loss of time and lack of meaning in the world.  It is first translated into English as 'Remembrance of Things Past'. It is the longest novel (Guinness Record). It contains an estimated 9,609,000 characters (each letter counts as one character. Spaces are also counted, as one character each).

 

ITALIAN LITERATURE

Luigi Pirandello: Nobel in 1934, dramatist

1.   Six characters in search of author 1921- a well known play in 3 acts. An acting company prepares to rehearse the play The Rules of the Game by Luigi Pirandello. As the rehearsal is about to begin, they are unexpectedly interrupted by the arrival of six strange people. The Director of the play, furious at the interruption, demands an explanation. The Father explains that they are unfinished characters in search of an author to finish their story. The Director initially believes them to be mad, but as they begin to argue among themselves and reveal details of their story, he begins to listen. Six Characters: The Father and The Mother had one child together (The Son), but they have separated and Mother has had three children by another man – The Stepdaughter, The Boy and The Child (a girl). The play ends with The Child drowning in a fountain, The Boy committing suicide with a revolver, and The Stepdaughter running out of the theater, leaving The Son, The Mother, and The Father on stage. The play ends with The Director confused over whether it was real or not, concluding that in either case he lost a whole day over it

 

Umberto Eco: Italian Novelist.,

1.   The Name of the Rose- 1980 debut novel, historical mystery

2.   Foccault Pendulum 1988 – well known work- The book opens with a man named Casaubon who believes that a secret society has kidnapped his friend Jacopo Belbo.

 

RUSSIAN

Vladimir Nobokov: Novelist and emtomologist

1.   Lolita (1955)- Novel on controversial subject of hebephilia. The protagonist is an unreliable narrator, a middle-aged French literature professor who moves to New England and writes under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert. He describes his obsession with a 12-year-old nymphet, Dolores Haze, whom he kidnaps and sexually abuses after becoming her stepfather. Privately, he calls her "Lolita", the Spanish nickname for Dolores. The novel was originally written in English, but fear of censorship in the U.S. (where Nabokov lived) and Britain led to it being first published in Paris, France, in 1955.

2.   Pale Fire(1962)-  The novel is presented as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire", written by the fictional poet John Shade, with a foreword, lengthy commentary and index written by Shade's neighbor and academic colleague, Charles Kinbote. Pale Fire's unusual structure has attracted much attention, and it is often cited as an important example of metafiction. the title of John Shade's poem is from Shakespeare's Timon of Athens: "The moon's an arrant thief, / And her pale fire she snatches from the sun" (Act IV, scene 3),

 

Anton Chekov: Russian dramatist, short story writer and physician. He said, "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress.". Chekhov renounced the theatre after the reception of The Seagull in 1896, but the play was revived to acclaim in 1898 by Konstantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre, which subsequently also produced Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and premiered his last two plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard.

1.   Seagull 1896

2.   Uncle Vanya 1898

3.   Three Sisters 1900

4.   The Cherry Orchard 1904

 

Fyodor Dostovsky: Russian Novelist, short story writer and essayist.

1.   Crime and Punishment (1866)- It is often cited as one of the greatest works of world literature. Focuses mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in Saint Petersburg who plans to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker, an old woman who stores money and valuable objects in her flat. He theorises that with the money he could liberate himself from poverty and go on to perform great deeds, and seeks to convince himself that certain crimes are justifiable if they are committed in order to remove obstacles to the higher goals of 'extraordinary' men. Once the deed is done, however, he finds himself racked with confusion, paranoia, and disgust. His theoretical justifications lose all their power as he struggles with guilt and horror and is confronted with both internal and external consequences of his deed.

2.   The Brothers of Karamazov 1879-80- passionate philosophical novel that discusses questions of God, free will, and morality. It has also been described as a theological drama dealing with problems of faith, doubt, and reason in the context of a modernizing Russia, with a plot that revolves around the subject of patricide.

 

Leo Tolstoy: related to realism

1.   War and Peace- regarded as central work of world literature. The novel tells the story of five families—the Bezukhovs, the Bolkonskys, the Rostovs, the Kuragins, and the Drubetskoys. The work chronicles the Napoleonic era within Russia, notably detailing the French invasion of Russia and its aftermath.

2.   Anna Karenina 1877- Tragic story of countess Anna Karenina, and her affair with affluent Count Vronsky. Opening line: “Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”

 

GERMAN

FRANZ KAFKA: German Speaking Bohemian Jewish novelist. He finished none of full-length novels and burned around 90% his work. He is related to “Theatre of Absurd”

1.   The Metamorphosis: or Transformation (1915)- novella- related to realism/absurdism. Opening line: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” Gregor Samsa, a sales man turns into monstrous vermin (gaint insect) and subsequently struggles to adjust to this new condition. His sister’s name is Grete Samsa. The first problem he faced is to speak when he woke up in the morning. Gregor reflects on his job as a traveling salesman and cloth merchant, which he characterizes as being full of "temporary and constantly changing human relationships, which never come from the heart"

2.   Trial (written in 1914-15, published posthumously in 1925)- unfinished, tells the story of Josef K., the chief clerk of a bank, arrested and prosecuted on the mornig of his 30^th birthday by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor to the reader. Heavily influenced by Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, Kafka even went so far as to call Dostoevsky a blood relative. Last words of Joseph.K are “Like a dog”

3.   The castle (1926)- unfinished, protagonist is only known as ‘K’, a land surveyor

4.   Amerika (1927)- or the man who disappeared or missing person

5.   Betrachtung (1904-1912)- collection of stories by Kafka

 

Thomas Mann: Nobel in 1929.

1.   Budden Brooks (1901)-novel

2.   Death in Venice(1912)

3.   Transposed heads – gave plot to Hayavadana by Girish Karnad

 

Frederik Neitzsche: German Philosopher

1.   The Birth of Tragedy- major work

2.   Concept of: “God is Dead”

 

Betrolt Brecht- German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. See Epic theatre in Cultural studies/Marxism in criticism notes

1.   Mother courage and her children – famous play, example of epic theatre, about Nazi movement of Hitler.

2.   The Threepenny Opera -is a German "play with music, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar's Opera

3.   Baal- Full length play

 

John Goethe: German writer and statesman, Related to Sturm und Drang (storm and stress), a proto- Romantic movement

1.   Faust: a tragic play in 2 parts.

2.   His famous quote “Romanticism is disease, classicism is health”

 

Guntur Grass: Magic realism, Nobel in 1999. Best known for Danzing triology

     1.Danzing Triology: Tin Drum (1959), Cat and Mouse (1961), and Dog Years (1963)

 

AFGHAN

Khalid Hosseni: Afghan- born American Novelist, and physician

1.   The Kite Runner (2003)- debut and famous novel, regarded as father son story. Tells the story of Amir, a young boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul. The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall of Afghanistan's monarchy through the Soviet invasion, the exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the rise of the Taliban regime. Amir, a well-to-do Pashtun boy, and Hassan, a Hazara boy (inferior race) who is the son of Ali, Amir's father's servant, spend their days kite fighting in the hitherto peaceful city of Kabul. Flying kites was a way to escape the horrific reality the two boys were living in. Hassan is a successful "kite runner" for Amir; he knows where the kite will land without watching it. Both boys are motherless. Hasan is hare lipped boy and has china doll face with green eyes. Amir is the protagonist and narrator of the story.

2.   A Thousand Splendid Sons(2007)- novel, regarded as mother daughter story. Centers on Mariam and Laila.

 

SOMALIAN

Nuruddin Farah: Novelist, did his degree from Punjab University.

1.   From a Croocked Rib (1970)- first novel story of a girl escaped from an arranged marriage to an old man.

2.   Triology of novels:

     Variations: Sweet and Sour milk(1979), Sordine, and Close Sesame(1983)

     Blood in the Sun: Maps(198), Gifts(1993) and Secrets(1998)

     Past Imperfect: Links, Knots, and Crossbones (2011)

SENEGAL

Mariama Ba: Senegal author and Feminist who wrote in French

1.   So long a letter- first novel, semi auto bio, epistolary.

2.   Scarlet Song (1986)-Marriage between a European woman and An African man

 

SRILANKAN

Shyam Selvadurai: Canadian Srilankan Novelist

1.   Funny Boy (1994)- coming of age novel, (between 7 and 14). Constructed as six stories. Arjie is the protagonist, who explores sexual identity and encounters Simhala- Tamil tensions leading up to the 1983 roits. The six parts: 1.Pigs can’t fly, 2.Radha aunty, 3.See No evil and Hear No evil, 4.Small choices, 5.The best school of all, and 6.Riot journal: an epilogue

 

 

Micheal Ondatje: Srilankan born Canadian poet, writer

1.   The English Patient: won booker in 1992, and 50^th anniversary special booker prize. Story of four dissimilar people brought together at an Italian villa during the Italian campaign of WW-II.

 

BANGLADESHI

Monica Ali: Novelist

1.   Bricklane (2004)- famous novel, depicts the Bangladeshi Immigrants in East London. Bricklane is a street in East London. It is the heart of the city’s Bangladeshi ‘Sylheti’ community. It is famous for many curry houses. Nanzeem (18 year old) moves to London to marry Chanu (old man) who had face like frog.

 

PAKISTAN

Bapsi Sidhwa- Pakistani American Novelist- of Gujarati Parsi Zoroastrian descent

1.   Ice Candy Man 1980- explores civil war during the partition of India in 1947. It is also a coming-of-age novel since it is about protagonist Lenny Sethi, a Parsee boy’s growth from 4-year-old to 10-year-old.  (Published as Cracking India in US)

 

JAPAN

Kazuo Ishiguro: Japanese-born British novelist, nobel in 2017

1.   A Pale View of Hills (1982), details the postwar memories of Etsuko, a Japanese woman trying to deal with the suicide of her daughter Keiko

2.   The Remains of the Day (1989)- booker prize,

3.   Klara and the Sun (2021)- dystopian science fiction, set in the near future and centres on Klara - An Artificial Friend (AF) who serves as the protagonist and narrator of the novel. She is chosen as Josie's companion.

 

ST LUCIA and TRINIDAD

DERECK WALCOTT: Poet and Playwright, Nobel in 1992

4.   Omeros- epic poem based on Iliad, terza rima, used Trojan war to depict the Carribbean Fisherman’s fight.

Dream on Monkey Mountain: Story of revolt against the colonialism and search for identity. Makak (the monkey) is the protogonost of the play, Moustique (mosquito) is the friend of Makak. Tigre(tiger) and Souris(rat) are thieves. Corporal is a mulatto officer. Berthilia is the donkey. Basil symbolizes death in it.