The late 1970s to the mid-1980s, a period commonly referred to as the post-Mao cultural thaw, was a key transitional phase in the evolution of Chinese science fiction. This period served as a bridge between science-popularization science fiction of the 1950s and 1960s and New Wave Chinese science fiction from the 1990s into the twenty-first century. Chinese Science Fiction during the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw surveys the field of Chinese science fiction and its multimedia practice, analysing and assessing science fiction works by well-known writers such as Ye Yonglie, Zheng Wenguang, Tong Enzheng, and Xiao Jianheng, as well as the often-overlooked tech-science fiction writers of the post-Mao thaw. Exploring the socio-political and cultural dynamics of science-related Chinese literature during this period, Hua Li combines close readings of original Chinese literary texts with literary analysis informed by scholarship on science fiction as a genre, Chinese literary history, and media studies. Li argues that this science fiction of the post-Mao thaw began its rise as a type of government-backed literature, yet it often stirred up controversy and received pushback as a contentious and boundary-breaking genre. Topically structured and interdisciplinary in scope, Chinese Science Fiction during the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw will appeal to both scholars and fans of science fiction.

Andrea Levy has emerged as one of the most significant and popular voices in contemporary black British writing both in the UK and abroad. Drawing on a familial history of emigration, her critically-acclaimed novels - including the multiple award-winning "Small Island" - attempt to bring a variety of voices to the representation of black experience in post-war Britain. This book is the first of its kind to be devoted to Levy's work. Combining historical, theoretical and textual perspectives, the volume hosts a wide range of current critical approaches to Levy's fiction. With chapters written by leading established and emerging scholars, the book explores issues of literary form, diasporic literature and cultural value, the BBC TV adaptation of "Small Island," while also shedding fresh light on Levy's critically neglected early works. The book also includes a new interview with Levy herself, a timeline of her life, chapter summaries, as well as guides to further reading and online resources, making this an essential companion to the writings of one of the most exciting voices in contemporary fiction.

Building on the formula of York Notes, this Advanced series introduces students to more sophisticated analysis and wider critical perspectives. The notes enable students to appreciate contrasting interpretations of the text and to develop their own critical thinking. Key features include: study methods; an introduction to the text; summaries with critical notes; themes and techniques; textual analysis of key passages; author biography; historical and literary background; modern and historical critical approaches; chronology; and glossary of literary terms.

Navigate the fascinating world of mainstream fiction! With emphasis on award-winning fiction, this companion guide to Now Read This: A Guide to Mainstream Fiction, 1978-1998, features more than 500 novels published between 1990 and 2001. Using the same easy-access organization that made the original so popular, this book includes more than 400 new entries and several features that enable you to discover new reads and read-alikes based on an appeal-characteristics approach to the literature. Never again shy of an answer to "Can you recommend a good book?" you will find this to be an indispensable resource and tool.

This book maps the most active and vibrant period in the history of British women's writing. Examining changes and continuities in fiction, poetry, drama, and journalism, as well as women's engagement with a range of literary and popular genres, the essays in this volume highlight the range and diversity of women's writing since 1970.

With contributions from major scholars of African American literature, history, and cultural studies, A Historical Guide to James Baldwin focuses on the four tumultous decades that defined the great author's life and art. Providing a comprehensive examination of Baldwin's varied body of work that includes short stories, novels, and polemical essays, this collection reflects the major events that left an indelible imprint on the iconic writer: civil rights, black nationalism and the struggle for gay rights in the pre- and post-Stonewall eras. The essays will also highlight Baldwin's under-studied role as a trans-Atlantic writer, his lifelong struggle with faith, and his use of music, especially the blues, as a key to unlock the mysteries of his identity as an exile, an artist, and a black American in a racially hostile era.

Since the publication of White Teeth in 2000, Zadie Smith has become one of the most popular contemporary writers and also one of the mostly widely studied. Taking criticism of Smith's work beyond its traditional focus on postcolonialism and multicultural identity, Reading Zadie Smith brings together leading international scholars to open up new directions in criticism of Smith's work. Covering such key topics as posthumanism, 'hysterical realism', religion, identity and ethics, this book brings together a full range of current critical perspectives to explore not only Smith's novels but also her short stories, her criticism and her non-fiction writing.

What can we learn from the novels of Graham Greene? This book argues that Greene's writings have much to teach us about fighting evil here and now, and about endeavoring to live a worthy life. In novels that span half of the twentieth century, Greene related stories of evil persons who destroyed the freedom of others and of a few simple people who fought them. Through these stories he showed us three basic truths: first, evil exists; second, it is possible to fight it; and third, one may attain wisdom and sometimes a very limited glory by undertaking such a struggle. Gordon's study sets forth its own important lesson: thinking and assuming responsibility for the world, guided by the reading of great literature, are keystones of any worthy life.

This novel, published for the first time in English, is one of the most important statements about the Duvalier regime in Haiti, written by a Haitian who played a prominent role in the revolutionary movement that brought down the Lescot regime in January 1946. Depestre's ironic note denying historical origins for the novel does not obscure the scathing caricature of Papa Doc Duvalier and the bloodbath that he visited on his own country, which is called "Zacharyland" after the fictionalized President-for-life Zoocrates Zachary.

The first book to highlight the spiritual element in Borges' work, this work offers an insightful and scholarly interpretation of a fundamental facet of his writing.This book argues that the quest for God, though largely unheeded by the critical canon, was a major and enduring preoccupation for Borges. This is shown through careful analysis both of his essays, with their emphasis on his philosophical-theological explorations, and of the narrative articulations which are his stories. It is in the poetry of his middle and closing years, however, that Borges' search is most manifest, as it is no longer obscured. Spanning different periods of his life, and different literary genres, Borges' work attests to a maturing and evolving quest.The book reveals Borges' engagement as an active and evolving process and its chronological structure allows the reader to trace his thought over time. Flynn shows that the spiritual component in Borges' writing drives key texts from the 1920s to the 1980s.Offering an interpretation that unlocks a fuller significance of his work, she shows how Borges' reflections on time and identity are symptomatic of a deeper, spiritual searching which can only be answered by a Divine Absolute.

The future of German literature, like the future of united Germany, is a fascinating and vigorously debated question. In this first English-language study on the subject, Keith Bullivant analyses the main aspects of German literature since 1945 from the perspective of the 1990s. He pays particular attention to the periodisation of the literature, the major developments in the 1980s, the social role of writers as intellectuals, and the treatment of the 'German Question'.

By assessing notebooks and transcriptions taken by Samuel Beckett and recently released by the Beckett International Foundation archive, this book subjects Samuel Beckett's unpublished notes and sources to an analysis of their utility to his life and writings, during the interwar period - particularly the 1930's - and thereafter. Insofar as Beckett meticulously compiled his erudite sources on philosophy and psychology just prior to the postwar acclaim the The Trilogy, and especially, Waiting for Godot, the significance of these documents in anticipating Beckett's literary fortunes, if not approach, is clear. Guided by a methodological adherence to the principal of theorizing from a position of empirical strength, correspondence of this materialwith Beckett's experiences during the interwar years are also considered in terms of the insight these 'Interwar Notes' offer in charting Beckett's literary development, as well as out critical understanding of Beckett and his writing.

This innovative monograph focuses on a contemporary form of computer-based literature called 'literary hypertext', a digital, interactive, communicative form of new media writing. Canonizing Hypertext combines theoretical and hermeneutic investigations with empirical research into the motivational and pedagogic possibilities of this form of literature. It focuses on key questions for literary scholars and teachers: How can literature be taught in such a way as to make it relevant for an increasingly hypermedia-oriented readership? How can the rapidly evolving new media be integrated into curricula that still seek to transmit traditional literary competence? How can the notion of literary competence be broadened to take into account these current trends? This study, which argues for hypertexts integration in the literary canon, offers a critical overview of developments in hypertext theory, an exemplary hypertext canon and an evaluation of possible classroom applications.

Key Features: * Study methods * Introduction to the text * Summaries with critical notes * Themes and techniques * Textual analysis of key passages * Author biography * Historical and literary background * Modern and historical critical approaches * Chronology * Glossary of literary terms

There have been many great and enduring works of literature by Caribbean authors over the last century. The Caribbean Contemporary Classics collection celebrates these deep and vibrant stories, overflowing with life and acute observations about society. Set in Belize City in the early 1950s, Beka Lamb is the record of a few months in the life of Beka and her family. Beka and her friend Toycie Qualo are on the threshold of change from childhood to adulthood. Their personal struggles and tragedies play out against a backdrop of political upheaval and regeneration as the British colony of Belize gears up for universal suffrage, and progression towards independence. The politics of the colony, the influence of the mixing of races in society, and the dominating presence of the Catholic Church are woven into the fabric of the story to provide a compelling portrait, 'a loving evocation of Belizean life and landscape'. Beka's vibrant character guides us through a tumultuous period in her own life and that of her country.

This first general bibliography on contemporary Spanish American poets focuses on writers born between 1910 and 1952. Three generations are represented: The first, poets born 1910-1925 and including such notable figures as Octavio Paz, Jose Lezama Lima, Nicanor Parra, Gonzalo Rojas, Olga Orozco, and Alvaro Mutis, may be said to concentrate on language. The second generation, poets born 1925-1939 whose work was consolidated in the 1960s, with many exceptions are concerned with politics and history. Representative figures include Ernesto Cardenal, Roque Dalton, Juan Gelman, and Jose Emilio Pacheco. Poets of the latest generation may perhaps be characterized by awareness of the poetic sign. Though less well known, their inclusion allows the reader to incorporate the poetry of the 1980, and early 1990s into the panorama of Spanish American literature. Providing both primary and secondary sources, this comprehensive reference work will serve scholars and students as the point of departure for research on contemporary Spanish American poetry on any of the eighty-six poets included. For each poet, the listing of original writings comprises (a) poetic works, (b) compilations and anthologies, and (c) other works, such as fiction and essays; the secondary listing consists of bibliographies and critical studies. A bibliography of general works follows and complements the listings for individual poets. It includes a general section and studies organized by countries. The poets also are entered by date of birth in a chronology along with their nationalities. An index of critics completes the work.

Jimi Hendrix, Princess Diana and Syria's Asma Al-Assad rub shoulders with Auden, Eliot and Shelley - and with the Trouser Thief Clive met during ten long weeks locked up in a closed psychiatric ward - in this offbeat and affectionate poetic biography. Since 2010, when Clive was told he had three separate life-threatening conditions, he has poured out a stream of fine poems - sometimes light, witty and paradoxical, sometimes sad, heartfelt and regretful. Some, like `Japanese Maple', an instant Internet sensation, have already made it into the anthologies. Others, like his book-length epic, The River in the Sky, are more demanding. All are packed with the unexpected ideas, inventive imagery and breathtaking wordplay that have helped him achieve his avowed ambition of becoming `a fairly major minor poet'.

Around the turn of the century, the United States was still experiencing the mass migration of millions of Jews and other immigrants escaping oppression and poverty in Europe. Set against this historical backdrop, author Louis Harap examines the development of the Jewish American, as both writer and character, from 1900 to the 1950s. Creative Awakening traces fifty years' development of Jewish American fiction, poetry and humor, as it analyzes fictional portrayals of Jews themselves.

Romain Rolland's life coincided closely with the span of the French Third Republic, an age of which he was an acute and critical observer. A mind combining an unusual breadth of sympathies with uncompromisingly lofty values and a novelist's eye for detail, his interests cover a wide range of areas - history, musicology, biography, politics, religion, the East - and his correspondence with both the famous and the obscure, is exceptionally rich. He is remembered for his plays on the French Revolution, his work on Beethoven, his novels, his biographies, his opposition to the First World War, his desperate attempts between the wars to reconcile Gandhism and Leninism and, during the Occupation, his nostalgia for the Catholic faith of his forbears. Drawing on the wealth of the unpublished Archives Romain Rolland, this book offers a fresh perspective on the events of an often turbulent life and traces the changing patterns of his thought, which disconcerted his friends by its constant evolution. Rolland's work is unified by a fierce desire for independence, an insistence that the psychological force of faith is more important than its content, by an obsession with historical process and by a constant musicianly quest for harmony, or the reconciliation of discords within a synthetic whole. The author attempts to do justice to every side of Romain Rolland's output, showing how each of his works in their diverse genres contributes to the overall thrust of his developing thought. Though covering his political thought, the author avoids over-stressing it, as much previous criticism has done, and gives due weight to the work of his last years, which so far has been very imperfectly studied.

Scientific progress is usually seen as a precondition of modern utopias, but science and utopia are frequently at odds. Ranging from Galileo's observations with the telescope to current ideas of the post-human and the human-animal boundary, this study brings a fresh perspective to the paradoxes of utopian thinking since Plato.

"Utopianism, Modernism, and Literature in the Twentieth Century" considers the links between utopianism and modernism in two ways: as an under-theorized nexus of aesthetic and political interactions; and as a sphere of confluences that challenges accepted critical models of modernist and twentieth-century literary history. An international group of scholars considers works by E. M. Forster, Ford Madox Ford, Wyndham Lewis, Naomi Mitchison, Katharine Burdekin, Rex Warner, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Thomas Pynchon, Elizabeth Bowen, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Ernst Bloch. In doing so, this volume's contributors prompt new reflections on key aspects of utopianism in experimental twentieth-century literature and non-fictional writing; deepen literary-historical understandings of modernism's socio-political implications; and bear out the on-going relevance of modernism's explorations of utopian thought. "Utopianism, Modernism, and Literature in the Twentieth Century" will appeal to anyone with an interest in how deeply and how differently modernist writers, as well as writers influenced by or resistant to modernist styles, engaged with issues of utopianism, perfectibility, and social betterment.

Canadian Historical Writing presents an archaeology of contemporary Canadian historical writing within the theory and practice of historiography. Drawing on international debates within the fields of literary studies and history, the book focuses on the roles played by time, evidence, and interpretation in defining the historical.

Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe is widely regarded as the most important of the numerous African novelists who gained global attention in the second half of the 20th century. Achebe is certainly the African writer best known in the West, and his first novel, Things Fall Apart, is a founding text of postcolonial African literature and regarded as one of the central works of world literature of the last 50 years. Though best known as a novelist, Achebe is also a critic, activist, and spokesman for African culture. This reference is a comprehensive and authoritative guide to his life and writings. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries. Some of these are substantive summary discussions of Achebe's major works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Other topics include: * All of his major fictional characters and settings * Important concepts and issues central to his writings * Historical persons, places, and events relevant to his works * Influential texts by other writers Entries are written by expert contributors and close with brief bibliographies. The volume also provides a general bibliography and chronology.

Examining poetry by Robert Pinsky, Adrienne Rich, and Amiri Baraka, among others, this book shows that leading US poets since 1979 have performed the role of public intellectual through their poetic rhetoric. Gwiazda's argument aims to revitalize the role of poetry and its social value within an era of global politics.

The impact of the Irish Famine of 1845-1852 was unparalleled in both political and psychological terms. In this scholarly new study, Melissa Fegan explores the Famine's legacy to literature, tracing it down to 1919. Dr Fegan examines both fiction and non-fiction, and provides a strong historical framework for the understanding of the contemporary Irish mentality.