When it was initially published in 1939, John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" instantly became a bestseller. Like many phenomenally popular works, it has elicited a wide range of critical responses. Some earlier reviewers faulted Steinbeck for his apparent sentimentality, while others were disturbed by his portrait of heartless, greedy Americans. Others, too, criticized his aesthetics. His novel became an important part of the American curriculum, many readers praised his epic vision, and modern critics have tended to respond favorably to his works. But despite the publication of four new editions of the book from 1989 to 1997, its place in the American literary canon is precarious.

Through reprints of early reviews and scholarly articles, along with original essays and reviews of the four most recent major editions, this volume traces the critical reception of Steinbeck's novel. The first part of the book looks back at the first 50 years of the novel's reception, from 1939 to 1989, while the second examines the response to Steinbeck during the 1990s. Some of these later essays reflect on the lasting significance of the novel, while others note that some scholars and educators have questioned its relevance. The volume includes a chronology and bibliography, and an extensive introductory essay overviews the major trends in Steinbeck scholarship.

An extraordinary evocation of a grown daughter's attachment to her mother, and of both women's strength and resiliency. "I Remain in Darkness" recounts Annie's attempts first to help her mother recover from Alzheimer's disease, and then, when that proves futile, to bear witness to the older woman's gradual decline and her own experience as a daughter losing a beloved parent. "I Remain in Darkness" is a new high water mark for Ernaux, surging with raw emotional power and her sublime ability to use language to apprehend her own life's particular music.

This book of interdisciplinary essays serves to situate the original Sherlock Holmes, and his various adaptations, in a contemporary cultural context. This collection is prompted by three main and related questions: firstly, why is Sherlock Holmes such an enduring and ubiquitous cultural icon; secondly, why is it that Sherlock Holmes, nearly 130 years after his birth, is enjoying such a spectacular renaissance; and, thirdly, what sort of communities, imagined or otherwise, have arisen around this figure since the most recent resurrections of Sherlock Holmes by popular media? Covering various media and genres (TV, film, literature, theatre) and scholarly approaches, this comprehensive collection offers cogent answers to these questions.

Winner of some of France's most prestigious literary prizes, Patrick Modiano is considered one of the most fascinating French novelists alive today. This is the first English literary critique of this best-selling French author, whose works are found increasingly in translation throughout the world and who is attracting considerable critical attention outside France.
In this lucid study, Alan Morris explores Modiano's fifteen major novels. He also traces Modiano's development as a writer and the tragedies which have influenced his works: the death of his younger brother, the neglect of his father and the horrors of the German occupation. Morris delves into Modiano's themes of time, memory, identity and the past, clearly demonstrating this intriguing writer's key place in French writing today.

Although Herman Melville's masterworks Moby-Dick and Benito Cereno have long been the subject of vigorous scholarly examination, the impact of African culture on these works has received surprisingly little critical attention. Presenting a groundbreaking reappraisal of these two powerful pieces of fiction, Sterling Stuckey reveals how African customs and rituals heavily influenced one of America's greatest novelists.
The Melville that emerges in this innovative, intertextual study is one profoundly shaped by the vibrant African-influenced music and dance culture of nineteenth-century America. Drawing on extensive research, Stuckey reveals how celebrations of African culture by black Americans, such as the Pinkster festival and the Ring Shout dance form, permeated Melville's environs during his formative years and found their way into his finest fiction. Also demonstrated is the extent to which the author of Moby-Dick is indebted to Frederick Douglass's depiction of music, especially the blues, in his classic slave narrative. Connections between Melville's work and African culture are also extended beyond America to the African continent itself. With readings of hitherto unexplored chapters in Delano's Voyages and Travels in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and other nonfiction sources--such as Joseph Dupuis's Journal of a Residence in Ashantee--Stuckey links Benito Cereno and Moby-Dick, pinpointing the sources from which Melville drew to fashion major characters that appear aboard both the Pequod and the San Dominick.
Combining inventive literary and historical analysis, Stuckey shows how myriad aspects of African culture coalesced to create the unique vision conveyed inMoby-Dick and Benito Cereno. Ultimately, African Culture and Melville's Art provides a wealth of insight into the novelist's expressive power and the development of his distinct cross-cultural aesthetic.

Exam Board: AQA, Edexcel, WJEC, Eduqas & CCEA Level: AS/A-level Subject: Modern Languages First Teaching: September 2017 First Exam: June 2018 Literature analysis made easy. Build your students' confidence in their language abilities and help them develop the skills needed to critique their chosen work: putting it into context, understanding the themes and narrative technique, as well as specialist terminology. Breaking down each scene, character and theme in Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate), this accessible guide will enable your students to understand the historical and social context of the novel and give them the critical and language skills needed to write a successful essay. - Strengthen language skills with relevant grammar, vocab and writing exercises throughout - Aim for top marks by building a bank of textual examples and quotes to enhance exam response - Build confidence with knowledge-check questions at the end of every chapter - Revise effectively with pages of essential vocabulary and key mind maps throughout - Feel prepared for exams with advice on how to write an essay, plus sample essay questions, two levels of model answers and examiner commentary

Judy Blume is one of the most popular authors of children's and young adult fiction in American history. For over 30 years, her books and career have withstood the test of time and she continues to resonate with new generations of young readers. While she is arguably one of the most important authors of the twentieth century, she is also one of the most banned. What is perhaps the most surprising aspect of Blume's career is that despite today's proliferation of cable channels and easy Internet access, books of hers written decades ago about every day life events that all teenagers experience still manage to find themselves at the center of censorship debates. Rather than change her style, the efforts to censor her books turned Blume into an activist and champion for the First Amendment. Inside this biography Kathleen Tracy explores the life and career of Judy Blume, one of the most successful-and most controversial-authors of twentieth century.

In addition to tracing the events of BlooM's life, this engaging biography discusses historic and current censorship issues in classrooms and libraries across the country. Her association with the National Coalition Against Censorship, a group that Blume says changed her life, as did her friendship with the organization's longtime director, Leanne Katz, is examined in detail as well as how libraries, teachers, publishers and grass-roots activists have responded to the ever-growing attempts to censor children's reading material. In-depth chapters are supplemented with a bibliography of print and electronic sources that provide suggested readings for students and general readers alike. Also included is a timeline, photos, and an appendix of free speech resources.

A wide-ranging study of the post-1990 fiction of one of America's most respected writers and cultural critics, this volume focuses on three of Don DeLillo's most recent novelsGCoMao II, Underworld, and Falling ManGCothat span pivotal moments in recent history: the end of the Cold War, the millennium, and 9/11. Consisting of original essays written by scholars whose interdisciplinary approachesGCodrawn from art history and religious history, ethnic studies and urban studies, popular culture and political scienceGCoshed new light on DeLillo's work, it investigates DeLillo's portrait of turn-of-the-century America as the nation confronts the defining phenomena of globalism and terrorism. With an eye always on the impact that shifts in historical sensibility produce on aesthetic sensibility, the volume also considers the role that DeLillo sees narrative playing in a world dominated by digital images and provides the first extended analysis of how much faith he has in fiction's ability to convey the trauma of September 11, an event commonly conceived as resistant to all forms of artistic expression.

The writers of Gothic literature reflect in their works the concerns and fears of the times in which they were created. These fears, in turn, destabilize the reader; that is, they create within the reader a sense of uneasiness characteristic of the Gothic genre, an uneasiness that comes from the challenging of social and cultural conventions or cherished beliefs. In doing so, these works are also cultural artifacts, for they reflect issues central to society at a given point in time. This book examines the process of destabilization in the modern American Gothic. The volume focuses on the works of three popular 20th-century Gothic writers: H.P. Lovecraft, Richard Matheson, and Stephen King. It argues that science and technology are central to the destabilization process in works by these authors, and it demonstrates how, as cultural artifacts, their writings reflect the fears and concerns of contemporary society. Thus the volume demonstrates how the works of these authors remain within the Gothic literary tradition, while they simultaneously adapt that tradition for a modern audience.

Classic 19th-century British novels that give full expression to complex ethical problems necessarily project the claims of conflicting or interfering values and thus complicate the strategies for resolving the dilemmas they dramatize. This book reasserts the importance of the ethics of reading. It analyzes a developing dialogue between moral philosophers and literary critics, all of whom in their different ways celebrate literature's capacity to confront us with values in conflict. They agree that a key reason for rereading and arguing about classic novels is that they often hypothesize moral dilemmas in more realistically particularized detail than any abstract, rational discussion of ethics could match. But even if novels provide specifically situated explorations of moral issues, this does not mean that they can resolve the problems they dramatize.

This book considers interfering values in novels by Austen, Dickens, Eliot, and Hardy and the difficulties in interpreting these works. Each novel has caused protracted disputes among critics because of its heroine and its conflicting values. Different readings of these novels reveal how critics engage in interpretive strategies to defend or deplore what they read. But while they try to articulate and limit the reader's responses, the novels break through the frames they would impose, thus enlarging our awareness of the problems of making judgments.

As one of the only highly praised resources on this important topic, this thoughtfully compiled book examines and suggests picture books and chapter books presenting LGBTQ content to children under the age of 12. Highlighting titles for children from infancy to age 11, Rainbow Family Collections examines over 250 children's picture books, informational books, and chapter books with LGBTQ content from around the world. Each entry in Rainbow Family Collections supplies a synopsis of the title's content, lists awards it has received, cites professional reviews, and provides suggestions for librarians considering acquisition. The book also provides a brief historical overview of LGBTQ children's literature along with the major book awards for this genre, tips on planning welcoming spaces and offering effective library service to this population, and a list of criteria for selecting the best books with this content. Interviews with authors and key individuals in LGBTQ children's book publishing are also featured. A foreword by K.T. Horning of the Cooperative Children's Book Center An extensive bibliography of picture books, easy chapter books, nonfiction books and nonprint materials with LGBTQ content for children ages 12 and under An index of key terms for each title provides easy access to titles representing a specific aspect of LGBTQ culture

From David Lean's big screen Great Expectations to Alejandro Amenabar's reinvention of The Turn of the Screw as The Others, adaptations of literary classics are a constant feature of popular culture today. The Bloomsbury Introduction to Adaptation Studies helps students master the history, theory and practice of analysing literary adaptations. Following an introductory overview of major debates and concepts, each chapter focuses on a canonical text and features: - Case study readings of adaptations in a variety of media, from film to opera, televised drama to animated comedy show, YA fiction to novel/graphic novel. - Coverage of popular appropriations and re-imaginings of the text. - Discussion questions and creative exercises throughout to guide students through their own analyses. - Annotated guides to further reading and viewing plus online resources. - The book also includes chapter overviews and a glossary of critical terms to give students quick access to key information for further study, reference and revision. The Bloomsbury Introduction to Adaptation Studies covers adaptations of: Jane Eyre; Great Expectations; The Turn of the Screw; The Great Gatsby.

'Island Genres, Genre Islands' moves the debate about literature and place onto new ground by exploring the island settings of bestsellers. Through a focus on four key genres-crime fiction, thrillers, popular romance fiction, and fantasy fiction-Crane and Fletcher show that genre is fundamental to both the textual representation of real and imagined islands and to actual knowledges and experiences of islands. The book offers broad, comparative readings of the significance of islandness in each of the four genres as well as detailed case studies of major authors and texts. These include chapters on Agatha's Christie's islands, the role of the island in 'Bondspace,' the romantic islophilia of Nora Roberts's Three Sisters Island series, and the archipelagic geography of Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea. Crane and Fletcher's book will appeal to specialists in literary studies and cultural geography, as well as in island studies.

This book examines dystopian fiction's recent paradigm shift towards urban dystopias. It links the dystopian tradition with the literary history of the novel, spatio-philosophical concepts against the backdrop of the spatial turn, and systems-theory. Five dystopian novels are discussed in great detail: China Mieville's Perdido Street Station (2000) and The City & The City (2009), City of Bohane (2011) by Kevin Barry, John Berger's Lilac and Flag (1992), and Divided Kingdom (2005) by Rupert Thomson. The book includes chapters on the literary history of the dystopian tradition, the referential interplay of maps and literature, urban spaces in literature, borders and transgressions, and on systems-theory as a tool for charting dystopian fiction. The result is a detailed overview of how dystopian fiction constantly adapts to - and reflects on - the actual world.

This book explores the aesthetic practices used by Dickens to make the space which we have come to know as the Dickensian City. It concentrates on three very precise techniques for the production of social space (counter-mapping, overlaying and troping). The chapters show the scapes and writings which influenced him and the way he transformed them, packaged them and passed them on for future use. The city is shown to be an imagined or virtual world but with a serious aim for a serious game: Dickens sets up a workshop for the simulation of real societies and cities. This urban building with is transferable to other literatures and medial forms. The book offers vital understanding of how writing and image work in particular ways to recreate and re-enchant society and the built environment. It will be of interest to scholars of literature, media, film, urban studies, politics and economics.

This book is about haunting in modernist literature. Offering an extended and textually-sensitive reading of modernist spectrality that has yet to be undertaken by scholars of either haunting or modernism, it provides a fresh reconceptualization of modernist haunting by synthesizing recent critical work in the fields of haunting studies, Gothic modernisms, and mourning modernisms. The chapters read the form and function of the ghostly as it appears in the work of a constellation of important modernist contributors, including T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, Elizabeth Bowen, Wyndham Lewis, Richard Aldington, and Ford Madox Ford. It is of particular significance to scholars and students in a wide range of fields of study, including modernism, literary theory, and the Gothic.

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), an Argentine writer of serious avant-garde poetry and prose, often wrote of the humor in the works of contemporaneous authors such as Franz Kafka. In response to this humor, Borges created a comedic tradition all his own. Humor in Borges studies the humor embedded in the fiction of a serious and metaphysical literary figure.

Rene de Costa shows how Borges was concerned with making the embedded humor in his work more apparent without abandoning the essential story line. De Costa examines the ways in which Borges transformed established modes of writing -- the chronicle, the book review, the obituary, the detective story -- into genre parodies. He looks at Borges's canonical collections, identifying the humor in such simple things as a footnote, a false epigraph, or a postscript. He also considers the Universal History of Infamy and the techniques Borges used to rework serious stories and poems into overt comedy that ridiculed the notion of high and low culture.

Humor in Borges couples elegant scholarship with a comedic edge and is both accessible and enjoyable to read. Scholars and students of twentieth-century Spanish and Latin American literature will delight in this fascinating look at laughter in the work of Jorge Luis Borges.

This book is a stylistic study of D. H. Lawrence's presentation of narrative viewpoint. The focus is mainly on Lawrence's third novel, Sons and Lovers, occupying a crucial position in his oeuvre and judged by critics to be his first mature piece.While sharing many features typical of nineteenth-century novels, it marks the emergence of a new technique of writing consciousness that functioned as a precursor to the modernist practice of dialogic shifts across viewpoints. Through a detailed linguistic analysis, Sotirova shows that different characters' viewpoints are not simply juxtaposed in the narrative, but linked in a way that creates dialogic resonances between them. The dialogic linking is achieved through the use of devices that have parallel functions in conversational discourse - referring expressions, sentence-initial correctives and repetition. The book uses stylistics to resolve current controversies in narratology and Lawrence criticism.In approaching the study of narrative viewpoint from the angle of discourse, Sotirova arrives at cutting-edge insights into Lawrence's work. This book will be required reading for stylisticians, narratologists, literary linguists and literary studies scholars.

Best known as the author of "Heart of Darkness" (1899), Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) is one of the most widely taught writers in English. His mastery of the English language is especially notable, for he was born in a Ukrainian area of Poland under Czarist Russian rule and began a sea career in France. He joined the British merchant fleet, and his travels took him to European imperial outposts throughout Asia, South America, and Africa. To pass the monotonous time on land between journeys, he began to write fiction in English. Never quite at home anywhere, he spoke a thickly accented mix of English, Polish, and French. He sometimes posed as a flirtatious Frenchman, a fallen Polish nobleman, and an English country squire and man of letters. Like many writers, his works reflect his experiences. Interest in his writings has become especially strong, in light of their relationship to marginality and postcolonialism.

As a reference book, this volume is a comprehensive guide to Conrad's troubled life and enduring literary legacy. An opening biographical chapter tells the story of his difficulties, adventures, and achievements. It also summarizes the current state of biographical research on Conrad and provides a useful context for approaching his works. The chapter that follows builds on the biography by discussing the importance of Conrad's letters to our understanding of his life and writings. Additional chapters examine each of his major works, while others address clusters of his later novels, his short fiction, and his essays and memoirs. Each chapter is written by an expert contributor and offers a combination of summary and original scholarship. Thus the volume provides important biographical, bibliographical, and contextual information to those readers new to Conrad, while it simultaneously gives experienced readers a wealth of fresh critical perspectives.

Poised between the Mediterranean and the Mitteleuropa, crossroads of civilizations and seat of vibrant cultural and literary life, Trieste is now acknowledged as enjoying unrivalled cultural status amongst Italian cities. This volume, the first comprehensive study of Triestine literature in English, originally reassesses Triestes literary identity, paying particular attention to the period between 1918 and 1954 when local writing became intensely aware of its local specificity and some of its central motifs came prominently to the fore. Triestes singular border identity, mirrored in a variegated literary output, emerges here as laden with complexities and ambiguities, such as the controversial notion of triestinita, the ambiguous relation with nationalism, specifically in its Fascist inflection, and the anxieties generated by repeated re-definitions of the areas historical borders.

This book explores the idea of a new cosmopolitan Japanese identity through a socio-cultural analysis of contemporary Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. It is the first monograph to apply the idea of cosmopolitanism to this writer's global popularity widely known as the "Haruki phenomenon".By pioneering an enquiry into Murakami's cosmopolitanism, this book aims to overcome the prevailing myth of "Japaneseness"(Nihonjinron) as a form of self-identification for Japanese, and propose an alternative approach for contemplating contemporary Japanese cultural identity. Socio-cultural analysis of this author and his works shall establish Murakami's cosmopolitan qualities and how they contribute to the cultural phenomenon of globalization. Furthermore, this book will introduce the idea of "everyday cosmopolitanism" as a relevant concept to address an emergent global cultural sphere. Unlike the traditional model of cosmopolitanism, which is sometimes regarded as idealist and elitist, "everyday cosmopolitanism" encompasses the everyday spheres of ordinary people. Tomoki Wakatsuki argues that the Haruki phenomenon, as a global and local event, echoes this important social trend today. Murakami's departure from conventional notions of Japanese identity offers an alternative perception of identity and belonging that is useful for situating Japanese identity within a global context. This text will be of interest to students and scholars of cultural studies, global literature, contemporary Japanese literature, cultural cosmopolitanism and the global cultural sphere.

Writing Youth: Young Adult Fiction as Literacy Sponsorship shows how many young adult novels model for young people ways to manage the various media tools that surround them. Jonathan Alexander examines not only young adult texts and their media ecologies but also young people's multiliterate media making in response to their favorite texts and stories. As such, this book will be of interest to anyone concerned about young people's literacies and the relationship between literacy development and the culture industries.

Rediscover the classics--and share them with readers! The Count of Monte Cristo is a rip-roaring adventure. Pride and Prejudice is an endearing romance. Howard Fast's April Morning is fascinating historical fiction and a moving war story. The list goes on. The trick is to find the right book for the reader. This guide can help. By identifying the genre characteristics of more than 400 classic fiction works, and organizing titles according to these features, this guide helps readers find the type of books they enjoy; and it helps you promote classics to teen (and adult!) readers. Grade 9 through adult. The primary purpose of this book is to provide a readers' advisory tool for those working with teens and preteens in public and school libraries. A secondary purpose is to help educators and librarians promote classic literature to readers of all ages. Teachers in particular will find it a useful complement to college bound and AP reading lists.