contemporary literature
TRANSCRIPT
CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
Contemporary literatureis literature with
its setting generally after World War II.
It include contemporary romance. It is a subgenre of romance novels, generally with the setting after World War II. The largest of the romance novel subgenres, contemporary romance novels are set in the time when they were written, and usually reflect the mores of their time.
Literature of the 20th century refers to world literature produced during the 20th century. The range of years is written from 1900 through the 1990s.
Technological advances during the 20th century allowed cheaper production of books, resulting in a significant rise in production of popular literature and trivial literature, comparable to the development in music.
Towards the end of the 20th century, electronic literature developed as a genre due to the development of hypertext and later the world wide web.
20th century literature
Isabel Allende Llona
Born:2 August
1942 (age 71)Lima, Peru
Occupation: Author, journalist
Language: SpanishNationality: Chilean-
AmericanNotable award(s):
National Prize for Literature
The House of the Spirits
•is the debut novel by Isabel Allende.
•The book was first conceived by Isabel
Allende when she received news that
her one hundred year-old grandfather
was dying, and she began to write him a
letter that ultimately became the
starting manuscript of The House of the
Spirits.
•The story details the life of the Trueba
family, spanning four generations, and
tracing the post-colonial social and
political upheavals of Chile. The story is
told mainly from the perspective of two
protagonists (Esteban and Alba) and
incorporates elements of magical
realism.
Margaret Eleanor AtwoodBorn: November 18, 1939
Ottawa, Ontario, CanadaOccupation: Novelist,
poetNationality: CanadianGenres: historical
fiction, speculative fiction, science fiction, dystopian fiction
Notable work(s): The Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye,Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin,Oryx and Crake, Surfacing
The Handmaid's Tale
is set in the near future,
in
a totalitarian Christian th
eocracy which has
overthrown the United
States government, The
Handmaid's
Tale explores themes of
women in subjugation
and the various means by
which they gain agency.
Jonathan Earl Franzen
Born: August 17, 1959 (age 54)Western Springs, Illinois
Occupation: Novelist, essayistNationality: AmericanGenres: Literary
fictionLiterary movementSocial realism
Notable work(s): The Corrections (2001),Freedom (2010
Notable award(s): National Book Award2001James Tait Black Memorial Prize2002
Freedom follows several members of an
American family, the Berglund's, as well as their
close friends and lovers, as complex and
troubled relationships unfold over many years.
They have one daughter, Jessica, and a son,
Joey, who early on displays an independent
streak and an interest in making money. Joey
becomes sexually involved with a neighborhood
teen named Connie and begins to rebel against
his mother, going so far as to move in with
Connie, her mother, and her mother's boyfriend
Blake, making Patty and Walter increasingly
unstable. After several unhappy years the family
relocates to Washington, D.C., abandoning the
neighborhood and house they worked so hard to
improve. Walter takes a job with an unorthodox
environmental project, tied to big coal.
Ian Russell Mc Ewan
Born:21 June 1948 (age 65)Aldershot, England
Occupation: Novelist, screenwriter Nationality: English
“First Love, Last Rites” is told by an unnamed narrator who lives with his girlfriend in a quayside apartment in England. Both are seventeen or eighteen years of age. It is early summer, and the lovers, filled with youthful passion, make love regularly on a mattress-covered table in front of a big, open window. Once, while they are lying on the table, the narrator becomes aware of clawing sounds behind the wall; shortly afterward, Sissel also hears the noise.
The narrator and Sissel continue to lie on the mattress-covered table, talking and making love. Sissel develops foot rot, the smell mingling with the smells of mud and seaweed coming in through the window. The narrator hears the creature in the wall and imagines it is his own creature in Sissel’s body—one of feathers, claws, and gills. Sissel hears the creature also, and her lover thinks the scratching sound that grows out of their lovemaking is part of her fantasy also.
By mid-July, the lovers touch less, no longer enjoying their room. Adrian comes to visit them every day and wants to fight with Sissel as in former days. He is sincerely disgusted when the lovers touch.
First Love, Last Rites
David Mitchell
Born: 12 January 1969 (age 44)Southport, England, United Kingdom
Occupation: Novelist Nationality: BritishAlma
materUniversity of Kent Notable work(s):
Ghostwritten number9dream,Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Notable award(s): John Llewellyn Rhys Prize1999 Ghostwritten
A gallery attendant at the Hermitage. A young jazz buff in Tokyo. A crooked British lawyer in Hong Kong. A disc jockey in Manhattan. A physicist in Ireland. An elderly woman running a tea shack in rural China. A cult-controlled terrorist in Okinawa. A musician in London. A transmigrating spirit in Mongolia. What is the common thread of coincidence or destiny that connects the lives of these nine souls in nine far-flung countries, stretching across the globe from east to west? What pattern do their linked fates form through time and space?
A writer of pyrotechnic virtuosity and profound compassion, a mind to which nothing human is alien, David Mitchell spins genres, cultures, and ideas like gossamer threads around and through these nine linked stories. Many forces bind these lives, but at root all involve the same universal longing for connection and transcendence, an axis of commonality that leads in two directions--to creation and to destruction. In the end, as lives converge with a fearful symmetry, Ghostwritten comes full circle, to a point at which a familiar idea--that whether the planet is vast or small is merely a matter of perspective--strikes home with the force of a new revelation. It marks the debut of a writer of astonishing gifts.
Ghostwritten
George Bernard Shaw
Born: 26 July 1856Dublin, Ireland
Died: 2 November 1950 (aged 94)Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire, England
Occupation: Playwright, critic, political activist
Nationality: Irish Genres: Satire, black comedy
Literary movement: Ibsenism, naturalism
Notable award(s): Nobel Prize in Literature
1925Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay1938 Pygmalion
Shaw was conscious of the
difficulties involved in staging a
complete representation of the
play. Acknowledging in a "note
for technicians" that such a thing
would only be possible "on the
cinema screen or on stages
furnished with exceptionally
elaborate machinery", he marked
some scenes as candidates for
omission if necessary. Of these, a
short scene at the end of Act One
in which Eliza goes home, and a
scene in Act Two in which Eliza
is unwilling to undress for her
bath. The others are the scene at
the Embassy Ball in Act Three
and the scene with Eliza and
Freddy in Act Four.
THE ENDthank you!