contemporary literature

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CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

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Page 1: Contemporary literature

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

Page 2: 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.

Page 3: Contemporary literature

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

Page 4: Contemporary 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

Page 5: Contemporary 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.

Page 6: Contemporary literature

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

Page 7: Contemporary literature

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.

Page 8: Contemporary literature

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

Page 9: Contemporary literature

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.

Page 10: Contemporary literature

Ian Russell Mc Ewan

Born:21 June 1948 (age 65)Aldershot, England

Occupation: Novelist, screenwriter Nationality: English

Page 11: Contemporary literature

“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

Page 12: Contemporary literature

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

Page 13: Contemporary literature

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

Page 14: Contemporary literature

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

Page 15: Contemporary literature

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.

Page 16: Contemporary literature

THE ENDthank you!