Portal:Literature
Introduction
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose, fiction, drama, poetry, and including both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, also known as orature much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.
Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoir, letters, and essays. Within its broad definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles or other written information on a particular subject. (Full article...)
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Burger's Daughter is an historical and political novel by the South African Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Nadine Gordimer, first published in the United Kingdom in June 1979 by Jonathan Cape. The book was expected to be banned in South Africa, and a month after publication in London the import and sale of the book in South Africa was prohibited by the Publications Control Board. Three months later, the Publications Appeal Board overturned the banning and the restrictions were lifted.
Burger's Daughter details a group of white anti-apartheid activists in South Africa seeking to overthrow the South African government. It is set in the mid-1970s, and follows the life of Rosa, the title character, as she comes to terms with her father Lionel Burger's legacy as an activist in the South African Communist Party (SACP). The perspective shifts between Rosa's internal monologue (often directed towards her father or her lover Conrad), and the omniscient narrator. The novel is rooted in the history of the anti-apartheid struggle and references to actual events and people from that period, including Nelson Mandela and the 1976 Soweto uprising. While banned in South Africa, a copy of the book was smuggled into Mandela's prison cell on Robben Island, and he reported that he "thought well of it".
Selected excerpt
“ | It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture—a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold, and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever. | ” |
— Edgar Allan Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart" |
More Did you know
- ... that the reality television poetry competition Prince of Poets is more popular than football in countries of the Arab world, where it airs?
- ... that The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won a record-tying seven Olivier Awards at the 2013 Laurence Olivier Awards on April 28, 2013?
- ... that Berit Brænne's first children's book, from 1958, is a story about a sailor's family who adopted children from different parts of the world?
- ... that the 1934 Jeanne Galzy novel Jeunes filles en serre chaude, with its seductive title, was deemed to contain "dangerous aberrations" and "strong emotional reaction[s] of an undesirable nature"?
- ... that Fu Sheng was credited with saving the Confucian classic Book of Documents from the book burning of the First Emperor of China?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that History of the Mission of the Evangelical Brothers in the Caribbean by C. G. A. Oldendorp was the first book to publish Igbo-language terms in 1777?
- ... that the literary magazine Adabijoti Soveti was the sole remaining publication in the Jewish-Bukharian language by the time of the switch to the Cyrillic script in 1939–1940?
- ... that medieval literature scholar Theodore Silverstein's unit in World War II took over the Eiffel Tower to intercept communications of German aircraft?
- ... that Al-Wishah fi Fawa'id al-Nikah, a 15th-century Islamic sex manual by Egyptian writer Al-Suyuti, was based on both traditional hadith literature and material influenced by Indian erotology?
- ... that Helene P. Foley's Sather Lecture on the reception of Greek theatre in the United States was described as "something of a milestone" in bringing the subject closer to the mainstream?
- ... that The Man Without Talent is an I-novel, a genre of semi-autobiographical confessional literature that has been popular in Japan since the early twentieth century?
Today in literature
- 1907 - Rose Ausländer, German poet born
- 1916 - Camilo José Cela, Spanish writer born
- 1920 - William Dean Howells, American writer died
- 2001 - Douglas Adams, English author died
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