WRITERS

CHINESE BEST NOVELS – Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, by Lisa See

Lisa See is an American writer and novelist, and her books include also the novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. http://www.lisasee.com/ She was born in Paris, but has spent many years in Los Angeles (especially Los Angeles Chinatown). Her paternal great-grandfather was Chinese, which has had a great impact on her life and work. Two her novels (Snow Flower …

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THE SECRET RIVER – Novel, by Kate Grenville

Australian literature has a rich history and The Secret River (novel by Kate Grenville) is a page of that history. Kate Grenville published nine books of fiction and four books about the writing process, but her best-known work remains The Secret River. Her novels have won many awards and several have been made into major feature films. She was born …

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SILENCE OF THE GRAVE – Novel, by Arnaldur Indriðason

Reading Icelandic books translated to English: Even if you’ve never considered reading an 800-year-old story, some Icelandic sagas might surprise you: “Egils Saga” (by someone back in the c.1200s). You find there a colourful main character, plenty of fight scenes (both physical and verbal). Suggestion Nr. 2 and Nr.3: “Indipendent People”by Halldor Laxness you can read and “Gunnlöth’s Tale” by Svava Yakobsdottir. If …

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A SUITABLE BOY – Novel, by Vikram Seth

Having lived in London for many years, he maintains residences near Salisbury (England), where he is a participant in local literary and cultural events. He is an Indian novelist and poet. He has written several novels and poetry books. Vikram Seth, has received several awards (including Padma Shri, Sahitya Akademi Award and Pravasi Bharatiya Samman). His collections of poetry, are …

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AFTER FOREVER ENDS – Novel, by Melodie Ramone

She is a wife, mother and author. http://melodieramone.weebly.com/ First published in literary magazines at the age of twelve, she is a lifelong writer from the city of Chicago. A lifelong lover of music, she worked in the public relations sector of the music industry. She can be found delving into fringe Physics, reading anything she can get her hands on, …

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MALINA – Novel, by Ingeborg Bachmann

The protagonists of Austrian literature? Stifter and Schnitzler, Rilke, Musil and Kafka. Among the names of those players is Ingeborg Bachmann, a woman who was part of the Group 47, poets and novelists innovative. The poetry of Bachman is of great musicality and spiritual intensity, but she also wrote a novel, Malina. Expressing the modern woman’s problems and unhappiness. The …

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THE STONE RAFT – Novel by José de Sousa Saramago

He become a Portuguese writer (and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature). All his works emphasizing the human factor. His father decided in 1924 to leave farm work, moving with his family to Lisbon, where he started to work as a policeman. He was born in a family of landless peasants, around a hundred kilometres north-east of Lisbon, …

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EXTINCTION – Novel by Thomas Bernhard

He was born in a Holland convent (his mother, unwed at the time, had fled there from Austria to give birth). After a year, she returned to her parents in Vienna, where her father became the major influence on Bernhard. After surviving a life-threatening coma, he studied music and drama in Salzburg and Vienna. Thomas Bernhard, was an Austrian writer …

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LIGHT OF MY LIFE, FIRE OF MY LOINS – Lolita, novel by Vladimir Nabokov

The novel is narrated by Humbert. The novel’s flamboyant style is characterized by double entendres, multilingual puns, anagrams, and coinages such as nymphet (word, which can be found in most dictionaries). Lolita, today it is regarded as one of the prime achievements in 20th century literature. The novel was adapted into a film by Stanley Kubrick https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY0LrmKXsB8 and again by Adrian …

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LOOKING FOR THE FLOWERS OF EVIL

He was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His most famous work “The Flowers of Evil”, https://www.amazon.com/Flowers-Evil-Charles-Baudelaire/dp/1449555438 expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the 19th century, where the themes of sex and death, lesbianism, metamorphosis and depression, urban corruption, lost innocence and alcohol not only gained him loyal …

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