Author Archives
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Analysis of André Malraux’s Man’s Fate
Winner of the Goncourt prize in 1933, the most prestigious French literary award, Man’s Fate by André Malraux (1901–76) is part of an intriguing trilogy, including The Conquerors (1928) and The Royal Way (1930). Similar to these two earlier works,… Read More ›
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Analysis of Javier Marías’s The Man of Feeling
In “Something Unfulfilled,” an epilogue to The Man of Feeling, Javier Marías (1951–2022) compares the writing of fiction to a love’s invention, “discovering or stumbling upon something” where but an image existed before, “its first throb” (Nabokov’s phrase, appropriated by… Read More ›
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Analysis of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Mandarins
In the middle of the 20th century Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) published The Mandarins, a novel that won the Prix Goncourt, France’s highest literary honor. In The Mandarins Beauvoir reveals the social and political sentiments of a particular group of… Read More ›
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Analysis of Darcy Ribeiro’s Maíra
Maíra was the first novel by the Brazilian intellectual Darcy Ribeiro (1922–97), followed by three significant works: Mule (O mulo, 1981), Savage Utopia (Utopia Selvagem, 1982), and My-Self (Migo, 1988). Maíra was translated into English in 1984. Although Ribeiro was… Read More ›
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Analysis of Georges Simenon’s Maigret and the Enigmatic Lett
Although Maigret and the Enigmatic Lett is the first novel written by Georges Simenon (1903–89) in the highly popular detective Maigret series, most of the hallmarks of the series as a whole are apparent in this work. The tall, burly,… Read More ›
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Analysis of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain
Considered a landmark in world literature, The Magic Mountain by the highly respected German novelist Thomas Mann (1875–1955) reveals the conflicting political and cultural trends that divided families and nations throughout Europe in the early 20th century. Set on a… Read More ›
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Analysis of Marguerite Duras’s The Lover
The novelistic memoir The Lover by Marguerite Duras (1914–96) is a modernist story of sexual coming of age in French colonial Vietnam. It is also a portrait of the young author. It is the most accessible and by far the… Read More ›
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Analysis of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita
The Russian-born novelist Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) wrote Lolita, his 12th published novel, between 1948 and 1953. Lolita is a reworking of an earlier version of the story The Enchanter (Volshebnik), written in 1939 in Paris. Writing the text on index… Read More ›
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Analysis of Günter Grass’s Local Anaesthetic
Eberhard Starusch has a number of problems: His teeth hurt, his dentist constantly quotes Seneca, and one of his students is trying to devise a dramatic protest against the Vietnam War. In this 1969 allegorical novel by the renowned German… Read More ›
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Analysis of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince
This last novel by the popular French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–44) is ostensibly a children’s book, set in the author’s familiar and cherished landscape of the Sahara of northern Africa. Although the central character is a pilot, this tale… Read More ›
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Analysis of Cho Se-hui’s The Dwarf
A Little Ball Launched by a Dwarf, by Korean author Cho Se-hui (1942–2022) is a collection of 12 sequential stories, including such diverse titles as “Knifeblade,” “Moebius Strip,” “A Little Ball Launched by a Dwarf,” “Spaceship,” “On the Footbridge,” “The… Read More ›
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Analysis of Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate
Mexican writer Laura Esquivel (1950– ) wrote Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies as an extraordinary tale of the unique relationship between the magic of love and the sensuality of food…. Read More ›
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Analysis of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard
A historical novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1896–1957), The Leopard was one of the most successful literary works of 20th-century European literature. The plot is straightforward: In 1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi and his forces have landed in Marsala (Sicily) to… Read More ›
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Analysis of Peter Weiss’s Leavetaking
The two novels Peter Weiss (1916–82) wrote relatively early in his career, Leavetaking and Vanishing Point (Fluchtpunkt, 1962) are ambitious and unsettling works of prose fiction, styled, in terms of genre, in a Proustian manner of fictionalized autobiography, though charged… Read More ›
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Analysis of Park Kyongni’s Land
Land tells an epic saga of the Choi family’s ups and downs during the turbulent period of modern Korean history from 1897 to 1945. The setting ranges from Pyongsa-ri, Hadong, a typical farming village in the southern region of South… Read More ›
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Analysis of André Gide’s Lafcadio’s Adventures
The prodigious French Nobel laureate André Gide (1869–1951) originally published Lafcadio’s Adventures in La Nouvelle Revue Française in four installments, from January through April 1914; it appeared as a book later the same year. In 1933 Gide adapted it for… Read More ›
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Analysis of Natsume Sōseki’s Kokoro
Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916) is one of the great classics of Japanese literature. A translation of the title produces a wide range of meanings: “heart,” “soul,” “spirit,” “feelings,” and “the heart of things.” Kokoro is divided into three parts:… Read More ›
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Analysis of François Mauriac’s A Knot of Vipers
Considered by many to be the best novel by France’s François Mauriac (1885–1970), A Knot of Vipers contains those recurring central themes of alienation, error, and delusion, or simply “sin,” seen in most of his stories. The work also reveals… Read More ›
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Analysis of Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen
Kitchen, the debut novel by Banana Yoshimoto (1964– ), was a phenomenal success, catapulting the young author into instant celebrity status in her native Japan. The novel quickly won three literary prizes: Kaien magazine’s New Writer’s Prize, the Umitsubame first… Read More ›
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Analysis of Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman
The novel Kiss of the Spider Woman by Argentina’s Manuel Puig (1932–90) has become the author’s most popular work due in large part to its successful screen adaptation in 1985. Kiss of the Spider Woman depicts the evolving relationship between… Read More ›
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