Recent Posts - page 44
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Analysis of Amos Oz’s Black Box
Written by Israeli writer Amos Oz (1939–2018), Black Box appeared in Hebrew under the title Kufsah Shehorah in 1987. The novel immediately climbed to the top of the best-seller lists in Israel, breaking previously recorded book sales. It was translated… Read More ›
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Analysis of Orhan Pamuk’s The Black Book
In Turkey, where writer Orhan Pamuk (1952– ) is a foremost intellectual figure, the novel The Black Book has been praised and attacked by both left-wing and conservative critics and columnists. The work has also generated extensive debates about Turkish… Read More ›
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Analysis of Heinrich Böll’s Billiards at Half Past Nine
One of the most celebrated novels by Heinrich Böll (1917–85), Billiards at Half Past Nine appeared in 1959, the same year as The Tin Drum by Günter Grass and Speculations about Jacob by Uwe Johnson, two other seminal works of German… Read More ›
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Analysis of Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz
Berlin Alexanderplatz is considered by some to be the most significant urban novel in German literature. Franz Biberkopf, the protagonist of this novel by Alfred Döblin (1878–1957), is an ex-convict who gains his freedom after serving a four-year sentence in… Read More ›
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Analysis of Lao She’s Beneath the Red Banner
Beneath the Red Banner is an unfinished autobiographical novel by Lao She (1899–1966), one of the most famous modern Chinese authors. It is also his last work, left unfinished when Lao She committed suicide before he came to develop the… Read More ›
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Analysis of Hanan al-Shaykh’s Beirut Blues
Written in Arabic by Lebanese writer Hanan al-Shaykh (1945– ) and translated into English as Beirut Blues by Catherine Cobham in 1995, Barid Bayrut is one of most haunting and compelling novels about enduring the day-to-day challenges of the Lebanese… Read More ›
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Analysis of Umberto Eco’s Baudolino
The fourth novel by the prolific Italian novelist Umberto Eco (1932–2016) charts the adventurous life of the eponymous hero, a medieval adventurer and consummate liar with a gift for making the most of chance. The book opens with Baudolino rescuing… Read More ›
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Analysis of Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees
Published first in Italian in 1957 and translated into English in 1959, The Baron in the Trees is an enchanting novel by Italo Calvino (1923–85). Because of the book’s mixture of fantasy and allegory, The Baron in the Trees is… Read More ›
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Analysis of Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress was an instant sensation upon its publication in French. The novel by Chinese author Dai Sijie (1954– ) fictionalizes the lives of two urban youths sent to the Chinese countryside for reeducation during the… Read More ›
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Analysis of José Saramago’s Baltasar and Blimunda
The novel Baltasar and Blimunda, written in 1984, advanced José Saramago (1922–2010) from national popularity to international recognition. The historical novel was translated from the Portuguese into English by Giovanni Pontiero in 1986. José Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize… Read More ›
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Analysis of Aharon Appelfeld’s Badenheim 1939
Badenheim 1939 is a skillful fictional answer to the question that many have asked about the Holocaust: Why was there not more resistance? Perhaps the answer to the question is something much more simple than has been considered, as Holocaust… Read More ›
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Analysis of Arnold Zweig’s The Axe of Wandsbek
The German author Arnold Zweig (1887–1968) started work in 1938 on one of his major novels, The Axe of Wandsbek, a psychological analysis of individual behavior in everyday life under the Third Reich. It depicts the evil in the structures… Read More ›
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Analysis of Gabriel García Márquez’s The Autumn of the Patriarch
This novel appeared seven years after One Hundred Years of Solitude, but the author has said that he began it much earlier, as early as January 1958, when as a journalist he witnessed the ouster of President Pérez Jiménez in… Read More ›
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Analysis of Harry Mulisch’s The Assault
A gripping novel that challenges the notions of innocence and guilt, The Assault is considered among the greatest works of contemporary European fiction. Broken into five episodes, spanning 1945 to 1981, the novel by Dutch author Harry Mulisch (1927–2010) is… Read More ›
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Analysis of Erich Maria Remarque’s Arch of Triumph
The fifth published novel by Germany’s Erich Maria Remarque (1898–1970), Arch of Triumph was first published in the United States in 1945; the German edition followed in 1946. The story takes place in Paris between November 11, 1938, and the… Read More ›
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Analysis of Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah
This later novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) is markedly different from his most well-known work, Things Fall Apart (1958), in both form and content. The novel, set in a fictional 20th-century African country representative of Nigeria, examines the… Read More ›
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Analysis of Franz Kafka’s Amerika
The Czech writer Franz Kafka (1883–1924) wrote Amerika between 1911 and 1914, but the novel was not published until 1927, several years after the author’s death. Kafka never crossed the Atlantic to America, and much of his knowledge of the… Read More ›
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Analysis of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front depicts the disillusionment of Paul Baumer, a young foot soldier fighting in World War I. Written by Erich Maria Remarque (1898–1970), this depiction of the horrors of war is one of the most renowned… Read More ›
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Analysis of Simone de Beauvoir’s All Men Are Mortal
Published just following World War II, All Men Are Mortal by Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) speaks vehemently and passionately against vanity, the desire to control, and the desire for dictatorial power. Curious and existential, it is a type of philosophical… Read More ›
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Analysis of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist
The most popular novel of the Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho (1947– ), The Alchemist combines philosophical ideas and words of wisdom about ambition, perseverance, and success. Since its publication in 1988, the novel has has sold over 150 million copies… Read More ›
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