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 novels, plays, and poems, and including both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, 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
“ | Something incomprehensible, vexatious and hopeless takes possession of the man's whole being. He forgets his comrade who is awaiting him, forgets the work that is to be accomplished that night, and with his whole excited spirit abandons himself to the dumb dog. He cannot convince himself that the dog does not comprehend either the danger, or his words, or the necessity of going home at once. He lifts him angrily by the skin of his neck and so carries him ten steps nearer to the house. There he deposits him carefully on the snow and commands: "Away with you, go home!" | ” |
— Leonid Andreyev, The Burglar |
More Did you know
- ... that although J. R. R. Tolkien translated the Old English poem Beowulf in the 1920s, he did not like the result so it was published only posthumously in 2014 as Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary?
- ... that the 1928 Hindi novel Nirmala uses fiction to promote social reform of the dowry system in India?
- ... that although Crown Duel's fictional setting of Sartorias-deles is most like New Zealand, its customs and fashions were inspired by the court of Louis XIV?
- ... that Crown Princess Yaza Datu Kalaya is the subject of some of the "most beautiful poems in Burmese literature" by her nephew and husband Natshinnaung?
- ... that as a young girl, Margaret George became interested in Cleopatra because they both had dark hair, and later wrote a best-selling novel about her?
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![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg/47px-Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg.png)
- ... that the pastor John Littlejohn went from selling pornographic literature to sailors as a youth to protecting the Declaration of Independence?
- ... that Super Mario 64 has been the subject of medical literature showing a correlation between habitual playing of 3D platformers and increased grey matter in the brain?
- ... that the 1985 manga series Tomoi contains the first depiction of HIV/AIDS in any literary medium in Japan?
- ... that Edo literature was influenced by British colonialism in the late 19th century, which introduced the Roman script and Christianity to the Edo people?
- ... that medieval literature scholar Theodore Silverstein's unit in World War II took over the Eiffel Tower to intercept communications of German aircraft?
- ... that the literary movement of créolie tries to integrate the identity of Réunion with France?
Today in literature
- 431 - Paulinus of Nola, Roman poet died
- 1856 - H. Rider Haggard, English author born
- 1898 - Erich Maria Remarque, German writer born
- 1906 - Anne Morrow Lindbergh, American author and pilot born
- 1913 - Ștefan Octavian Iosif, Romanian poet died
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