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LIT 2230-01: Introduction to Global Literature |
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Author Profiles |
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Mulk Raj Anand 1905- Personal Information: Family: Born December 12, 1905, in Peshawar, India; son of Lal Chand (a coppersmith and soldier) and Ishwar (Kaur) Anand;
married Kathleen Van Gelder (an actress), 1939 (divorced, 1948); married Shirin Vajifdar (a classical dancer), 1949; children:
one daughter. Education: University of Punjab, B.A. (with honors), 1924; University College, London, Ph.D., 1929; additional
study at Cambridge University, 1929-30. Military/Wartime Service: Fought with Republicans in Spanish Civil War, 1937-38. Memberships:
Indian National Academy of Letters (fellow), Indian National Academy of Art (fellow), Indian National Council of Arts, Sahitya
Academy (fellow), Lalit Kala Academy (fellow). Addresses: Home: Jassim House, 25 Cuffe Parade, Colaba, Bombay 400 005, India.
Office: MARG Publications, Army &Navy Bldg., 148, Mahatma Gandhi Rd., Bombay 400 023, India. Career: Novelist, essayist, and lecturer. Helped found the Progressive Writer's Movement in India, 1938; lecturer in literature and
philosophy at London County Council Adult Education Schools, and broadcaster and scriptwriter in films division for British
Broadcasting Corp., 1939-45; lecturer at various Indian universities, 1948-63; Tagore Professor of Fine Arts at University
of Punjab, 1963-66; visiting professor at Institute of Advanced Studies in Simla, 1967-68; president of Lokayata Trust (an
organization developing community and cultural centers in India), 1970--. Editor, MARG (Indian art quarterly), Bombay,
India, 1946--. Awards: Leverhulme fellow, 1940-42; International Peace Prize, World
Council of Peace, 1952, for promoting understanding among nations; Padma Bhusan Award from the President of India, 1968; honorary
doctorates from Indian universities in Delhi, Benares, Andhra, Patiala, and Shantiniketan.
Also author of Kama Yoga, Aspect (Edinburgh), and Chitralakshana, National Book Trust.
Editor of numerous magazines and journals, 1930--. Works in Progress: The last three books of the septet, "The Seven Ages of Man," tentatively titled And So He Plays His Part, A World
Too Wide, and Last Scene; a Tagore lecture on Indian fiction, A Novel Form in the Ocean of Story, for Punjab
University Publication Bureau; a third edition of Apology for Heroism: A Brief Autobiography of Ideas, for Arnold Publishers.
Mulk Raj Anand is considered by many critics to be one of India's best writers. Along with R. K. Narayan and Raja Rao,
he has established the basic forms and themes of Indian literature that is written in English. Through his socially conscious
novels and short stories, Anand attacks religious bigotry, established institutions, and the Indian state of affairs. At the
same time, he has greatly enriched his country's literary heritage. In World Literature Today, Shyam M. Asani comments
that "Anand writes about Indians much as Chekhov writes about Russians, or Sean O'Faolain or Frank O'Connor about the Irish."
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(kö´tsē) (John Maxwell Coetzee) , 1940-, South African novelist, b. John Michael Coetzee.
Educated at the Univ. of Cape Town (M.A. 1963) and the Univ. of Texas (Ph.D. 1969), he taught in the United States and returned
home (1983) to become a professor of English literature at Cape Town. He immigrated to Australia in 2002. Several of Coetzee's
novels are noted for their eloquent protest against political and social conditions in South Africa, particularly the suffering
caused by imperialism, apartheid, and postapartheid violence. His books are also known for their technical virtuosity. Often
melancholy and detached in tone and spare in style, his fiction treats themes of human violence and loss, weakness and defeat,
isolation and survival. His critically acclaimed novels include In the Heart of the Country (1977), Waiting for
the Barbarians (1982), the Booker Prize-winning The Life and Times of Michael K (1983) and Disgrace (1999),
The Master of Petersburg (1994), and Elizabeth Costello (2003). Among Coetzee's other writings are the memoirs
Boyhood (1997) and Youth (2002) and several essay collections. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
in 2003.
Albert Chinualumogu Achebe was born the son of Isaiah Okafo, a Christian churchman, and Janet N. Achebe November
16, 1930 in Ogidi, Nigeria. He married Christie Chinwe Okoli, September 10, 1961, and now has four children: Chinelo, Ikechukwu,
Chidi, and Nwando. He attended Government College in Umuahia from 1944 to 1947 and University College in Ibadan from 1948
to 1953. He then received a B.A. from London University in 1953 and studied broadcasting at the British Broadcasting Corp.
in London in 1956.
Since the 1950's, Nigeria has witnessed "the flourishing of a new literature which has drawn sustanence from
both traditional oral literature and from the present and rapidly changing society," writes Margaret Laurence in her book
Long Drums and Cannons: Nigerian Dramatists and Novelists. Thirty years ago Chinua Achebe was one of the founders of this
new literature, and over the years many critics have come to consider him the finest of the Nigerian novelists. His acheivement,
however, has not been limited to his continent. He is considered by many to be one of the best novelists now writing in the
English language.
Unlike some African writers struggling for acceptance among contemporary English-language novelists, Achebe
has been able to avoid imitating the trends in English literature. Rejecting the European notion "that art should be accountable
to no one, and [needs] to justify itself to nobody," as he puts it in his book of essays, Morning Yet on Creation Day, Achebe
has embraced instead the idea at the heart of the African oral tradition: that "art is, and always was, at the service of
man. Our ancestors created their myths and told their stories for a human purpose." For this reason, Achebe beleives that
"any good story, any good novel, should have a message, should have a purpose."
Achebe's feel for the African context has influenced his aesthetic of the novel as well as the technical aspects
of his work. As Bruce King comments in Introduction to Nigerian Literature: "Achebe was the first Nigerian writer to successfully
transmute the conventions of the novel, a European art form, into African literature." In an Achebe novel, King notes, "European
character study is subordinated to the portrayl of communal life; European economy of form is replaced by an aesthetic appropriate
to the rhythms of traditional tribal life."
Personal Information: Family: Born July 29, 1956, in Calcutta, India; daughter of R. K. and Tatini Banerjee; married S. Murthy Divakaruni,
June 29, 1979; children: Abhay, Anand (sons). Education: Calcutta University, B.A., 1976; Wright State University, M.A., 1978;
University of California--Berkeley, Ph.D., 1985. Addresses: Home: Sunnydale, CA. Office: Foothill College, English Department,
12345 El Monte Rd., Los Altos, CA 94022-4504. Career: Diablo Valley College, professor of creative writing, 1987-89; Foothill College, Los Altos, CA, professor of
creative writing, 1989--. Mid-Peninsula Support Network for Battered Women, 1990--; President, MAITRI (help-line for South
Asian women), 1991--. Awards: Memorial Award, Barbara Deming Foundation, 1989; Writing Award, Santa Clara County Arts Council,
1990; Writing Award, Gerbode Foundation, 1993; Bay Area Book Reviewers Award for Fiction; PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Prize
for Fiction; Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize and Pushcart Prize, both for Leaving Yuba City; American Book Award, Before
Columbus Foundation, 1996, for Arranged Marriage: Stories; California Arts Council Award, 1998;
Contributor to more than fifty periodicals, including Ms., Beloit Poetry Journal, Chicago Review, Zyzzyva,
and Chelsea. Media Adaptations: The Mistress of Spices was adapted as an audiobook. Buchi Emecheta Biography On July 21, 1944 in Yaba near Lagos, Nigeria, Buchi Emecheta was born to Jeremy Nwabudike and Alice Okwuekwu
Emecheta. At a young age, Emecheta was orphaned and she spent her early childhood years being educated at a missionary school.
In 1960, at the age of sixteen, Emecheta was married to Sylvester Onwordi, a student to whom she had been engaged since she
was eleven. After their marriage, Sylvester and Buchi moved to London. Over the course of her six year marriage, Emecheta
gave birth to five children. Major Themes Buchi Emecheta's works deal with the portrayal of the African woman. The main characters of her novels show
what it means to be a woman and a mother in Nigerian society. Emecheta looks at how sexuality and the ability to bear children
can sometimes be the only way by which to define femininity and womanhood. Major Works In the Ditch, published in 1972, tells the story of Emecheta's life after she leaves her husband and
is living on her own with her children in a poor ghetto area. She supports her children by working in a library at the British
Museum. In the Ditch chronicles Emecheta's life in the personage of the main character, Adah. Adah is forced to live
in an housing estate set aside for problem families. This estate is known as Pussy Cat Mansions and it is a place filled with
women. Adah can not identify with the women of Pussy Cat Mansions and her dignity is wounded because of the charity she is
forced to accept. The main focus of the novel is on the importance of initiative and determination, for these are the only
tools which help Adah get out to the ditch. In Emecheta's second novel, Second Class Citizen, Adah is being denied a Western education because
she is a girl. This novel again characterizes Adah as having the initiative and determination to get what she wants - the
Western education being denied to her. The basic theme of Second Class Citizen is one of vehement animosity at the
gender discrimination that is often found in the culture of her people. Adah is also encumbered because of the gender discrimination
that is the foundation of her marriage. Her husband, Francis, treats her as property. Adah is forced to support the family
and is responsible for the children. In the meanwhile, Francis goes to school, studies, and continuously fails exams. Adah
is in constant battle to try to preserve her womanhood, and when she finally leaves Francis she experiences a strong sense
of relief. After leaving Francis, Adah has moments of loneliness and despair but in the end she comes out triumphant because
of her willpower. One of Emecheta's finest novels, The Joys of Motherhood, is set in a time of great political and economic
change for Nigeria. It is in this novel that Emecheta's main character defines validity of her womanhood solely by the success
of her children. The chapter titles, "The Mother," "The Mother's Mother," "The Mother's Early Life," "First Shock of Motherhood,"
etc., follow the highs and lows of the heroine, Nnu Ego's, destiny. Nnu Ego's whole destiny is centered around her as a mother.
Nnu Ego places all her hope for happiness and prosperity in her children, yet she is constantly disappointed. As a result,
Nnu Ego finds no joy in her grown children. Emecheta's 1986 novel, Head Above Water, continues to describe her struggle to raise her family all
alone. Adah finds jobs to support her family, gains a degree in sociology, and still manages to find time to write. Head
Above Water looks at the social conditions of blacks in London and it shows Emecheta's progression as a novelist. The
novel ends with two monumental accomplishments - the purchase of her own house and her becoming a full-time writer. Other Works Personal Information: Family: Born May 7, 1927, in Cologne, Germany; immigrated to England, 1939; naturalized British citizen, 1948; naturalized
U.S. citizen, 1986; daughter of Marcus (owner of a clothing business) and Eleonora (Cohn) Prawer; married Cyrus S. H. Jhabvala
(an architect), 1951; children: Renana, Ava, Firoza. Education: Queen Mary College, London, M.A., 1951. Memberships: Royal
Society of Literature (fellow), Authors Guild, Authors League of America, Writers Guild of America. Addresses: Home and Office:
400 East 52nd St., New York, NY 10022. Agent: Rand Holston, Creative Artists Agency, 9830 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA
90212. Career: Novelist and author of screenplays. Producer of documentary film Courtesans of Bombay, New Yorker, 1982. Awards: Booker McConnell Prize for Fiction, British Book Trust, 1975, for Heat and Dust; Guggenheim fellow,
1976; Neil Gunn International fellow, 1979; British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award for best screenplay,
1983, for Heat and Dust; Literary Lion award, New York Public Library, 1983; MacArthur Foundation fellow, 1984-89;
Writers Guild of America Award for best adapted screenplay, and Academy Award for best screenplay adaption, both 1986, and
BAFTA Award nomination for best adapted screenplay, 1987, all for A Room with a View; New York Film Critics Award for
best screenplay, 1990, for Mr. and Mrs. Bridge; Academy Award for best screenplay adaption, BAFTA Award nomination
for best adapted screenplay, Writers Guild of America Award nomination for best screenplay based on material previously produced
or published, and Golden Globe Award nomination for best screenplay--motion picture, all 1993, all for Howards End;
Academy Award nomination for best writing--screenplay based on material from another medium, BAFTA Award nomination for best
adapted screenplay, Writers Guild of America Award nomination for best screenplay based on material previously produced or
published, and Golden Globe Award nomination for best screenplay--motion picture, all 1994, all for The Remains of the
Day; Laurel Award for Screen Writing Achievement, Writers Guild of America, 1994; D.Litt. London University; L.H.D. Hebrew
Union; D.Arts, Bard; BAFTA fellowship, 2002; NBC Screenwriters Tribute, 2003; Nantucket Film Festival honors, 2003.
Contributor of short stories to periodicals, including New Yorker, Encounter, Kenyon Review, Yale Review, and New
Statesman. Work represented in anthologies, including Penguin Modern Stories 2, Penguin, 1972. (Justin) Alex(ander) La Guma 1925-1985 Personal Information: Family: Born February 20, 1925, in Cape Town, South Africa; immigrated to London, England, 1966; died October
11, 1985, in Havana, Cuba; son of Jimmy and Wilhelmina (Alexander) La Guma; married Blanche Valerie Herman (an office manager
and former midwife), November 13, 1954; children: Eugene, Bartholomew. Education: Cape Technical College, student, 1941-42,
correspondence student, 1965; London School of Journalism, correspondence student. Memberships: Afro-Asian Writers Association
(deputy secretary-general, 1973-85). Career: New Age (weekly newspaper), Cape Town, South Africa, staff journalist, 1955-62; free-lance writer and journalist, 1962-85.
Member of African National Congress, 1955-85. Member of editorial board, Afro-Asian Writers Bureau, 1965-85. Awards: Afro-Asian Lotus Award for literature, 1969.
Contributor of short stories to anthologies, including Quartet: New Voices from South Africa (includes
"Nocturne" [originally published as "Etude"], "A Glass of Wine," and "Out of Darkness"), edited by Richard Rive, Crown, 1963,
new edition, Heinemann, 1968; Modern African Stories, edited by Ellis Ayitey Komey and Ezekiel Mphahlele, Faber, 1964;
African Writing Today, edited by Mphahlele, Penguin, 1967; Africa in Prose, edited by O. R. Dathorne and Willfried
Feuser, Penguin, 1969; Modern African Stories (includes "Coffee for the Road"), edited by Charles R. Larson, Collins,
1971. Contributor of short stories to magazines, including Black Orpheus and Africa South. Personal Information: Family: Born 1952, in Bombay, India; immigrated to Canada, 1975; naturalized Canadian citizen; son of Behram
(in advertising) and Freny (a homemaker; maiden name, Jhaveri) Mistry; married Freny Elavia (a teacher); children: two daughters.
Education: University of Bombay, B.S., 1975; University of Toronto, B.A., 1984. Addresses: Home: Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Agent: Lucina Vardey Agency, 297 Seaton St., Toronto, Ontario M5A 2T6, Canada. Career: Worked in a bank in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; writer, 1985--. Awards: First Prize, Hart House Literary Contest, 1983 and 1984; Annual Contributor's Award, Canadian
Fiction, 1985; shortlisted for Governor General's Award for best fiction, 1987, for Tales from Firozsha Baag; Governor
General's Award for best fiction and shortlisted for Booker Prize, both 1991, and Commonwealth Writers Prize and Smith Books/Books
in Canada award for first novel, both 1992, all for Such a Long Journey; Giller Prize, 1995, Royal Society of Literature's
Winfried Holtby Prize, 1996, Los Angeles Times Book Award for Fiction, 1996, Commonwealth Writers Prize: Best Novel,
1996, shortlisted for Booker Prize, 1996, and selection, Oprah Winfrey Book Club, December, 2001, all for A Fine Balance:
A Novel; shortlisted for James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, 2002, and winner of, Kiriyama Prize, both for Family
Matters, both 2002.
Author's writings have been translated into German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Japanese. Work represented in anthologies, including Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature, edited by
Alberto Manguel, 1984;
Personal Information: Family: Born July 27, 1940, in Calcutta, India; came to the United States, 1961; moved to Canada, 1968; nationalized
Canadian citizen, 1972; permanent U.S. resident, 1980; daughter of Sudhir Lal (a chemist) and Bina (Barrerjee) Mukherjee;
married Clark Blaise (a writer and professor), September 19, 1963; children: Bart Anand, Bernard Sudhir. Education: University
of Calcutta, B.A., 1959; University of Baroda, M.A., 1961; University of Iowa, M.F.A., 1963, Ph.D., 1969. Religion: Hindu.
Memberships: PEN. Addresses: Agent: c/o Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit, 445 Park Ave., Floor 13, New York, NY 10022. Career: Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, instructor in English, 1964-65; University of Wisconsin (now University
of Wisconsin--Madison), Madison, instructor, 1965; McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, lecturer, 1966-69, assistant professor,
1969-73, associate professor, 1973-78, professor of English, 1978; Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, visiting assistant
professor of English, 1979-80, 1981-82; Emory University, visiting assistant professor of English, 1983; Montclair State College,
associate professor of English, 1984; City University of New York, professor of English, 1987-89; University of California,
Berkeley, professor of English, 1987--. Awards: Grants from McGill University, 1968 and 1970, Canada Arts Council, 1973-74 and 1977, Shastri
Indo-Canadian Institute, 1976-77, Guggenheim Foundation, 1978-79, and Canadian Government, 1982; first prize from Periodical
Distribution Association, 1980, for short story "Isolated Incidents"; National Magazine Awards second prize, 1981, for essay
"An Invisible Woman"; National Book Critics Circle Award for best fiction, 1988, for The Middleman and Other Stories;
Pushcart Prize, 1999.
Contributor to periodicals, including Mother Jones, New York Times Book Review, Village Voice Literary
Supplement, Salmagundi, and Saturday Night. Works in Progress: A Different Canadian: The East Indian Experience of Canada, an expansion of the essay "An Invisible Woman,"
for McClelland & Stewart; a novel. V(idiadhar) S(urajprasad) Naipaul The British writer, born in Trinidad, was born in 1932 in Chaguanas, close to the Port of
Spain on Trinidad, in a family descended from immigrants from the north of India. His grandfather worked in a sugar cane plantation
and his father was a journalist and writer. At the age of 18 Naipaul travelled to England where, after studying at University
College at Oxford, he was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1953. From then on he continued to live in England (since
the 70s in Wiltshire, close to Stonehenge) but he has also spent a great deal of time travelling in Asia, Africa and America.
Apart from a few years in the middle of the 1950s, when he was employed by the BBC as a free-lance journalist, he has devoted
himself entirely to his writing. Half a life. London: Picador, 2001. http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/2001/naipaul-bibl.html Personal Information: Family: Born Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayanaswami, October 10, 1906, in Madras, India; changed surname to Narayan,
1935; died May 13, 2001, in Madras, India; married; wife's name Rajam, 1934 (deceased, 1939); children: Hema (daughter). Education:
Maharaja's College (now University of Mysore), received degree, 1930. Avocational Interests: Music and long walks. Career: Writer. Owner of Indian Thought Publications, Mysore, India. Awards: National Prize of the Indian Literary Academy, 1958; Sahitya Academy award, 1961; Padma Bhushan,
India, 1964; National Association of Independent Schools award, 1965; D.Litt., University of Leeds, 1967, University of Delhi,
Sri Venkateswara University, and University of Mysore; English-speaking Union Book Award, 1975, for My Days: A Memoir;
Benson Medal and fellow, Royal Society of Literature, 1980; honorary membership and citation, American Academy and Institute
of Arts and Letters, 1982; Padma Vibhushan, India, 2000.
Contributor of short stories to periodicals, including New Yorker.
Author's manuscript collection is housed at the Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University. Media Adaptations: Narayan's The Guide was adapted for the stage by Harvey Breit and Patricia Rinehart and produced Off-Broadway
at the Hudson Theatre, 1968. Mr. Sampath and The Guide were adapted for film.
Personal Information: Family: Born March 15, 1959, in Minna, Nigeria. Education: Attended Urhobo College (Warri, Nigeria) and University
of Essex. Hobbies and other interests: Music, art, theater, cinema, martial arts, good conversation, dancing, silence. Memberships:
PEN International, Society of Authors. Addresses: Agent: c/o Author Mail, Orion Publishing Group, Orion House, 5 Upper St.
Martin's Lane, London WC2H 9EA, England. Career: Novelist, poet, and author of short fiction. West Africa magazine, poetry editor, 1981-87; host of Network
Africa, BBC World Service, 1984-85. Visiting fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1991-93. Awards: Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Africa, 1987; Paris Review Aga Khan prize for fiction,
1987; Booker Prize for fiction, 1991, for The Famished Road; Premio Letterario Internazionale Chianti Ruffino-Antico
Fattore, 1993; Premio Grinzane Cavour, 1994; Crystal Award, 1995; Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, 1997; Premio
Palmi, 2000. Honorary D. Lit., University of Westminster, 1997.
Contributor of articles and reviews to periodicals, including Guardian, Observer, and New
Statesman. Bessie Head 1937-1986 Personal Information: Family: Original name Bessie Amelia Emery; born July 6, 1937, in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa; died of hepatitis April 17,
1986, in Botswana; married Harold Head (a journalist), September 1, 1961 (divorced); children: Howard. Education: Educated
in South Africa as a primary teacher. Politics: None ("dislike politics"). Religion: None ("dislike formal religion"). Career: Teacher in primary schools in South Africa and Botswana for four years; journalist at Drum Publications in Johannesburg for
two years; writer. Represented Botswana at international writers conference at University of Iowa, 1977-78, and in Denmark,
1980. Awards: The Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village Tales was nominated for the Jock Campbell Award
for literature by new or unregarded talent from Africa or the Caribbean, New Statesman, 1978.
Contributor to periodicals, including the London Times, Presence Africaine, New African and Transition. Witi Ihimaera 1944- Personal Information: Family: Born February 7, 1944, in Gisborne, New Zealand; son of Tame Czar, Jr. (a farmer) and Julia (Keelan)
Ihimaera; married Jane Cleghorn, May 9, 1970; children: Jessica Kiri, Olivia Ata. Education: Attended University of Auckland,
1962-66; Victoria University of Wellington, B.A., 1970. Memberships: International P.E.N., Maori Writers and Artists Society
of New Zealand. Addresses: Home: 11 Hungerford Rd., Wellington 3, New Zealand. Office: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wellington,
New Zealand. Career: Post Office, Headquarters, Wellington, New Zealand, journalist, 1969-72; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wellington,
New Zealand, diplomatic officer, 1973--. Member of Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand. Awards: Burns fellow at University of Otago, 1975.
Contributor to New Zealand magazines, including Islands and Landfall. Works in Progress: A sequel to Tangi. |
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