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. It includes 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. It can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.
Literary criticism is one of the oldest academic disciplines, and is concerned with the literary merit or intellectual significance of specific texts. The study of books and other texts as artifacts or traditions is instead encompassed by textual criticism or the history of the book. "Literature", as an art form, is sometimes used synonymously with literary fiction, fiction written with the goal of artistic merit, but can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoirs, letters, and essays. Within this broader definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles, or other written information on a particular subject. (Full article...)
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The Hunger Games is a 2008 science fiction novel by the American writer Suzanne Collins. It is written in the voice of 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in the dystopian, post-apocalyptic nation of Panem in North America. The Capitol, a highly advanced metropolis, exercises political control over the rest of the nation. The Hunger Games are an annual event in which one boy and one girl aged 12–18 from each of the twelve districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle to the death.
The book received mostly positive feedback from major reviewers and authors. It was praised for its storyline and character development, though some reviewers have noted similarities between Collins' book and Koushun Takami's Battle Royale (1999). In writing The Hunger Games, Collins drew upon Greek mythology, Roman gladiatorial games, and contemporary reality television for thematic content. The novel won many awards, including the California Young Reader Medal, and was named one of Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of the Year" in 2008. The novel is the first in The Hunger Games trilogy, followed by Catching Fire (2009) and Mockingjay (2010). A film adaptation, directed by Gary Ross and co-written and co-produced by Collins herself, was released in 2012.
Selected excerpt
“ | I had begun life with benevolent intentions and thirsted for the moment when I should put them in practice and make myself useful to my fellow beings. Now all was blasted; instead of that serenity of conscience which allowed me to look back upon the past with self-satisfaction, and from thence to gather promise of new hopes, I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures such as no language can describe. | ” |
— Mary Shelley, Frankenstein |
More Did you know
- ... that the 1993 romance novel Just This Once was authored by a computer in collaboration with its programmer?
- ... that, as a publisher and literary critic, Drago Siliqi increased translation of foreign literature into Albanian and encouraged Ismail Kadare to write his first novel, The General of the Dead Army?
- ... that Charlotte Mary Sanford Barnes' play Octavia Bragaldi moves the Kentucky Tragedy from 1825 to 15th century Milan?
- ... that novelist Shirley Barker's first book of poetry enraged poet Robert Frost?
- ... that Shackles was the first Indonesian novel to portray a prostitute sympathetically?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Abdul Ahad Azad is recognised for laying the foundations of literary criticism in Kashmiri literature?
- ... that the literary magazine Adabijoti Soveti was the sole remaining publication in the Jewish-Bukharian language by the time of the switch to the Cyrillic script in 1939–1940?
- ... that literary agent Jacques Chambrun sold unauthorized, scandalous excerpts of a Marilyn Monroe memoir to a British tabloid?
- ... that 19th-century Polish ethnographer Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski travelled the countryside as a "wild man" and later appeared as a literary character?
- ... that a teacher of medieval literature and comic books writes the blog Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle?
- ... that Hadriana in All My Dreams, published in 1988, was the first novel by a Haitian author to win a major French literary award?
Today in literature
- 1803 - Jacob Abbott, American writer born
- 1812 - Aleardo Aleardi, Italian poet born
- 1838 - August Senoa, Croatian writer born
- 1875 - Jakob Schaffner, Swiss novelist born
- 1907 - Astrid Lindgren, Swedish writer born
- 1910 - Eric Malpass, English novelist born
- 1947 - P. J. O'Rourke, American writer born
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