LITERARY BENT – Writing at its best

The novelist Molly Gloss (http://mollygloss.com/) has earned numerous awards, including an Oregon Book Award, a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, the PEN West Fiction Prize, the James Tiptree Jr. Award and a Whiting Writers Award. If you want a really ‘feel good read’ set in Oregon, The Hearts of Horses (2007) is for you. In the winter […]

Christa Wolf (née Ihlenfeld; 18 March 1929, Landsberg an der Warthe – 1 December 2011, Berlin, http://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/biography/christa-wolf/ ) was a German literary critic, novelist, and essayist. She was one of the best-known writers to emerge from the former East Germany. In Cassandra (1983) the author retells the story of the fall of Troy, but from the point of

Amy Tan (born February 19, 1952, http://www.amytanauthor.com/) is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships and the Chinese-American experience. Her best-known work is The Joy Luck Club, which has been translated into 35 languages. In 1993, this book was adapted into a commercially successful film directed by Wayne Wang. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107282/?ref_=nv_sr_1) The brief outline of The

Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001, http://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/dec/21/artsandhumanities.highereducation) — known as W.G. Sebald or Max Sebald — was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by many literary critics as one of the greatest living authors and had been

Alan Furst (born February 20, 1941, http://www.alanfurst.net/) is an American author of historical spy novels. He has been called ‘an heir to the tradition of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene’, whom he cites along with Joseph Roth and Arthur Koestler as important influences. Most of his novels since 1988 have been set just prior to

André Philippus Brink, (29 May 1935 – 6 February 2015, http://literature.britishcouncil.org/andra-brink) was a South African novelist. He wrote in both Afrikaans and English and was a Professor of English at the University of Cape Town. His 1979 novel A Dry White Season is as startling and powerful as when first published more than two decades ago, even knowing

Haruki Murakami (born January 12, 1949, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruki_Murakami ) is a contemporary Japanese writer. His books and stories have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally, with his work being translated into 50 languages and selling millions of copies. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (being three books in one volume: The Thieving Magpie, Bird as Prophet, The Birdcatcher) is an

Alan James Hollinghurst, FRSL, (born 26 May 1954, http://literature.britishcouncil.org/alan-hollinghurst and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hollinghurst) is an English novelist, poet, short story writer and translator. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 1989 Somerset Maugham Award, the 1994 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 2004 Booker Prize for this novel, The Line of Beauty. The summary is

If your preference is for the controversial, try reading The Elementary Particles (2000) by Michel Houellebecq (http://www.houellebecq.info/english.php and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Houellebecq). This edition was a translation from the French by Frank Wynne. It has otherwise been translated as ‘Atomised’. The summary is simple enough. Bruno and Michel are half-brothers abandoned by their mother, an unabashed devotee of the drugged-out free-love