21 Century Literature

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World Literature
 ______________________________________________________

21st Century Representative Texts and

Authors from Asia, North America, Europe,
Latin America, and Africa
______________________________________________________
Learning objective:

Identify representative
texts and authors from
Asia, North America,
Europe, Latin America,
and Africa.
Can be defined as works of literature that have been created, distributed, and
circulated beyond their country of origin.
 the main feature
of world
include elements literature is its
of mythology, relatability to
legend, heroism, people from
and more more than one
culture,
ethnicity, or
World Literature
World Literature Classifications
according to Period of Development:

 The Bronze Age of Literature

 Classical Literature
 Medieval Literature
 Modern Literature
 Contemporary Literature
 21st Century Literature
Bronze Age of Literature
Covers ancient literature from
2600 B.C. It was in this period the
literary works of Sumerians and
Egyptians emerged, since they
were also the first of ancient
civilizations who developed the
early systems of writing including
the cuneiform of the Sumerians
and hieroglyphs of the Egyptians.
Classical Literature

Refers to the great masterpieces of

Greek, Roman, and other ancient
civilizations (1200 BCE to 455
CE)
Medieval Literature

Refers broadly to any work written

in Latin or the vernacular between
476-1500 CE, including
philosophy, religious treatises,
legal texts, as well as works of the
imagination.
Modern Literature

Originated in the late 19th and early

2oth centuries, mainly in Europe
and North America, and is
characterized by a self-conscious
break with traditional ways of
writing, in both poetry and prose
fiction writing.
Modern Literature

Stream of consciousness – a
technique in writing that attempts
“to depict the infinite thoughts and
feelings which pass through the
mind” of a narrator.
Modern Literature

Stream of consciousness is like the

prose fiction version of Soliloquy
or monologue in the genre of
drama.
Modern Literature

In Hamlet’s soliloquy, in which the

first line goes, “To be or not to be,
that is the question”, we hear and
see these lines as he contemplates
whether to commit suicide or not.
Modern Literature

Since stream of consciousness, is a

technique for narration used in
prose fiction, it is more of an inner
monologue where the character
only talks in his mind without the
actual verbal expression of his
thought process.
Modern Literature
Contemporary Literature
Set after World War II or during
the 1940s. Reality-based stories
with strong characters and a
believable story emerged on this
period, but it was also during this
period that gave birth to the genre
of magical realism which was a
breakthrough at the time.
Contemporary Literature
Magical Realism
as a literary fiction style, magical
realism paints a realistic view of the
modern world while also adding
magical elements, often dealing with the
blurring of the lines between fantasy
and reality. In the world of magical
realism, the supernatural realm blends
with the natural, familiar world.
21st Century Literature
Refers to any work written from
2001 onwards. It is characterized
by the steep increase in the
acceptability of literature of all
types, inspired by the coming of
age of millions of people who
enjoyed the work of writers of
speculative fiction.
 ______________________________________________________

21st Century Representative Texts and

Authors from Asia, North America, Europe,
Latin America, and Africa
______________________________________________________
Asia
 Asia
-Malaysian novelist
-born in Penang and lived in various places in Malaysia as a
child. He studied law at the University of London and later
worked as a lawyer in one of Kuala Lumpur’s most reputable
law firms; in 2016, he was an International Writer-in-
Residence at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Tan’s first novel, The Gift of Rain (2007), was longlisted for
the Man Booker Prize and has been translated into Italian,
Spanish, Greek, Romanian, Czech and Serbian. The Garden of
Evening Mists (2011), his second novel won the Man Asian
Literary Prize and Walter Scott Prize, and was shortlisted for
the Man Booker Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin
Literary Award.

Tan Twan Eng

 Asia

Tan Twan Eng

 Asia
-Pakistani author
-his novel “Between Clay and Dust” was
shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize
2012 and longlisted for the 2013 DSC Prize for
South Asian Literature. Farooqi’s second novel
“The Story of a Widow” was shortlisted for the
DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2011 and
longlisted for the 2010 IMPAC-Dublin Literary
Award.

Musharraf Ali
Farooqi
 Asia

Musharraf Ali
Farooqi
 Asia
Pakistan’s
first
English
language
novel for
children,
Musharraf Ali
Farooqi
 Asia
-Indian poet, novelist, and musician
-born in 1959 in Kerala. He is best known as a
poet and is the author of four collections;
These Errors are Correct (Tranquebar, 2008),
English (2004, Penguin India, Rattapallax
Press, New York, 2004), Apocalypso (Ark,
1997), and Gemini (Viking Penguin, 1992).
His first novel, Narcopolis, (Faber & Faber,
2012), was shortlisted for the 2012 Man
Booker Prize and the Hindu Literary Prize
2013.
Jeet Thayil
 Asia

Jeet Thayil
 Asia
-Vietnamese-Canadian novelist
-arrived in Canada in 1979, at the age of ten.
She has worked as a seamstress, interpreter,
lawyer and restaurant owner. Her debut novel
Ru won the Governor General’s Award for
French language fiction at the 2010 Governor
General’s Award. An English edition,
translated by Sheila Fischman, was published
in 2012 was a shortlisted nominee for the 2012
Scotlabank Giller Prize.

Kim Thuy
 Asia

Kim Thuy
 Asia
-Sri Lankan-American novelist
-her debut novel “Island of a Thousand
Mirror” was long-listed for the Man Asia
Literary Prize and the Dublin IMPAC Prize. It
won the Commonwealth Regional Prize for
Asia and was shortlisted for the Northern
California Book Award.

Nayomi
Munaweera
 Asia

Nayomi
Munaweera
North America
 North America
-American Novelist from New
York
-author of the two bestselling,
award-winning novels,
“Everything is Illuminated and
Extremely Loud and Incredibly
Close”, and a bestselling work of
nonfiction, “Eating Animals”.
Jonathan Safran
Foer
 North America

Jonathan Safran
Foer
 North America
-American Novelist
-#1 New York Times and USA
Today best-selling author. Her
works have been translated into
forty-three languages and have
sold more than ten million copies
worldwide.

Sara Gruens
 North America

Sara Gruens
 North America
-Canadian author
-best known for her feminist and
dystopian political themes, and her
prolific output of work spans
multiple genres, including poetry,
short stories and essays.

Margaret Atwood
 North America

Margaret Atwood
 North America
-novelist and her works push the
boundaries of distortion between
the real and the imagined.
-award-winning, translated into
numerous language

Valeria Luiselli
 North America

Valeria Luiselli
 North America
-poet, playwright and novelist

Carmen Boullosa
 North America

Carmen Boullosa
Europe
 Europe
-British writer
-his literary works often focused
on closely observed personal lives
in a politically troubled world
-”Saturday” (2005) won the James
Tait Black Memorial Prize

Ian McEwan
 Europe

Ian McEwan
 Europe
-English novelist known for his frequent
use of intricate and complex
experimental structure in his work
-won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for
“Ghostwritten”, was shortlisted for the
Booker Prize for “number9dream”
(2001) and was on the Booker longlist
for “The Bone Clocks” (2014).

David Mitchell
 Europe

David Mitchell
 Europe
-British novelist and essayist, her works
often deal with race and immigrant’s
post-colonial experience
-third novel “On Beauty”, was
shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won
the 2006 Orange Prize for fiction. Her
2012 novel “NW” was shortlisted for
the Ondaatje Prize and Women’s Prize
for fiction.

Zadie Smith
 Europe

Zadie Smith
 Europe
-award-winning French novelist
-”No et moi” was awarded the Prix des
Libraires (The Bookseller Prize) in
France in 2008.

Delphine De
Vigan
 Europe

Delphine De
Vigan
 Europe
-a controversial and awar-winning French
novelist whose work entitled La Carte et el
Territoire” won the prestigious Prix Goncourt
in 2010.
-to admirers he is a writer in the tradition of
literary provocation, to detractors he is a
peddler, who writes vulgar sleazy literature to
shock.

Michel
Houellebecq
 Europe

Michel
Houellebecq
Latin America
 Latin America
-Chilian-American novelist who writes
“magical realism” tradition
-is considered one of the first successful
women novelists in Latin America.
-she has written novels based in part of her
own experiences, often focusing on the
experiences of women, waving myth and
realism together.

Isabel Allende
 Latin America

Isabel Allende
 Latin America
-Columbian writer associated with the magical
realism genre of narrative fiction and credited
with reinvigorating Latin American writing
-won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982

Gabriel García
Márquez
 Latin America

Gabriel García
Márquez
 Latin America
-Peru’s foremost author and the winner of the
2010 Nobel Prize in Literature
-won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982
-in 1994 he was awarded the Cervantes Prize,
the Spanish-speaking world’s most
distinguished literary honor, and in 1995 he
won the Jerusalem Prize.

Mario Vargas
Llosa
 Latin America

Mario Vargas
Llosa
 Latin America
-Spanish-language novelist
-he has received numerous prizes, including
the Alfaguara Prize, the Juan Rulfo Prize, the
Premio Literario Jaén de Novela award, and
the 2008 Jose Manuel Lara Foundation Award.
-was named one of the best young Spanish-
language novelists by Ganta in 2010.

Patricio Pron
 Latin America

Patricio Pron
 Latin America
-Bolivian writer/Spanish-language novelist
-was selected by the Hay Festival as one of the
best Latin American writers under the age of
thirty-nine for Bogotá29, and in 2010 was
named one of Grantas Best Young Spanish-
Language Novelists

Rodrigo Hasbún
 Latin America

Rodrigo Hasbún
Africa
 Africa
-Nigerian novelist
-Purple Hibiscus won the Commonwealth
Writers Prize and the Hurston/Wright Legacy
Award; Half of a Yellow Sun won the Orange
Prize and was a National Book Critics Circle
Award Finalist and a New York Times Notable
Book, and Americanah, won the National
Critics Circle Award

Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie
 Africa

Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie
 Africa
-Novelist from Sierra Leon
-The Devil that Dance on the Water-an
extraordinarily brave account of her family’s
experiences living in war-torn Sierra Leon, and
in particular her father’s tragic fate as a
political rebel

Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie
 Africa

Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie
 Africa
-her works powerfully explore social, moral,
and racial issues in a South Africa under
apartheid rule
-winner of Nobel Prize in Literature

Nadine Gordimer
 Africa

Nadine Gordimer
 Africa
-received the Sub-Saharan Africa Literary
Prize in 1999 for his first novel “Blue-White-
Red”

Alain Mabanckou
 Africa

Alain Mabanckou
 Africa
-explored the political violence that he
witnessed at first hand during the civil war in
Nigeria in his fictional works
-awarded for the Booker Prize for Fiction

Ben Okri
 Africa

Ben Okri