Selected Stories


by Anton P Chekhov, Russia, (1860-1904)





Anton Chekhov is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of short stories. He constructs stories where action and drama are implied rather than described openly, and which leave much to the reader's imagination. This collection contains some of the most important of his earliest and shortest comic sketches, as well as examples of his great, mature works. Throughout, the doctor-turned-writer displays compassion for human suffering and misfortune, but is always able to see the comical, even farcical aspects of the human condition


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Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the highly acclaimed translators of War and Peace, Doctor Zhivago, and Anna Karenina, which was an Oprah Book Club pick and million-copy bestseller, bring their unmatched talents to The Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov, a collection of thirty of Chekhov’s best tales from the major periods of his creative life.



Considered the greatest short story writer, Anton Chekhov changed the genre itself with his spare, impressionistic depictions of Russian life and the human condition. From characteristically brief, evocative early pieces such as “The Huntsman” and the tour de force “A Boring Story,” to his best-known stories such as “The Lady with the Little Dog” and his own personal favorite, “The Student,” Chekhov’s short fiction possesses the transcendent power of art to awe and change the reader. This monumental edition, expertly translated, is especially faithful to the meaning of Chekhov’s prose and the unique rhythms of his writing, giving readers an authentic sense of his style and a true understanding of his greatness</SPAN>


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Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the highly acclaimed translators of War and Peace, Doctor Zhivago, and Anna Karenina, which was an Oprah Book Club pick and million-copy bestseller, bring their unmatched talents to The Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov, a collection of thirty of Chekhov’s best tales from the major periods of his creative life.



Considered the greatest short story writer, Anton Chekhov changed the genre itself with his spare, impressionistic depictions of Russian life and the human condition. From characteristically brief, evocative early pieces such as “The Huntsman” and the tour de force “A Boring Story,” to his best-known stories such as “The Lady with the Little Dog” and his own personal favorite, “The Student,” Chekhov’s short fiction possesses the transcendent power of art to awe and change the reader. This monumental edition, expertly translated, is especially faithful to the meaning of Chekhov’s prose and the unique rhythms of his writing, giving readers an authentic sense of his style and a true understanding of his greatness.


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Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) first turned to writing as a medical student at Moscow University, from which he graduated in 1884. Among his early plays were short monologues (The Evils of Tobacco, 1885), one-act farces such as The Bear, The Proposal and The Wedding (1888-89) and the 'Platonov' material, adapted by Michael Frayn as Wild Honey. The first three full-length plays to be stage, Ivanov (1887), The Wood Demon (1889) and The Seagull (1896) were initially failures. But the Moscow Arts Theatre's revival of The Seagull two years later was successful and was followed by his masterpieces, Uncle Vanya (1889), Three Sisters (1901), and The Cherry Orchard in 1904, the year of his death.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (Russian: Анто́н Па́влович Че́хов, pronounced [ɐnˈton ˈpavləvʲɪtɕ ˈtɕexəf]; 29 January 1860[1] – 15 July 1904)[2] was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history.[3] His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics.[4][5] Chekhov practised as a doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress."[6]
Chekhov renounced the theatre after the disastrous reception of The Seagull in 1896, but the play was revived to acclaim in 1898 by Constantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre, which subsequently also produced Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and premiered his last two plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. These four works present a challenge to the acting ensemble[7] as well as to audiences, because in place of conventional action Chekhov offers a "theatre of mood" and a "submerged life in the text."[8]
Chekhov had at first written stories only for financial gain, but as his artistic ambition grew, he made formal innovations which have influenced the evolution of the modern short story.[9] His originality consists in an early use of the stream-of-consciousness technique, later adopted by James Joyce and other modernists, combined with a disavowal of the moral finality of traditional story structure.[10] He made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them.[11]

- Anton Chekhov was born on 29 January 1860, the third of six surviving children, in Taganrog, a port on the Sea of Azov in southern Russia. His father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, the son of a former serf, ran a grocery store.
A director of the parish choir, devout Orthodox Christian, and physically abusive father, Pavel Chekhov has been seen by some historians as the model for his son's many portraits of hypocrisy.
Chekhov's mother, Yevgeniya, was an excellent storyteller who entertained the children with tales of her travels with her cloth-merchant father all over Russia. "Our talents we got from our father," Chekhov remembered, "but our soul from our mother."[15] In adulthood, Chekhov criticized his brother Alexander's treatment of his wife and children by reminding him of Pavel's tyranny:
Let me ask you to recall that it was despotism and lying that ruined your mother's youth. Despotism and lying so mutilated our childhood that it's sickening and frightening to think about it. Remember the horror and disgust we felt in those times when Father threw a tantrum at dinner over too much salt in the soup and called Mother a fool.
Chekhov attended a school for Greek boys, followed by the Taganrog gymnasium, now renamed the Chekhov Gymnasium, where he was kept down for a year at fifteen for failing a Greek exam.[18] He sang at the Greek Orthodox monastery in Taganrog and in his father's choirs. In a letter of 1892, he used the word "suffering" to describe his childhood and recalled:
When my brothers and I used to stand in the middle of the church and sing the trio "May my prayer be exalted", or "The Archangel's Voice", everyone looked at us with emotion and envied our parents, but we at that moment felt like little convicts.[19]
Despite having a religious background and education, he later on became an atheist.
- In 1876, Chekhov's father was declared bankrupt after over-extending his finances building a new house,[23] and to avoid the debtor's prison fled to Moscow, where his two eldest sons, Alexander and Nikolay, were attending university.
- The family lived in poverty in Moscow, Chekhov's mother physically and emotionally broken.
- Chekhov was left behind to sell the family possessions and finish his education.
- Chekhov remained in Taganrog for three more years, boarding with a man called Selivanov who, like Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard, had bailed out the family for the price of their house.[25]
- Chekhov had to pay for his own education, which he managed by—among other jobs—private tutoring, catching and selling goldfinches, and selling short sketches to the newspapers.
He sent every ruble he could spare to Moscow, along with humorous letters to cheer up the family.[26] During this time, he read widely and analytically, including Cervantes, Turgenev, Goncharov, and Schopenhauer;[27][28] and he wrote a full-length comedy drama, Fatherless, which his brother Alexander dismissed as "an inexcusable though innocent fabrication."[29] Chekhov also enjoyed a series of love affairs, one with the wife of a teacher.[26]
In 1879, Chekhov completed his schooling and joined his family in Moscow, having gained admission to the medical school at Moscow University.[30]

Chekhov now assumed responsibility for the whole family.[31] To support them and to pay his tuition fees, he wrote daily short, humorous sketches and vignettes of contemporary Russian life, many under pseudonyms such as "Antosha Chekhonte" (Антоша Чехонте) and "Man without a Spleen" (Человек без селезенки). His prodigious output gradually earned him a reputation as a satirical chronicler of Russian street life, and by 1882 he was writing for Oskolki (Fragments), owned by Nikolai Leykin, one of the leading publishers of the time.[32] Chekhov's tone at this stage was harsher than that familiar from his mature fiction.[33]
In 1884, Chekhov qualified as a physician, which he considered his principal profession though he made little money from it and treated the poor free of charge.[34]
In 1884 and 1885, Chekhov found himself coughing blood, and in 1886 the attacks worsened; but he would not admit tuberculosis to his family and friends,[15] confessing to Leikin, "I am afraid to submit myself to be sounded by my colleagues."
He continued writing for weekly periodicals, earning enough money to move the family into progressively better accommodation. Early in 1886 he was invited to write for one of the most popular papers in St. Petersburg, Novoye Vremya (New Times), owned and edited by the millionaire magnate Alexey Suvorin, who paid per line a rate double Leikin's and allowed him three times the space.[36] Suvorin was to become a lifelong friend, perhaps Chekhov's closest.[37][38]
Before long, Chekhov was attracting literary as well as popular attention. The sixty-four-year-old Dmitry Grigorovich, a celebrated Russian writer of the day, wrote to Chekhov after reading his short story The Huntsman,[39] "You have real talent—a talent which places you in the front rank among writers in the new generation." He went on to advise Chekhov to slow down, write less, and concentrate on literary quality.
Chekhov replied that the letter had struck him "like a thunderbolt" and confessed, "I have written my stories the way reporters write up their notes about fires—mechanically, half-consciously, caring nothing about either the reader or myself."[40] The admission may have done Chekhov a disservice, since early manuscripts reveal that he often wrote with extreme care, continually revising.[41] Grigorovich's advice nevertheless inspired a more serious, artistic ambition in the twenty-six-year-old. In 1887, with a little string-pulling by Grigorovich, the short story collection At Dusk (V Sumerkakh) won Chekhov the coveted Pushkin Prize "for the best literary production distinguished by high artistic worth."[42]

That year, exhausted from overwork and ill health, Chekhov took a trip to Ukraine which reawakened him to the beauty of the steppe.[43] On his return, he began the novella-length short story The Steppe, "something rather odd and much too original," eventually published in Severny Vestnik (The Northern Herald).[44] In a narrative which drifts with the thought processes of the characters, Chekhov evokes a chaise journey across the steppe through the eyes of a young boy sent to live away from home, his companions a priest and a merchant. The Steppe, which has been called a "dictionary of Chekhov's poetics", represented a significant advance for Chekhov, exhibiting much of the quality of his mature fiction and winning him publication in a literary journal rather than a newspaper.[45]
In autumn 1887, a theatre manager named Korsh commissioned Chekhov to write a play, the result being Ivanov, written in a fortnight and produced that November.[46] Though Chekhov found the experience "sickening", and painted a comic portrait of the chaotic production in a letter to his brother Alexander, the play was a hit and was praised, to Chekhov's bemusement, as a work of originality.[47] Mikhail Chekhov considered Ivanov a key moment in his brother's intellectual development and literary career.[15] From this period comes an observation of Chekhov's which has become known as "Chekhov's gun", noted by Ilia Gurliand from a conversation: "If in Act I you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act."[48][49]
The death of Chekhov's brother Nikolay from tuberculosis in 1889 influenced A Dreary Story, finished that September, about a man who confronts the end of a life which he realises has been without purpose.[50][51] Mikhail Chekhov, who recorded his brother's depression and restlessness after Nikolay's death, was researching prisons at the time as part of his law studies, and Anton Chekhov, in a search for purpose in his own life, himself soon became obsessed with the issue of prison reform.[15
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أنطون بافلوفيتش تشيخوف (29 يناير 1860 [1] - 15 يوليو 1904).[2] طبيب وكاتب مسرحي ومؤلف قصصي روسي كبير ينظر إليه على أنه من أفضل كتاب القصص القصيرة على مدى التاريخ،[3] ومن كبار الأدباء الروس. كتب المئات من القصص القصيرة التي اعتبر الكثير منها إبداعات فنية كلاسيكية، كما أن مسرحياته كان لها تأثير عظيم على دراما القرن العشرين.[4][5] بدأ تيشيخوف الكتابة عندما كان طالباً في كلية الطب في جامعة موسكو، ولم يترك الكتابة حتى أصبح من أعظم الأدباء، واستمرّ أيضاً في مهنة الطب وكان يقول «إن الطب هو زوجتي والأدب عشيقتي.[6]»
تخلى تشيخوف عن المسرح بعد كارثة حفل النورس "The Seagull" في عام 1896، ولكن تم إحياء المسرحية في عام 1898 من قبل قسطنطين ستانيسلافسكي في مسرح موسكو للفن، التي أنتجت في وقت لاحق أيضًا العم فانيا لتشيخوف وعرضت آخر مسرحيَّتان له وكان ذلك لأول مرة، الأخوات الثلاث وبستان الكرز، وشكلت هذه الأعمال الأربعة تحديًا لفرقة العمل[7] وكذلك للجماهير، لأن أعمال تشيخوف تميز بـ"مزاجية المسرح" و"الحياة المغمورة في النص".[8]
كان تشيخوف يكتب في البداية لتحقيق مكاسب مادية فقط، ولكن سرعان ما نمت طموحاته الفنية، وقام بابتكارات رسمية أثرت بدورها على تطوير القصة القصيرة الحديثة.[9] تتمثل أصالتها بالاستخدام المبتكر لتقنية تيار من شعور الإنسان، اعتمدها فيما بعد جيمس جويس والمحدثون، مجتمعة مع تنكر المعنوية النهائية لبنية القصة التقليدية.[10] وصرح عن أنه لا للاعتذارات عن الصعوبات التي يتعرض لها القارئ، مصرًا على أن دور الفنان هو طرح الأسئلة وليس الرد عليها.[11]

وُلد انطون تشيخوف في 29 يناير 1860، وهو الثالث من ستة أطفال بقوا على قيد الحياة في تاغانروغ ـ ميناء على بحر آزوف في جنوب روسيا ـ.
- كان والده بافل تشيخوف، ابن أحد العبيد السابقين ومدير بقالة. وعمل أيضاً مدير للجوقة وكان يعتنق المسيحية الأرثوذكسية الشرقية ويوصف بإنه كان أباً تعسفياً بل نظر إليه بعض المؤرخين على أنه نموذج في النفاق في التعامل مع ابنه.
- اما والدة تشيخوف، فكانت راوية ممتازة في حكايتها الترفيهية للأطفال عن رحلاتها مع والدها تاجر القماش في جميع أنحاء روسيا. يقول تشخيوف "حصلنا على مواهبنا من أبائنا" وتذكرت "أما الروح فأخذناها من أمهاتنا".[15]
شارك تشيخوف في مدرسة يونانية للصبيان، بعد ذلك في تاجونروج جمنازيوم، وتسمى حاليًا بجمنازيوم تشيخوف، حيث تم احتجازه في الأسفل لمدة عام بسبب فشلة 15 مرة في امتحان اليونانية.[16] واشتهر هناك بتعليقاته الساخرة ومزاجه وبراعته في إطلاق الألقاب الساخرة على الأساتذة، وكان يستمتع بالتمثيل في مسرح الهواة وأحيانا كان يؤدي أدوارا في عروض المسرح المحلي. وقد جرب يده آنئذ في كتابة "مواقف" قصيرة، وقصص هزلية فكهة، ومن المعروف إنه ألف في تلك السن أيضا مسرحية طويلة اسمها "دون أب" لكنه تخلص منها فيما بعد.
كان أنطون عاشقًا للمسرح وللأدب مُنذ صغره، وحضر أول عرض مسرحي في حياته (أوبرا هيلين الجميلة) لباخ عندما كان في الثالثة عشرة من عمره، ومنذ تلك اللحظة أضحى عاشقًا للمسرح، وكان ينفق كل مدخراته لحضور المسرحيات، وكان مقعدهُ المفضل في الخلف نظرًا لأن سعره أقل (40 كوبيك فضيا)، وكانت مدرسة الجيمنازيم لا تسمح لطلبتها بالذهاب إلى المسرح إلا بتصريح خاص من المدرسة، وكان هذا التصريح لا يصدر غالبًا بسهولة، وليس سوى في العطلات الأسبوعية فقط.
وغنى في دير الأرثوذكسية اليونانية في تاغانروغ وفي جوقات والده. في رسالة تعود للعام 1892، قام باستخدام كلمة "معاناة" لوصف طفولته، وأشار إلى:

في عام 1876، أعلن والد تشيخوف إفلاسه بعد إفراطه في الحصول على التمويل لكي يبنى منزل جديد،[18] وغادر إلى موسكو لكي يتجنب حبسه بسبب ديونه الغير مدفوعة، حيث كان معه أكبر اثنين من أبناءه نيكولاي وإلكسندر، كانوا طلاب جامعيون. عاشت عائلته فقيرة في موسكو وكانت والدته مدمرة عاطفيًا وجسديًا.[19] فلم يبقى أمامه إلا بيع ممتلكات الأسرة وإنهاء تعليمه.
بقي تشيخوف في تاغانروغ لثلاث سنوات أخرى، وقام رجل يسمى سيليفانوف مثل (لوباهين في بستان الكرز) بمساعده عائلة تشخيوف لسداد ديون كانت مخصصة لبناء منزلهم.[20] كان تشيخوف مجبر لدفع تكاليف التعليم الخاصة به، حيث نجح في وظائف كمعلم خصوصي وفي اصطياد وبيع طيور الحسون والرسومات التخطيطية للجرائد.[21] بعث كل روبل استطاع أن يدخره لموسكو، جنبًا إلى جنب مع رسائل ممزوجة بروح الدعابة لرفع معنويات العائلة.[21] وخلال هذا الوقت، قرأ على نطاق واسع وبشكل تحليلي، بما في ذلك ثيربانتسوأيفان تورغينيف وأيفان جونتشاروف وآرثر شوبنهاور [22][23] وقال أنه كتب مسرحية كوميدية كاملة الطول، يتيم، ورفض شقيقه أليكسندر "لا يمكن تبريره على الرغم من تلفيق الأبرياء".[24] وإستمتع تشيخوف بسلسلة من علاقات الحب، واحده منهن مع زوجة معلم.[21]

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Mini Biography


Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in 1860, the third of six children to a family of a grocer, in Taganrog, Russia, a southern seaport and resort on the Azov Sea. His father, a 3rd-rank Member of the Merchant's Guild, was a religious fanatic and a tyrant who used his children as slaves.


Young Chekhov was a part-time assistant in his father's business and also a singer in a church choir.


At age 15, he was abandoned by his bankrupt father and lived alone for 3 years while finishing the Classical Gymnazium in Taganrog. Chekhov obtained a scholarship at the Moscow University Medical School in 1879, from which he graduated in 1884 as a Medical Doctor. He practiced general medicine for about ten years.

لم اعثر على معلومات حول وقت موت والديه حيث يمكننا ان نعتبره مجهول الطفولة، لكن سيرته تظهر انه عاش طفولة اشبه بجحيم وتخلي عنه والده وهو في سن الخامسة عشر حيث عاش عن رجل لمدة 3 سنوات لتفية اعمال والده الذي هرب الى موسكو.


يمكننا ان نعتبره مأزوم و يتم اجتماعي بسبب طبيعة العلاقة التي ربطته مع والده المتجبر والذي كان يعامل ابناؤه كعبيد ويسيء الى الوالدة.

Lawrence's first major novel was also the first in the English language to explore ordinary working-class life from the inside. No writer before or since has written so well about the intimacies enforced by a tightly-knit mining community and by a family where feelings are never hidden for long. When the marriage between Walter Morel and his sensitive, high-minded wife begins to break down, the bitterness of their frustration seeps into their children's lives. Their second son, Paul, craves the warmth of family and community, but knows that he must sacrifice everything in the struggle for independence if he is not to repeat his parents' failure. Lawrence's powerful description of Paul's single-minded efforts to define himself sexually and emotionally through relationships with two women - the innocent, old-fashioned Miriam Leivers and the experienced, provocatively modern Clara Dawes - makes this a novel as much for the beginning of the twenty-first century as it was for the beginning of the twentieth. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe.Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, and instinct.
Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile which he called his "savage pilgrimage."[2] At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as, "The greatest imaginative novelist of our generation."[3] Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel. Lawrence is now valued by many as a visionary thinker and significant representative of modernism in English literature.

The fourth child of Arthur John Lawrence, a barely literate miner, and Lydia (née Beardsall), a former pupil teacher who, owing to her family's financial difficulties, had to do manual work in a lace factory.[4] Lawrence spent his formative years in the coal mining town of Eastwood, Nottinghamshire. The house in which he was born, in Eastwood, 8a Victoria Street, is now the D.H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum.[5] His working-class background and the tensions between his parents provided the raw material for a number of his early works. Lawrence would return to this locality and often wrote about nearby Underwood, calling it; "the country of my heart,"[6] as a setting for much of his fiction.
The young Lawrence attended Beauvale Board School (now renamed Greasley Beauvale D. H. Lawrence Primary School in his honour) from 1891 until 1898, becoming the first local pupil to win a County Council scholarship to Nottingham High School in nearby Nottingham. He left in 1901, working for three months as a junior clerk at Haywood's surgical appliances factory, but a severe bout of pneumonia, reportedly the result of being accosted by a group of factory girls (as detailed by school friend, George Neville), ended this career. Whilst convalescing he often visited Hagg's Farm, the home of the Chambers family, and began a friendship with Jessie Chambers. An important aspect of this relationship with Jessie and other adolescent acquaintances was a shared love of books, an interest that lasted throughout Lawrence's life. In the years 1902 to 1906 Lawrence served as a pupil teacher at the British School, Eastwood. He went on to become a full-time student and received a teaching certificate from University College, Nottingham, in 1908. During these early years he was working on his first poems, some short stories, and a draft of a novel, Laetitia, that was eventually to become The White Peacock. At the end of 1907 he won a short story competition in the Nottingham Guardian, the first time that he had gained any wider recognition for his literary talents.

In the autumn of 1908 the newly qualified Lawrence left his childhood home for London. While teaching in Davidson Road School, Croydon, he continued writing. Some of the early poetry, submitted by Jessie Chambers, came to the attention of Ford Madox Ford, then known as Ford Hermann Hueffer and editor of the influential The English Review. Hueffer then commissioned the story Odour of Chrysanthemums which, when published in that magazine, encouraged Heinemann, a London publisher, to ask Lawrence for more work. His career as a professional author now began in earnest, although he taught for a further year. Shortly after the final proofs of his first published novel The White Peacock appeared in 1910, Lawrence's mother died. She had been ill with cancer. The young man was devastated and he was to describe the next few months as his "sick year." It is clear that Lawrence had an extremely close relationship with his mother and his grief following her death became a major turning point in his life, just as the death of Mrs. Morel forms a major turning point in his autobiographical novel Sons and Lovers, a work that draws upon much of the writer's provincial upbringing.
In 1911 Lawrence was introduced to Edward Garnett, a publisher's reader, who acted as a mentor, provided further encouragement, and became a valued friend, as Garnett's son David was also. Throughout these months the young author revised Paul Morel, the first draft of what became Sons and Lovers. In addition, a teaching colleague, Helen Corke, gave him access to her intimate diaries about an unhappy love affair, which formed the basis of The Trespasser, his second novel. In November 1911, he came down with a pneumonia again; once he recovered, Lawrence decided to abandon teaching in order to become a full-time author. He also broke off an engagement to Louie Burrows, an old friend from his days in Nottingham and Eastwood.
In March 1912 Lawrence met Frieda Weekley (née von Richthofen), with whom he was to share the rest of his life. She was six years older than her new lover, married to Lawrence's former modern languages professor from University College, Nottingham, Ernest Weekley, and with three young children. She eloped with Lawrence to her parents' home in Metz, a garrison town then in Germany near the disputed border with France. Their stay here included Lawrence's first brush with militarism, when he was arrested and accused of being a British spy, before being released following an intervention from Frieda Weekley's father. After this encounter Lawrence left for a small hamlet to the south of Munich, where he was joined by Weekley for their "honeymoon", later memorialised in the series of love poems titled Look! We Have Come Through (1917). 1912 also saw the first of Lawrence's so-called "mining plays", The Daughter-in-Law, written in Nottingham dialect. The play was never to be performed, or even published, in Lawrence's lifetime.
From Germany they walked southwards across the Alps to Italy, a journey that was recorded in the first of his travel books, a collection of linked essays titled Twilight in Italy and the unfinished novel, Mr Noon. During his stay in Italy, Lawrence completed the final version of Sons and Lovers that, when published in 1913, was acknowledged to represent a vivid portrait of the realities of working class provincial life. Lawrence though, had become so tired of the work that he allowed Edward Garnett to cut about a hundred pages from the text.
Lawrence and Frieda returned to Britain in 1913 for a short visit. At this time, he now encountered and befriended critic John Middleton Murry and New Zealand-born short story writer Katherine Mansfield. Lawrence was able to meet with Welsh tramp poet W. H. Davies whose work, much of which was inspired by nature, he much admired. Davies had begun to collect autographs and was particularly keen to obtain Lawrence's. Georgian poetry publisher Edward Marsh was able to secure an autograph (probably as part of a signed poem) and also invited Lawrence and Frieda to meet Davies in London on 28 July, under his supervision. Lawrence was immediately captivated by the poet and later invited Davies to join Frieda and him in Germany. Despite his early enthusiasm for Davies' work, however, Lawrence's opinion changed after reading Foliage and he commented after reading Nature Poems in Italy that they seemed ".. so thin, one can hardly feel them".[7]
Lawrence and Weekley soon went back to Italy, staying in a cottage in Fiascherino on the Gulf of Spezia. Here he started writing the first draft of a work of fiction that was to be transformed into two of his better-known novels, The Rainbow and Women in Love. While writing Women in Love in Cornwall during 1916–17, Lawrence developed a strong and possibly romantic relationship with a Cornish farmer named William Henry Hocking.[8] Although it is not absolutely clear if their relationship was sexual, Lawrence's wife, Frieda Weekley, said she believed it was. Lawrence's fascination with themes of homosexuality could also be related to his own sexual orientation. This theme is also overtly manifested in Women in Love. Indeed, in a letter written during 1913, he writes, "I should like to know why nearly every man that approaches greatness tends to homosexuality, whether he admits it or not..."[9] He is also quoted as saying, "I believe the nearest I've come to perfect love was with a young coal-miner when I was about 16."[10]
Eventually, Weekley obtained her divorce. The couple returned to Britain shortly before the outbreak of World War I and were married on 13 July 1914. In this time, Lawrence worked with London intellectuals and writers such as Dora Marsden and the people involved with The Egoist (T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and others). The Egoist, an important Modernist literary magazine, published some of his work. He was also reading and adapting Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto.[11] He also met at this time the young Jewish artist Mark Gertler, and they became for a time good friends; Lawrence would describe Gertler's 1916 anti-war painting, 'The Merry-Go-Round' as 'the best modern picture I have seen: I think it is great and true.'[12] Gertler would inspire the character Loerke (a sculptor) in Women in Love. Weekley's German parentage and Lawrence's open contempt for militarism meant that they were viewed with suspicion in wartime Britain and lived in near destitution. The Rainbow (1915) was suppressed after an investigation into its alleged obscenity in 1915. Later, they were accused of spying and signalling to German submarines off the coast of Cornwall where they lived at Zennor. During this period he finished Women in Love. In it Lawrence explores the destructive features of contemporary civilization through the evolving relationships of four major characters as they reflect upon the value of the arts, politics, economics, sexual experience, friendship and marriage. This book is a bleak, bitter vision of humanity and proved impossible to publish in wartime conditions. Not published until 1920, it is now widely recognised as an English novel of great dramatic force and intellectual subtlety.
In late 1917, after constant harassment by the armed forces authorities, Lawrence was forced to leave Cornwall at three days' notice under the terms of the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA). This persecution was later described in an autobiographical chapter of his Australian novel Kangaroo, published in 1923. He spent some months in early 1918 in the small, rural village of Hermitage near Newbury, Berkshire. He then lived for just under a year (mid-1918 to early 1919) at Mountain Cottage, Middleton-by-Wirksworth, Derbyshire, where he wrote one of his most poetic short stories, The Wintry Peacock. Until 1919 he was compelled by poverty to shift from address to address and barely survived a severe attack of influenza.

After the traumatic experience of the war years, Lawrence began what he termed his 'savage pilgrimage', a time of voluntary exile. He escaped from Britain at the earliest practical opportunity, to return only twice for brief visits, and with his wife spent the remainder of his life travelling. This wanderlust took him to Australia, Italy, Ceylon (now called Sri Lanka), the United States, Mexico and the South of France.
Lawrence abandoned Britain in November 1919 and headed south, first to the Abruzzi region in central Italy and then onwards to Capri and the Fontana Vecchia in Taormina, Sicily. From Sicily he made brief excursions to Sardinia, Monte Cassino, Malta, Northern Italy, Austria and Southern Germany. Many of these places appeared in his writings. New novels included The Lost Girl (for which he won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction), Aaron's Rod and the fragment titled Mr Noon (the first part of which was published in the Phoenix anthology of his works, and the entirety in 1984). He experimented with shorter novels or novellas, such as The Captain's Doll, The Fox and The Ladybird. In addition, some of his short stories were issued in the collection England, My England and Other Stories. During these years he produced a number of poems about the natural world in Birds, Beasts and Flowers. Lawrence is widely recognised as one of the finest travel writers in the English language. Sea and Sardinia, a book that describes a brief journey undertaken in January 1921, is a recreation of the life of the inhabitants of Sardinia.[13] Less well known is the brilliant memoir of Maurice Magnus, Memoirs of the Foreign Legion, in which Lawrence recalls his visit to the monastery of Monte Cassino. Other non-fiction books include two responses to Freudian psychoanalysis and Movements in European History, a school textbook that was published under a pseudonym, a reflection of his blighted reputation in Britain.

Later life and career
In late February 1922 the Lawrences left Europe behind with the intention of migrating to the United States. They sailed in an easterly direction, first to Ceylon and then on to Australia. A short residence in Darlington, Western Australia, which included an encounter with local writer Mollie Skinner, was followed by a brief stop in the small coastal town of Thirroul, New South Wales, during which Lawrence completed Kangaroo, a novel about local fringe politics that also revealed a lot about his wartime experiences in Cornwall.
The Lawrences finally arrived in the US in September 1922. Here they encountered Mabel Dodge Luhan, a prominent socialite, and considered establishing a utopian community on what was then known as the 160-acre (0.65 km2) Kiowa Ranch near Taos, New Mexico. After arriving in Lamy, New Mexico, via train, they acquired the property, now called the D. H. Lawrence Ranch, in 1924 in exchange for the manuscript of Sons and Lovers. He stayed in New Mexico for two years, with extended visits to Lake Chapala and Oaxaca in Mexico. While Lawrence was in New Mexico, he was visited by Aldous Huxley.
While in the U.S., Lawrence rewrote and published Studies in Classic American Literature, a set of critical essays begun in 1917, and later described by Edmund Wilson as "one of the few first-rate books that have ever been written on the subject." These interpretations, with their insights into symbolism, New England Transcendentalism and the puritan sensibility, were a significant factor in the revival of the reputation of Herman Melville during the early 1920s. In addition, Lawrence completed a number of new fictional works, including The Boy in the Bush, The Plumed Serpent, St Mawr, The Woman who Rode Away, The Princess and assorted short stories. He also found time to produce some more travel writing, such as the collection of linked excursions that became Mornings in Mexico.
A brief voyage to England at the end of 1923 was a failure and he soon returned to Taos, convinced that his life as an author now lay in America. However, in March 1925 he suffered a near fatal attack of malaria and tuberculosis while on a third visit to Mexico. Although he eventually recovered, the diagnosis of his condition obliged him to return once again to Europe. He was dangerously ill and the poor health limited his ability to travel for the remainder of his life. The Lawrences made their home in a villa in Northern Italy, living near Florence while he wrote The Virgin and the Gipsy and the various versions of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). The latter book, his last major novel, was initially published in private editions in Florence and Paris and reinforced his notoriety. Lawrence responded robustly to those who claimed to be offended, penning a large number of satirical poems, published under the title of "Pansies" and "Nettles", as well as a tract on Pornography and Obscenity.


The return to Italy allowed Lawrence to renew old friendships; during these years he was particularly close to Aldous Huxley, who was to edit the first collection of Lawrence's letters after his death, along with a memoir. With artist Earl Brewster, Lawrence visited a number of local archaeological sites in April 1927. The resulting essays describing these visits to old tombs were written up and collected together as Sketches of Etruscan Places, a book that contrasts the lively past with Benito Mussolini's fascism. Lawrence continued to produce fiction, including short stories and The Escaped Cock (also published as The Man Who Died), an unorthodox reworking of the story of Jesus Christ's Resurrection. During these final years Lawrence renewed a serious interest in oil painting. Official harassment persisted and an exhibition of some of these pictures at the Warren Gallery in London was raided by the police in mid 1929 and a number of works were confiscated. Nine of the Lawrence oils have been on permanent display in the La Fonda Hotel in Taos[14] since shortly after Frieda's death. They hang in a small gallery just off the main lobby and are available for viewing.

Lawrence continued to write despite his failing health. In his last months he wrote numerous poems, reviews and essays, as well as a robust defence of his last novel against those who sought to suppress it. His last significant work was a reflection on the Book of Revelation, Apocalypse. After being discharged from a sanatorium, he died at the Villa Robermond in Vence, France, from complications of tuberculosis. Frieda Weekley commissioned an elaborate headstone for his grave bearing a mosaic of his adopted emblem of the phoenix.[15] After Lawrence's death, Frieda married Angelo Ravagli. She returned to live on the ranch in Taos and later her third husband brought Lawrence's ashes to be interred there in a small chapel set amid the mountains of New Mexico. The headstone has recently been donated to D. H. Lawrence Heritage and is now on display in the D.H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum in his home town of Eastwood, Nottinghamshire.

David Herbert Lawrence, the fourth of the five children of Arthur John Lawrence (1846–1924), a miner, was born in Eastwood near Nottingham on 11th September, 1885. His father was barely literate, but his mother, Lydia Lawrence, was better educated and was determined that David and his brothers should not become miners.
According to his biographer, John Worthen: "Arthur Lawrence, like his three brothers, was a coalminer who worked from the age of ten until he was sixty-six, was very much at home in the small mining town, and was widely regarded as an excellent workman and cheerful companion. Lawrence's mother Lydia was the second daughter of Robert Beardsall and his wife, Lydia Newton of Sneinton; originally lower middle-class, the Beardsalls had suffered financial disaster in the 1860s and Lydia, in spite of attempts to work as a pupil teacher, had, like her sisters, been forced into employment as a sweated home worker in the lace industry. But she had had more education than her husband, and passed on to her children an enduring love of books, a religious faith, and a commitment to self-improvement, as well as a profound desire to move out of the working class in which she felt herself trapped."
As a child Lawrence preferred the company of girls to boys and this led to him being bullied at school. He was an intelligent boy and at the age of 12 he became the first boy from Eastwood to win one of the recently established county council scholarships, and went to Nottingham High School. However, he did not get on with the other boys and left school in the summer of 1901 without qualifications.
Lawrence started work as a factory clerk for a surgical appliances manufacturer in Nottingham. Soon afterwards, his eldest brother, William Ernest Lawrence, by now a successful clerk in London, fell ill and died on 11th October 1901. Lydia Lawrence was distraught with the loss of her favourite son and now turned her attention to the career of David. John Worthen argues that "she needed her children to make up for the disappointments of her life." David now gave up his employment as a clerk and started work as a pupil teacher at the school in Eastwood for miner's children.
Lawrence became friendly with Jessie Chambers. Her sister, Ann Chambers Howard, has argued: "They spent a great deal of time together working and reading, walking through the fields and woods, talking and discussing. Jessie was interested in everything, to such a degree that her intensity of perception almost amounted to a form of worship. She felt that her own appreciation of beauty, of poetry, of people, and of her own sorrows amounted to something far greater than anyone else had ever experienced. Her depth of felling was a great stimulation to Lawrence, who with his naturally sensitive mind was roused to critical and creative consciousness by her." Together they developed an interest in literature. This included reading books together and discussing authors and writing. It was under Jessie's influence that in 1905 Lawrence started to write poetry. Lawrence later admitted that Jessie was "the anvil on which I hammered myself out." The following year he began work on his first novel, The White Peacock

Lawrence's mother wanted him to continue his education and in 1906 he began studying for his teacher's certificate at the University College of Nottingham. In 1908 Lawrence qualified as a teacher and found employment at Davidson Road School in Croydon. According to the author of D. H. Lawrence: The Life of an Outsider (2005): "He found the demands of teaching in a large school in a poor area very different from those at Eastwood under a protective headmaster. Nevertheless he established himself as an energetic teacher, ready to use new teaching methods (Shakespeare lessons became practical drama classes, for example)."
In 1909 Jessie Chambers sent some of Lawrence's poems to Ford Madox Ford, the editor of The English Review. Ford was greatly impressed with the poems and arranged a meeting with Lawrence. After reading the manuscript of The White Peacock, wrote to the publisher William Heinemann recommending it. Ford also encouraged Lawrence to write about his mining background.
While living in Croydon Lawrence became friendly with a fellow schoolteacher, Helen Corke, who had recently had an affair with a married man who killed himself. She told Lawrence the story, and showed him her manuscript, The Freshwater Diary. Lawrence used this material for his next novel, The Trespasser

Lawrence also began work on the autobiographical novel, Sons and Lovers. He sent the first-drafts of the novel to Jessie Chambers. As her sister, Ann Chambers Howard points out: "The ruthless streak in his nature now began to emerge and halfway through the book Jessie became increasingly alarmed and bewildered by his cruel treatment of people whom they knew. He began to include people, episodes and attitudes which were quite foreign to their nature and to their previous behaviour and experience.... My father remembered watching her as she read the manuscripts, writing her comments carefully at the side before sending them back to him. Lawrence rejected her advice completely, insisting on including all the things which she had begged him to alter or omit. He continued to send her the manuscripts, asking for advice which she in her anguish repeatedly gave, only to be continually ignored." Eventually she refused to answer Lawrence's letters and their relationship came to an end.
In August 1910, Lydia Lawrence became ill with cancer. Lawrence visited his mother in Eastwood every other weekend. In October he realised she was close to death and he decided to stay at home to nurse her. He wrote to a friend: "There has been this kind of bond between me and my mother... We knew each other by instinct... We have been like one, so sensitive to each other that we never needed words. It has been rather terrible and has made me, in some respects, abnormal." His mother died on 9th December 1910. Soon afterwards Lawrence had got engaged to his old college friend Louie Burrows.
In January 1911, Lawrence's first novel, The White Peacock, was published. However, his writing was not going well. Without the advice of Jessie Chambers, he found it difficult to continue with Sons and Lovers. His health was poor and after falling seriously ill with pneumonia he decided to abandon his teaching career. After convalescence in Bournemouth, he rewrote The Trespasser.
Lawrence broke off his engagement to Louie Burrows, and returned to Nottingham. On 3rd March 1912, Lawrence went to see Ernest Weekley, who taught him while he was at the University College of Nottingham. During the visit he met his much younger wife, Frieda von Richthofen. Lawrence fell in love with Frieda and in May 1912 managed to persuade her to leave her husband and three young children. However, as John Worthen has pointed out: "Frieda's desire to be free of her marriage was not consistent with Lawrence's insistence that she become his partner, and she suffered agonies from the loss of her children (Weekley was determined to keep them away from her)."
Claire Tomalin has argued: "She (Frieda) gave him what he most wanted at the time they met, being probably the first woman who positively wanted to go to bed with him without guilt or inhibition; she was not only older, and married, but bored with her husband, and had been encouraged to believe in the therapeutic power of sex by an earlier lover, one of Freud's disciples. Lawrence was bowled over by this... Whether her decision to throw in her lot permanently with Lawrence contributed positively to his development as a writer is at least open to question. There could have been a different story, in which Lawrence married someone like the intelligent Louie; in which he settled in England and lived a quiet, healthy - and longer - life, cherished by his wife and family; in which his novels continued more in the pattern of Sons and Lovers and The Rainbow, social and psychological studies of the country and people he knew best."
Lawrence set-up home with Frieda in Icking, near Munich. Lawrence claimed "the one possible woman for me, for I must have opposition - something to fight". The author of D. H. Lawrence: The Life of an Outsider has argued: "He cooked, cleaned, wrote, argued; Frieda attended little to house keeping (though washing became her specialty), but she could always hold her own against his theorizing, and maintained her independence of outlook as well as of sexual inclination (she slept with a number of other men during her time with Lawrence)." While living in Germany he finished his autobiographical novel Sons and Lovers. His publisher, Heinemann turned down the novel on grounds of indecency. He sent it to his friend, Edward Garnett, who read manuscripts for Gerald Duckworth and Company. The novel was accepted and published in May 1913. It received some good reviews but sold poorly.
In 1914 the couple returned to England. Lawrence's novel brought him to the attention of Edward Marsh. He introduced Lawrence to Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry. They were witnesses to Lawrence's marriage to Frieda. Claire Tomalin has pointed out: "The men put on formal three-piece suits, Frieda enveloped herself in flowing silks and Katherine wore a sombre suit." Lawrence wrote to a friend: "I don't feel a changed man, but I suppose I am one."

With an introduction by Richard Hughes. Ever since the first furore was created on its publication in 1929, The Sound and the Fury has been considered one of the key novels of this century. Depicting the gradual disintegration of the Compson family through four fractured narratives, The Sound and the Fury explores intense, passionate family relationships where there is no love, only self-centredness. At its heart this is a novel about lovelessness - 'only an idiot has no grief; only a fool would forget it. What else is there in this world sharp enough to stick to your guts?'

The Sound and the Fury is a novel written by the American author William Faulkner. It employs a number of narrative styles, including the technique known as stream of consciousness, pioneered by 20th century European novelists such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. Published in 1929, The Sound and the Fury was Faulkner's fourth novel, and was not immediately successful. In 1931, however, when Faulkner's sixth novel, Sanctuary, was published—a sensationalist story which Faulkner later claimed was written only for money—The Sound and the Fury also became commercially successful, and Faulkner began to receive critical attention.
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Sound and the Fury sixth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
Contents

The Sound and the Fury is set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. The novel centers on the Compson family, former Southern aristocrats who are struggling to deal with the dissolution of their family and its reputation. Over the course of the thirty years or so related in the novel, the family falls into financial ruin, loses its religious faith and the respect of the town of Jefferson, and many of them die tragically. The novel is separated into four distinct sections. The first, April 7, 1928, is written from the perspective of Benjamin "Benjy" Compson, a 33-year-old man with severe mental handicaps. Benjy's section is characterized by a highly disjointed narrative style with frequent chronological leaps. The second section, June 2, 1910, focuses on Quentin Compson, Benjy's older brother, and the events leading up to his suicide. In the third section, April 6, 1928, Faulkner writes from the point of view of Jason, Quentin's cynical younger brother. In the fourth and final section, set a day after the first, on April 8, 1928, Faulkner introduces a third person omniscient point of view. The last section primarily focuses on Dilsey, one of the Compson's black servants. Jason is also a focus in the section, but Faulkner presents glimpses of the thoughts and deeds of everyone in the family.
The reader may also wish to look in The Portable Faulkner for a four-page history of the Compson family. Faulkner said afterwards that he wished he had written the history at the same time he wrote The Sound and the Fury.[1]

William Cuthbert Faulkner (born Falkner, September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career. He is primarily known and acclaimed for his novels and short stories, many of which are set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, a setting Faulkner created based on Lafayette County, where he spent most of his life, and Holly Springs/Marshall County.[1]
Faulkner was one of the most important writers in Southern literature in the United States, along with Mark Twain, Robert Penn Warren, Flannery O'Connor, Truman Capote, Eudora Welty, Thomas Wolfe, Harper Lee and Tennessee Williams. Though his work was published as early as 1919, and largely during the 1920s and 1930s, Faulkner was relatively unknown until receiving the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and his last novel The Reivers (1962), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[2]
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked his 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury sixth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century; also on the list were As I Lay Dying (1930) and Light in August (1932). Absalom, Absalom! (1936) is often included on similar lists.

William Cuthbert Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, the first of four sons of Murry Cuthbert Falkner (August 17, 1870 – August 7, 1932) and Maud Butler (November 27, 1871 – October 19, 1960).[3] He had three younger brothers: Murry Charles "Jack" Falkner (June 26, 1899 – December 24, 1975), author John Falkner (September 24, 1901 – March 28, 1963) and Dean Swift Falkner (August 15, 1907 – November 10, 1935).
Faulkner was born and raised in, and heavily influenced by, his home state of Mississippi, as well as by the history and culture of the American South altogether. Soon after Faulkner's first birthday, his family moved to Ripley, Mississippi from New Albany. Here, Murry worked as the treasurer for the family's Gulf & Chicago Railroad Company, a business Murry had been drawn to from an early age. Murry had hoped to inherit the railroad from his father, John Wesley Thompson Falkner. However, John had little confidence in Murry's ability to run a business and sold the railroad for $75,000. Following the sale of the railroad business, Murry became disappointed and planned a new start for his family by moving to Texas and becoming a rancher. Maud, however, disagreed with this proposition, and it was decided that they would move to Oxford, Mississippi, where Murry's father owned several businesses, making it easy for Murry to find work.[4] Thus, only four days prior to William's fifth birthday, the Falkner family settled in Oxford on September 21, 1902,[3][5] where he resided on and off for the remainder of his life.
His family, particularly his mother Maud, his maternal grandmother Lelia Butler, and Caroline Barr (the black woman who raised him from infancy) crucially influenced the development of Faulkner’s artistic imagination. Both his mother and grandmother were great readers and also painters and photographers, educating him in visual language. While Murry enjoyed the outdoors and taught his sons to hunt, track, and fish, Maud valued education and took pleasure in reading and going to church. She taught her sons to read before sending them to public school and exposed them to classics such as Charles Dickens and Grimms' Fairy Tales.[4] Faulkner's lifelong education by Callie Barr is central to his novels' preoccupations with the politics of sexuality and race.[6]
As a schoolchild, Faulkner had much success early on. He excelled in the first grade, skipped the second, and continued doing well through the third and fourth grades. However, beginning somewhere in the fourth and fifth grades of his schooling, Faulkner became a much more quiet and withdrawn child. He began to play hooky occasionally and became somewhat indifferent to his schoolwork, even though he began to study the history of Mississippi on his own time in the seventh grade. The decline of his performance in school continued and Faulkner wound up repeating the eleventh, and then final grade, and never graduating from high school.[4]
Faulkner also spent much of his boyhood listening to stories told to him by his elders. These included war stories shared by the old men of Oxford and stories told by Mammy Callie of the Civil War, slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Falkner family. Faulkner's grandfather would also tell him of the exploits of William's great-grandfather, after whom he was named, William Clark Falkner, who was a successful businessman, writer, and a Civil War hero. Telling stories about William Clark Falkner, whom the family called "Old Colonel," had already become something of a family pastime when Faulkner was a boy.[4] According to one of Faulkner's biographers, by the time William was born, his great-grandfather had "been enshrined long since as a household deity."[7]
In adolescence, Faulkner began writing poetry almost exclusively. He did not write his first novel until 1925. His literary influences are deep and wide. He once stated that he modeled his early writing on the Romantic era in late 18th century and early 19th century England.[3] He attended the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) in Oxford, and was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon social fraternity. He enrolled at Ole Miss in 1919, and attended three semesters before dropping out in November 1920.[8] William was able to attend classes at the university due to his father having a job there as a business manager. He skipped classes often and received a "D" grade in English. However, some of his poems were published in campus journals.[9][10]
When he was seventeen, Faulkner met Philip Stone, who would become an important early influence on his writing. Stone was then four years his senior and came from one of Oxford's older families. He was passionate about literature and had already earned bachelor's degrees from Yale and the University of Mississippi. At the University of Mississippi, Faulkner joined the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. There he was supported in his dream to become a writer. Stone read and was impressed by some of Faulkner's early poetry and was one of the first to discover Faulkner's talent and artistic potential. Stone became a literary mentor to the young Faulkner, introducing him to writers such as James Joyce, who would come to have an influence on Faulkner's own writing. In his early twenties, Faulkner would give poems and short stories he had written to Stone, in hopes of them being published. Stone would in turn send these to publishers, but they were uniformly rejected.[9]
The younger Faulkner was greatly influenced by the history of his family and the region in which he lived. Mississippi marked his sense of humor, his sense of the tragic position of Black and White Americans, his characterization of Southern characters, and his timeless themes, including fiercely intelligent people dwelling behind the façades of good old boys and simpletons. Unable to join the United States Army due to his height (he was 5' 5½"), Faulkner enlisted in a reservist unit of the British Armed Forces. Despite his claims to have done so, records now available to the public indicate that Faulkner was never actually a member of the British Royal Flying Corps and never saw service during the First World War.[11]
In 1918, Faulkner himself made the change to his surname from the original "Falkner." However, according to one story, a careless typesetter simply made an error. When the misprint appeared on the title page of his first book, Faulkner was asked whether he wanted a change. He supposedly replied, "Either way suits me."[12] Although Faulkner is heavily identified with Mississippi, he was residing in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1925 when he wrote his first novel, Soldiers' Pay,[3] after being directly influenced by Sherwood Anderson to attempt fiction writing. Anderson also assisted in the publication of Soldier's Pay and of Mosquitoes, Faulkner's second novel, by recommending them both to his own publisher.[13] The miniature house at 624 Pirate's Alley, just around the corner from St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans is now the premises of Faulkner House Books, where it also serves as the headquarters of the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society.[14]
During the summer of 1927, Faulkner wrote his first novel set in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, entitled Flags in the Dust. This novel drew heavily on the traditions and history of the South, in which Faulkner had been engrossed in his youth. He was very proud of his novel upon its completion and he believed it to be a significant improvement from his previous two novels. However, when submitted for publication, it was rejected by the publishers Boni & Liveright. This came as a huge shock to Faulkner, but he eventually allowed his literary agent, Ben Wasson to significantly edit the text and the novel was finally published in 1928 as Sartoris.[10][13]
In the fall of 1928, when Faulkner was thirty years old, he began working on The Sound and the Fury. He started by writing three short stories about a group of children with the last name Compson, but Faulkner soon began to feel that the characters he had created would be better suited for a full-length novel. Perhaps as a result of his disappointment in the initial rejection of Flags in the Dust, Faulkner had now become indifferent to his publishers and wrote this novel in a much more experimental style. In describing his writing process for this work, Faulkner would later say, "One day I seemed to shut the door between me and all publisher’s addresses and book lists. I said to myself, Now I can write."[15] After its completion, Faulkner this time insisted that Ben Wasson not do any editing or add any punctuation for clarity.[10]
In 1929 Faulkner married Estelle Oldham. His best man was Andrew Kuhn. Estelle brought with her two children from her previous marriage to Cornell Franklin and Faulkner intended to support his new family as a writer. Beginning in 1930, Faulkner sent out some of his short stories to various national magazines. Several of his stories were published and this brought him enough income to buy a house in Oxford for his family to live in, which he named "Rowan Oak."[16]




By 1932, however, Faulkner was in a much less secure financial position. He had asked his agent, Ben Wasson to sell the serialization rights for his newly completed novel, Light in August, to a magazine for $5,000, but no magazine accepted the offer. Then, MGM Studios offered Faulkner work as a screenwriter in Hollywood. While Faulkner was not a fan of film, he needed the money, and so he accepted the job offer and arrived in Culver City California in May 1932. There he worked with director Howard Hawks, with whom he got along well, as they both enjoyed drinking and hunting. Howard Hawks' brother William Hawks became Faulkner's Hollywood agent. Faulkner would continue to find work as a screenwriter for years to come throughout the 1930s and 1940s.[13][16]
Faulkner served as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville from February to June 1957 and again in 1958.[17] He suffered serious injuries in a horse-riding accident in 1959, and died from a myocardial infarction, aged 64, on July 6, 1962, at Wright's Sanitorium in Byhalia, Mississippi.[3][5] He is buried along with his family in St. Peter's Cemetery in Oxford, along with a family friend with the mysterious initials E.T.[18]

As a teenager in Oxford, Faulkner dated Estelle Oldham, the popular daughter of Major Lemuel and Lida Oldham, and believed he would some day marry her.[19] However, Estelle dated other boys during their romance, and one of them, Cornell Franklin, ended up proposing marriage to her before Faulkner did, in 1918. Estelle's parents insisted she marry Cornell, as he was an Ole Miss law graduate, had recently been commissioned as a major in the Hawaiian Territorial Forces, and came from a respectable family with which they were old friends.[20] Estelle's marriage to Franklin fell apart ten years later, and she was divorced in April 1929.[21] Faulkner married Estelle in June 1929 at College Hill Presbyterian Church just outside of Oxford, Mississippi.[22] They honeymooned on the Mississippi Gulf Coast at Pascagoula, then returned to Oxford, first living with relatives while they searched for a home of their own to purchase. In 1930 Faulkner purchased the antebellum home Rowan Oak, known at that time as "The Shegog Place" from Irish planter Robert Shegog.[23] He and his daughter, Jill, lived at Rowan Oak until after her mother's death. The property was sold to the University of Mississippi in 1972. The house and furnishings are maintained much as they were in Faulkner's day. Faulkner's scribblings are still preserved on the wall there, including the day-by-day outline covering an entire week that he wrote out on the walls of his small study to help him keep track of the plot twists in the novel A Fable.
The quality and quantity of Faulkner's literary output were achieved despite a lifelong drinking problem. Since he rarely drank while writing, instead preferring to binge after a project's completion, it is generally agreed that his alcohol use was an escape from the pressures of everyday life and unrelated to his creativity.[24] Whatever the source of his addiction, it undoubtedly weakened his health.
Faulkner died on July 6, 1962, of a heart attack at Wright’s Sanitarium in Byhalia, Miss. The proud but private recluse, despised for a time by his neighbors, neglected by the general public for most of his life, was at his death “widely considered the most important American novelist of his generation and arguably of the entire 20th century,” according to Jay Watson in Mississippi History Now.
Faulkner is known to have had several extramarital affairs. One was with Howard Hawks's secretary and script girl, Meta Carpenter.[25] Another, from 1949–53, was with a young writer, Joan Williams, who made her relationship with Faulkner the subject of her 1971 novel, The Wintering.[26]
When Faulkner visited Stockholm in December 1950 to receive the Nobel Prize, he met Else Jonsson (1912–1996) and they had an affair that lasted until the end of 1953. Else was the widow of journalist Thorsten Jonsson (1910–1950), reporter for Dagens Nyheter in New York 1943–1946, who had interviewed Faulkner in 1946 and introduced his works to Swedish readers. At the banquet in 1950 where they met, publisher Tor Bonnier referred to Else as widow of the man responsible for Faulkner being awarded the prize.[27

Ogata Shingo is growing old, and his memory is failing him. At night he hears only the sound of death in the distant rumble from the mountain. The relationships which have previously defined his life - with his son, his wife, and his attractive daughter-in-law - are dissolving, and Shingo is caught between love and destruction. Lyrical and precise, "The Sound of the Mountain" explores in immaculately crafted prose the changing roles of love and the truth we face in ageing.
==
The Sound of the Mountain (Yama no Oto) is a novel by Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata, serialized between 1949 and 1954. The Sound of the Mountain is unusually long for a Kawabata novel, running to 276 pages in its English translation. Like much of his work, it is written in short, spare prose akin to poetry, which its English-language translator Edward Seidensticker likened to a haiku in the introduction to his translation of Kawabata's best-known novel, Snow Country.
Sound of the Mountain was adapted as a film of the same name (Toho, 1954), directed by Mikio Naruse and starring Setsuko Hara, So Yamamura, Ken Uehara and Yatsuko Tanami.
For the first U.S. edition (1970), Seidensticker won the National Book Award in category Translation.[1]
[edit] Plot

The novel centers upon the Ogata family of Kamakura, and its events are witnessed from the perspective of its aging patriarch, Shingo, a businessman close to retirement who works in Tokyo. Although only sixty-two years old at the beginning of the novel, Shingo has already begun to experience temporary lapses of memory, to recall strange and disturbing dreams upon waking, and occasionally to hear sounds heard by no one else, including the titular noise which awakens him from his sleep one night, "like wind, far away, but with a depth like a rumbling of the earth." Shingo takes the sound to be an omen of his impending death, as he had once coughed up blood (a possible sign of tuberculosis) a year before, but had not sought medical consultation and the symptom subsequently went away.
Although he does not outwardly change his daily routine, Shingo begins to observe and question more closely his relations with the other members of his family, who include his wife Yasuko, his philandering son Shuichi (who, in traditional Japanese custom, lives with his wife in his parents' house), his daughter-in-law Kikuko, and his married daughter Fusako, who has left her husband and returned to her family home with her two young daughters. Shingo realizes that he has not truly been an involved and loving husband and father, and perceives the marital difficulties of his adult children to be the fruit of his poor parenting.
To this end, he begins to question his secretary, Tanizaki Eiko, about his son's affair, as she knows Shuichi socially and is friends with his mistress, and he quietly puts pressure upon Shuichi to quit his infidelity. At the same time, he uncomfortably becomes aware that he has begun to experience a fatherly yet erotic attachment to Kikuko, whose quiet suffering in the face of her husband's unfaithfulness, physical attractiveness, and filial devotion contrast strongly with the bitter resentment and homeliness of his own daughter, Fusako. Complicating matters in his own marriage is the infatuation that as a young man he once possessed for Yasuko's older sister, more beautiful than Yasuko herself, who died as a young woman but who has again begun to appear in his dreams, along with images of other dead friends and associates.
The novel may be interpreted as a meditation upon aging and its attendant decline, and the coming to terms with one's mortality that is its hallmark. Even as Shingo regrets not being present for his family and blames himself for his children's failing marriages, the natural world, represented by the mountain itself, the cherry tree in the yard of his house, the flights of birds and insects in the early summer evening, or two pine trees he sees from the window of his commuter train each day, comes alive for him in a whole new way, provoking meditations on life, love, and companionship.

Yasunari Kawabata was born near Osaka in 1899 and was orphaned at the age of two. His first stories were published while he was still in high school and he decided to become a writer. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1924 and a year later made his first impact on Japanese letters with Izu Dancer. He soon became a leading figure the lyrical school that offered the chief challenge to the proletarian literature of the late 1920s. His writings combine the two forms of the novel and the haiku poems, which within restrictions of a rigid metre achieves a startling beauty by its juxtaposition of opposite and incongruous terms. Snow Country (1956) and Thousand Cranes (1959) brought him international recognition. Kawabata died by his own hand, on April 16 1972. The Sound of the Mountain is translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker (1921-2007), who was a prominent scholar of Japanese literature

The Stranger

The Stranger or The Outsider (L’&Eacute;tranger) is a novel by Albert Camus published in 1942. Its theme and outlook are often cited as exemplars of existentialism, though Camus did not consider himself an existentialist; in fact, its content explores various philosophical schools of thought, including (most prominently and specifically) absurdism, as well as determinism, nihilism, naturalism, and stoicism.
The title character is Meursault, an Algerian ("a citizen of France domiciled in North Africa, a man of the Mediterranean, an homme du midi yet one who hardly partakes of the traditional Mediterranean culture")[2] who seemingly irrationally kills an Arab man whom he recognises in French Algiers. The story is divided into two parts: Meursault's first-person narrative view before and after the murder, respectively.
Contents

Part One begins with Meursault learning of his mother's death. At her funeral, he expresses none of the expected emotions of grief. When asked if he wishes to view the body, he says no, and, instead, smokes and drinks coffee with milk in front of the coffin. Rather than expressing his feelings, he only comments to the reader about the others at the funeral. He later encounters Marie, a former employee of his firm, and the two become re-acquainted and begin to have a sexual relationship, regardless of the fact that Meursault's mother died just a day before. In the next few days, he helps his friend and neighbour, Raymond Sintès, take revenge on a Moorish girlfriend suspected of infidelity. For Raymond, Meursault agrees to write a letter to his girlfriend, with the sole purpose of inviting her over so that Raymond can have sex with her but kick her out at the last minute as emotional revenge. Meursault sees no reason not to help him, and it pleases Raymond. He does not express concern that Raymond's girlfriend is going to be emotionally hurt, as he believes Raymond's story that she has been unfaithful, and he himself is both somewhat drunk and characteristically unfazed by any feelings of empathy. In general he considers other people either interesting or annoying or feels nothing of them at all.
The letter works: the girlfriend returns, but the situation escalates when she slaps Raymond after he tries to kick her out, and Raymond beats her. Raymond is taken to court where Meursault testifies that she had been unfaithful, and Raymond is let off with a warning. After this, the girlfriend's brother and several Arab friends begin tailing Raymond. Raymond invites Meursault and Marie to a friend's beach house for the weekend, and when there, they encounter the spurned girlfriend's brother and an Arab friend; these two confront Raymond and wound him with a knife during a fist fight. Later, walking back along the beach alone and now armed with a revolver he took from Raymond so that Raymond would not do anything rash, Meursault encounters the Arab. Meursault is now disoriented on the edge of heatstroke, and when the Arab flashes his knife at him, Meursault shoots. Despite killing the Arab man with the first gunshot, he shoots the corpse four more times after a brief pause. He does not divulge to the reader any specific reason for his crime or emotions he experiences at the time, if any, aside from the fact that he was bothered by the heat and bright sunlight.
Part Two begins with Meursault's incarceration, explaining his arrest, time in prison, and upcoming trial. His general detachment makes living in prison very tolerable, especially after he gets used to the idea of not being able to go places whenever he wants to and no longer being able to satisfy his sexual desires with Marie. He passes the time sleeping, or mentally listing the objects he owned back in his apartment building. At the trial, Meursault's quietness and passivity is seen as demonstrative of his seeming lack of remorse or guilt by the prosecuting attorney, and so the attorney concentrates more upon Meursault's inability or unwillingness to cry at his mother's funeral than on the actual murder. The attorney pushes Meursault to tell the truth but never comes through and later, on his own, Meursault explains to the reader that he simply was never really able to feel any remorse or personal emotions for any of his actions in life. The dramatic prosecutor theatrically denounces Meursault to the point that he claims Meursault must be a soulless monster, incapable of remorse and that he thus deserves to die for his crime. Although Meursault's attorney defends him and later tells Meursault that he expects the sentence to be light, Meursault is alarmed when the judge informs him of the final decision: that he will be decapitated publicly.
In prison, while awaiting the execution of his death sentence by the guillotine, Meursault meets with a chaplain, but rejects his proffered opportunity of turning to God, explaining that God is a waste of his time. Although the chaplain persists in attempting to lead Meursault from his atheism, Meursault finally accosts him in a rage, with a climactic outburst on his frustrations and the absurdity of the human condition; his personal anguish at the meaninglessness of his existence without respite. At the beginning of his outrage he mentions other people in anger, that they have no right to judge him, for his actions or for who he is, no one has the right to judge someone else. Meursault ultimately grasps the universe's indifference towards humankind (coming to terms with his execution): "As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the benign indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with howls of execration."[3]

رواية الغريب

ألبير كامو

Albert Camus

(French: [albɛʁ kamy] (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...r_Icon.svg.png listen); 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French Pied-Noir author, journalist, and philosopher. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay "The Rebel" that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom. Although often cited as a proponent of existentialism, the philosophy with which Camus was associated during his own lifetime, he rejected this particular label.[2] In an interview in 1945, Camus rejected any ideological associations: "No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked..."[3]
In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement after his split with Garry Davis's Citizens of the World movement, of which the surrealist André Breton was also a member.[4] The formation of this group, according to Camus, was intended to "denounce two ideologies found in both the USSR and the USA" regarding their idolatry of technology.[5]
Camus was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times".[6] He was the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, after Rudyard Kipling, and the first African-born writer to receive the award.[7] He is the shortest-lived of any Nobel literature laureate to date, having died in an automobile accident just over two years after receiving the award.
Contents

Albert Camus was born on 7 November 1913 in Dréan (then known as Mondovi) in French Algeria to a Pied-Noir family.[8] His mother was of Spanish descent and was half-deaf.[9] His father Lucien, a poor agricultural worker, died in the Battle of the Marne in 1914 during World War I, while serving as a member of the Zouave infantry regiment. Camus and his mother lived in poor conditions during his childhood in the Belcourt section of Algiers.
In 1923, Camus was accepted into the lycée and eventually he was admitted to the University of Algiers. After he contracted tuberculosis (TB) in 1930, he had to end his football activities (he had been a goalkeeper for the university team) and reduce his studies to part-time. To earn money, he also took odd jobs: as private tutor, car parts clerk and assistant at the Meteorological Institute. He completed his licence de philosophie (BA) in 1935; in May 1936, he successfully presented his thesis on Plotinus, Néo-Platonisme et Pensée Chrétienne (Neo-Platonism and Christian Thought), for his diplôme d'études supérieures (roughly equivalent to an MA thesis).

Camus joined the French Communist Party in the spring of 1935, seeing it as a way to "fight inequalities between Europeans and 'natives' in Algeria." He did not suggest he was a Marxist or that he had read Das Kapital, but did write that "[w]e might see communism as a springboard and asceticism that prepares the ground for more spiritual activities."[10] In 1936, the independence-minded Algerian Communist Party (PCA) was founded. Camus joined the activities of the Algerian People's Party (Le Parti du Peuple Algérien), which got him into trouble with his Communist party comrades. As a result, in 1937 he was denounced as a Trotskyite and expelled from the party. Camus went on to be associated with the French anarchist movement.
The anarchist André Prudhommeaux first introduced him at a meeting in 1948 of the Cercle des &Eacute;tudiants Anarchistes (Anarchist Student Circle) as a sympathiser familiar with anarchist thought. Camus wrote for anarchist publications such as Le Libertaire, La révolution Proletarienne and Solidaridad Obrera (Workers' Solidarity, the organ of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT (National Confederation of Labor)). Camus stood with the anarchists when they expressed support for the uprising of 1953 in East Germany. He again allied with the anarchists in 1956, first in support of the workers’ uprising in Poznań, Poland, and then later in the year with the Hungarian Revolution.
In 1934, he married Simone Hié, a morphine addict, but the marriage ended as a consequence of infidelities on both sides. In 1935, he founded Théâtre du Travail (Worker's Theatre),[11] renamed Théâtre de l'Equipe (Team's Theatre) in 1937. It lasted until 1939. From 1937 to 1939 he wrote for a socialist paper, Alger-Républicain. His work included an account of the peasants who lived in Kabylie in poor conditions, which apparently cost him his job. From 1939 to 1940, he briefly wrote for a similar paper, Soir-Republicain. He was rejected by the French army because of his TB.
In 1940, Camus married Francine Faure, a pianist and mathematician. Although he loved her, he had argued passionately against the institution of marriage, dismissing it as unnatural. Even after Francine gave birth to twins, Catherine and Jean, on 5 September 1945, he continued to joke to friends that he was not cut out for marriage. Camus conducted numerous affairs, particularly an irregular and eventually public affair with the Spanish-born actress Mar&iacute;a Casares. In the same year, Camus began to work for Paris-Soir magazine. In the first stage of World War II, the so-called Phoney War, Camus was a pacifist. In Paris during the Wehrmacht occupation, on 15 December 1941, Camus witnessed the execution of Gabriel Péri; it crystallized his revolt against the Germans. He moved to Bordeaux with the rest of the staff of Paris-Soir. In the same year he finished his first books, The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus. He returned briefly to Oran, Algeria in 1942.

During the war Camus joined the French Resistance cell Combat, which published an underground newspaper of the same name. This group worked against the Nazis, and in it Camus assumed the nom de guerre Beauchard. Camus became the paper's editor in 1943. He first met Sartre at the dress rehearsal of Sartre's play, The Flies, in June 1943.[12] When the Allies liberated Paris in August 1944, Camus witnessed and reported the last of the fighting. Soon after the event on 6 August 1945, he was one of the few French editors to publicly express opposition and disgust to the United States' dropping the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. He resigned from Combat in 1947 when it became a commercial paper. After the war, Camus began frequenting the Café de Flore on the Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris with Sartre and others. He also toured the United States to lecture about French thought. Although he leaned left, politically, his strong criticisms of Communist doctrine did not win him any friends in the Communist parties and eventually alienated Sartre.
In 1949, his TB returned and Camus lived in seclusion for two years. In 1951, he published The Rebel, a philosophical analysis of rebellion and revolution which expressed his rejection of communism. Upsetting many of his colleagues and contemporaries in France, the book brought about the final split with Sartre. The dour reception depressed Camus; he began to translate plays.
Camus' first significant contribution to philosophy was his idea of the absurd. He saw it as the result of our desire for clarity and meaning within a world and condition that offers neither, which he expressed in The Myth of Sisyphus and incorporated into many of his other works, such as The Stranger and The Plague. Despite his split from his "study partner", Sartre, some[who?] still argue that Camus falls into the existentialist camp. He specifically rejected that label in his essay "Enigma" and elsewhere (see: The Lyrical and Critical Essays of Albert Camus). The current confusion arises, in part, because many recent applications of existentialism have much in common with many of Camus's practical ideas (see: Resistance, Rebellion, and Death). But, his personal understanding of the world (e.g., "a benign indifference", in The Stranger), and every vision he had for its progress (e.g., vanquishing the "adolescent furies" of history and society, in The Rebel) undoubtedly set him apart.
In the 1950s, Camus devoted his efforts to human rights. In 1952, he resigned from his work for UNESCO when the UN accepted Spain as a member under the leadership of General Franco. In 1953, he criticized Soviet methods to crush a workers' strike in East Berlin. In 1956, he protested against similar methods in Poland (protests in Poznań) and the Soviet repression of the Hungarian revolution in October.

The monument to Camus built in the small town of Villeblevin, France where he died in an automobile accident on 4 January 1960

Camus maintained his pacifism and resisted capital punishment anywhere in the world. He wrote an essay against capital punishment in collaboration with Arthur Koestler, the writer, intellectual and founder of the League Against Capital Punishment.
http://bits.wikimedia.org/static-1.2...gnify-clip.png
The bronze plaque on the monument to Camus in the town of Villeblevin, France. The plaque reads: "From the General Council of the Yonne Department, in homage to the writer Albert Camus whose remains lay in vigil at the Villeblevin town hall on the night of 4 to 5 January 1960."

When the Algerian War began in 1954, Camus was confronted with a moral dilemma. He identified with the pied-noirs such as his own parents and defended the French government's actions against the revolt. He argued that the Algerian uprising was an integral part of the 'new Arab imperialism' led by Egypt and an 'anti-Western' offensive orchestrated by Russia to 'encircle Europe' and 'isolate the United States'.[13] Although favouring greater Algerian autonomy or even federation, though not full-scale independence, he believed that the pied-noirs and Arabs could co-exist. During the war he advocated a civil truce that would spare the civilians, which was rejected by both sides, who regarded it as foolish. Behind the scenes, he began to work for imprisoned Algerians who faced the death penalty.
From 1955 to 1956, Camus wrote for L'Express. In 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times", not for his novel The Fall, published the previous year, but for his writings against capital punishment in the essay "Réflexions sur la Guillotine" (Reflections on the Guillotine). When he spoke to students at the University of Stockholm, he defended his apparent inactivity in the Algerian question; he stated that he was worried about what
might happen to his mother, who still lived in Algeria. This led to further ostracism by French left-wing intellectuals.

[Revolutionary Union Movement and Europe

As he wrote in L'Homme révolté (in the chapter about "The Thought on Midday"), Camus was a follower of the ancient Greek 'Solar Tradition' (la pensée solaire). In 1947–48 he founded the Revolutionary Union Movement (Groupes de liaison internationale – GLI)[10] a trade union movement in the context of revolutionary syndicalism (Syndicalisme révolutionnaire). According to Olivier Todd, in his biography, 'Albert Camus, une vie', it was a group opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton. For more, see the book Alfred Rosmer et le mouvement révolutionnaire internationale by Christian Gras.
His colleagues were Nicolas Lazarévitch, Louis Mercier, Roger Lapeyre, Paul Chauvet, Auguste Largentier, Jean de Boë (see the article: "Nicolas Lazarévitch, Itinéraire d'un syndicaliste révolutionnaire" by Sylvain Boulouque in the review Communisme, n° 61, 2000). His main aim was to express the positive side of surrealism and existentialism, rejecting the negativity and the nihilism of André Breton.
From 1943, Albert Camus had correspondence with Altiero Spinelli who founded the European Federalist Movement in Milan—see Ventotene Manifesto and the book "Unire l'Europa, superare gli stati", Altiero Spinelli nel Partito d'Azione del Nord Italia e in Francia dal 1944 al 1945-annexed a letter by Altiero Spinelli to Albert Camus.
In 1944 Camus founded the "French Committee for the European Federation" (Comité Français pour la Féderation Européene – CFFE) declaring that Europe "can only evolve along the path of economic progress, democracy and peace if the nation states become a federation."
From 22–25 March 1945, the first conference of the European Federalist Movement was organised in Paris with the participation of Albert Camus, George Orwell, Emmanuel Mounier, Lewis Mumford, André Philip, Daniel Mayer, François Bondy and Altiero Spinelli (see the book The Biography of Europe by Pan Drakopoulos). This specific branch of the European Federalist Movement disintegrated in 1957 after Winston Churchill's ideas about the European integration rose to dominance.

Camus died on 4 January 1960 at the age of 46, in a car accident near Sens, in Le Grand Fossard in the small town of Villeblevin. In his coat pocket was an unused train ticket. He had planned to travel by train with his wife and children, but at the last minute he accepted his publisher's proposal to travel with him.[14]

The driver of the Facel Vega car, Michel Gallimard, who was Camus's publisher and close friend, also died in the accident.[15] In August 2011, the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera reported a theory that the writer had been the victim of a Soviet plot, but Camus's biographer Olivier Todd did not consider it credible.[16] Camus was buried in the Lourmarin Cemetery, Lourmarin, Vaucluse, France.
He was survived by his wife and twin son and daughter, Jean and Catherine, who hold the copyrights to his work.
Two of Camus's works were published posthumously. The first, entitled A Happy Death (1970), featured a character named Patrice Mersault, comparable to The Stranger's Meursault. There is scholarly debate as to the relationship between the two books. The second was an unfinished novel, The First Man (1995), which Camus was writing before he died. The novel was an autobiographical work about his childhood in Algeria.

This is the first complete new translation for 25 years of the acknowledged masterpiece of Japanese literature. Lady Murasaki's great 11th century novel is a beautifully crafted story of love, betrayal and death at the Imperial Court. At the core of this epic is Prince Genji, the son of an emperor, whose passionate character, love affairs and shifting political fortunes, offer an exquisite glimpse of the golden age of Japan. Royal Tyler's superb new translation is scrupulously true to the Japanese original but appeals immediately to the modern reader. This edition also includes notes, glossaries, character lists and a chronology to enable the reader to appreciate the richness of this classic of world literature.
==
The Tale of Genji (源氏物語, Genji Monogatari?) is a classic work of Japanese literature written by the Japanese noblewoman and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu in the early years of the 11th century, around the peak of the Heian period. It is sometimes called the world's first novel, the first modern novel, the first psychological novel or the first novel still to be considered a classic. Notably, the novel also illustrates a unique depiction of the livelihoods of high courtiers during the Heian period.[1] While universally considered a masterpiece, its precise classification and influence in both Western and Eastern canon has been a matter of debate.
The first partial translation of Genji Monogatari into English was by Suematsu Kenchō, published in 1882. Arthur Waley published a six-volume translation of all but one chapter, with the first volume published in 1921 and the last in 1933.[2] In 1976, Edward Seidensticker published the first complete translation into English, made using a self-consciously "stricter" approach with regards to content if not form.[3] The most recent English translation was published in 2001 by Royall Tyler and aims at fidelity in content and form to the original text.[4]
Introduction

The Tale of Genji may have been written chapter by chapter in installments, as Murasaki delivered the tale to aristocratic women, (the yokibito). It has many elements found in a modern novel: a central character and a very large number of major and minor characters, well-developed characterization of all the major players, a sequence of events covering the central character's lifetime and beyond. The work does not make use of a plot; instead, events happen and characters evolve simply by growing older. One remarkable feature of the Genji, and of Murasaki's skill, is its internal consistency, despite a dramatis person&aelig; of some four hundred characters. For instance, all characters age in step and the family and feudal relationships maintain general consistency.
One complication for readers and translators of the Genji is that almost none of the characters in the original text are given explicit names. The characters are instead referred to by their function or role (e.g. Minister of the Left), an honorific (e.g. His Excellency), or their relation to other characters (e.g. Heir Apparent), which changes as the novel progresses. This lack of names stems from Heian-era court manners that would have made it unacceptably familiar and blunt to freely mention a person's given name. Modern readers and translators have used various nicknames to keep track of the many characters.
The Tale of Genji was written in an archaic court language that was already unreadable a century after it was written.[5] Thus, the Japanese have been reading annotated and illustrated versions of the work since as early as the 12th century.[5] It wasn't until the early 20th century that Genji was translated into modern Japanese, by the poet Akiko Yosano.[6]
[edit] Authorship

The debate over how much of Genji was actually written by Murasaki Shikibu has gone on for centuries and is unlikely to ever be settled unless some major archival discovery is made. It is generally accepted that the tale was finished in its present form by 1021, when the author of the Sarashina Nikki wrote a diary entry about her joy at acquiring a complete copy of the tale. She writes that there are over 50 chapters and mentions a character introduced at the end of the work, so if other authors besides Murasaki Shikibu did work on the tale, the work was done very near to the time of her writing. Murasaki Shikibu's own diary includes a reference to the tale, and indeed the application to herself of the name 'Murasaki' in an allusion to the main female character. That entry confirms that some if not all of the diary was available in 1008 when internal evidence suggests convincingly that the entry was written.[7]
Lady Murasaki is said to have written the character of Genji based on the Minister on the Left at the time she was at court. Other translators, such as Tyler believe the character Murasaki no Ue, whom Genji marries, is based on Murasaki Shikibu herself.
Yosano Akiko, the first author to make a modern Japanese translation of Genji, believed that Murasaki Shikibu had only written chapters 1 to 33, and that chapters 35 to 54 were written by her daughter Daini no Sanmi.[4] Other scholars have also doubted the authorship of chapters 42 to 54 (particularly 44, which contains rare examples of continuity mistakes).[4] According to Royall Tyler's introduction to his English translation of the work, recent computer analysis has turned up "statistically significant" discrepancies of style between chapters 45–54 and the rest, and also among the early chapters.[4]

Plot

Ch. 15 – 蓬生 Yomogiu ("Waste of Weeds"). Scene from the 12th century illustrated handscroll Genji Monogatari Emaki kept at the Tokugawa Art Museum.


Ch. 16 – 関屋 Sekiya ("At The Pass"). Tokugawa Art Museum’s Genji Monogatari Emaki.

Ch. 37 – 横笛 Yokobue ("Flute"). Tokugawa Art Museum’s Genji Monogatari Emaki.

Ch. 39 – 夕霧 Yūgiri ("Evening Mist"). 12th century Gotoh Museum handscroll Genji Monogatari Emaki.

Ch. 48 – 早蕨 Sawarabi ("Bracken Shoots"). Tokugawa Art Museum’s handscroll Genji Monogatari Emaki.


Ch. 48 – 宿り木 Yadorigi ("Ivy"). Tokugawa Art Museum’s Genji Monogatari Emaki.


The work recounts the life of a son of the Japanese emperor, known to readers as Hikaru Genji, or "Shining Genji". For political reasons, Genji is relegated to commoner status (by being given the surname Minamoto) and begins a career as an imperial officer. The tale concentrates on Genji's romantic life and describes the customs of the aristocratic society of the time. Much is made of Genji's good looks.
Genji was the second son of a certain ancient emperor ("Emperor Kiritsubo") and a low-ranking but beloved concubine (known to the readers as Lady Kiritsubo). Genji's mother dies when he is three years old, and the Emperor cannot forget her. The Emperor Kiritsubo then hears of a woman ("Lady Fujitsubo"), formerly a princess of the preceding emperor, who resembles his deceased concubine, and later she becomes one of his wives. Genji loves her first as a stepmother, but later as a woman. They fall in love with each other, but it is forbidden. Genji is frustrated because of his forbidden love for the Lady Fujitsubo and is on bad terms with his wife (Aoi no Ue). He also engages in a series of unfulfilling love affairs with other women. In most cases, his advances are rebuffed, his lover dies suddenly during the affair, or he finds his lover to be dull and his feelings change. In one case, he sees a beautiful young woman through an open window, enters her room without permission, and proceeds to seduce her. Recognizing him as a man of unchallengeable power, she makes no resistance.
Genji visits Kitayama, the northern rural hilly area of Kyoto, where he finds a beautiful ten-year-old girl. He is fascinated by this little girl ("Murasaki"), and discovers that she is a niece of the Lady Fujitsubo. Finally he kidnaps her, brings her to his own palace and educates her to be his ideal lady; that is, like the Lady Fujitsubo. During this time Genji also meets the Lady Fujitsubo secretly, and she bears his son, Reizei. Everyone except the two lovers believes the father of the child is the Emperor Kiritsubo. Later, the boy becomes the Crown Prince and Lady Fujitsubo becomes the Empress, but Genji and Lady Fujitsubo swear to keep their secret.
Genji and his wife, Lady Aoi, reconcile and she gives birth to a son but dies soon after. Genji is sorrowful, but finds consolation in Murasaki, whom he marries. Genji's father, the Emperor Kiritsubo, dies. He is succeeded by his son Suzaku, whose mother ("Kokiden"), together with Kiritsubo's political enemies (including the "Minister of the Right") takes power in the court. Then another of Genji's secret love affairs is exposed: Genji and a concubine of the Emperor Suzaku, Genji's brother, are discovered when they meet in secret. The Emperor Suzaku confides his personal amusement at Genji's exploits with the woman ("Oborozukiyo"), but is duty-bound to punish his half-brother. Genji is thus exiled to the town of Suma in rural Harima province (now part of Kobe in Hyōgo Prefecture). There, a prosperous man known as the Akashi Novice (because he is from Akashi in Settsu province) entertains Genji, and Genji has a love affair with Akashi's daughter. She gives birth to Genji's only daughter, who will later become the Empress.
In the Capital, the Emperor Suzaku is troubled by dreams of his late father, Kiritsubo, and something begins to affect his eyes. Meanwhile, his mother, Kokiden, grows ill, which weakens her powerful sway over the throne. Thus the Emperor orders Genji pardoned, and he returns to Kyoto. His son by Lady Fujitsubo, Reizei, becomes the emperor, and Genji finishes his imperial career. The new Emperor Reizei knows Genji is his real father, and raises Genji's rank to the highest possible.
However, when Genji turns 40 years old, his life begins to decline. His political status does not change, but his love and emotional life are slowly damaged. He marries another wife, the "Third Princess" (known as Onna san no miya in the Seidensticker version, or Nyōsan in Waley's). Genji's nephew, Kashiwagi, later forces himself on the "Third Princess" and she bears Kaoru (who, in a similar situation to that of Reizei, is legally known as the son of Genji). Genji's new marriage changes his relationship with Murasaki, who becomes a nun (bikuni).
Genji's beloved Murasaki dies. In the following chapter, Maboroshi ("Illusion"), Genji contemplates how fleeting life is. Immediately after Maboroshi, there is a chapter entitled Kumogakure ("Vanished into the Clouds") which is left blank, but implies the death of Genji.
The rest of the work is known as the "Uji Chapters". These chapters follow Kaoru and his best friend, Niou. Niou is an imperial prince, the son of Genji's daughter, the current Empress now that Reizei has abdicated the throne, while Kaoru is known to the world as Genji's son but is in fact fathered by Genji's nephew. The chapters involve Kaoru and Niou's rivalry over several daughters of an imperial prince who lives in Uji, a place some distance away from the capital. The tale ends abruptly, with Kaoru wondering if the lady he loves is being hidden away by Niou. Kaoru has sometimes been called the first anti-hero in literature.[8

Murasaki Shikibu

English: Lady Murasaki) (c. 978 – c. 1014 or 1025) was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court during the Heian period. She is best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1012. Murasaki Shikibu is a nickname; her real name is unknown, but she may have been Fujiwara Takako, who was mentioned in a 1007 court diary as an imperial lady-in-waiting.
Heian women were traditionally excluded from learning Chinese, the written language of government, but Murasaki, raised in her erudite father's household, showed a precocious aptitude for the Chinese classics and managed to acquire fluency. She married in her mid to late twenties and gave birth to a daughter before her husband died, two years after they were married. It is uncertain when she began to write The Tale of Genji, but it was probably while she was married or shortly after she was widowed. In about 1005, Murasaki was invited to serve as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shōshi at the Imperial court, probably because of her reputation as a writer. She continued to write during her service, adding scenes from court life to her work. After five or six years, she left court and retired with Shōshi to the Lake Biwa region. Scholars differ on the year of her death; although most agree on 1014, others have suggested she was alive in 1025.
Murasaki wrote The Diary of Lady Murasaki, a volume of poetry, and The Tale of Genji. Within a decade of its completion, Genji was distributed throughout the provinces; within a century it was recognized as a classic of Japanese literature and had become a subject of scholarly criticism. Early in the 20th century her work was translated; a six-volume English translation was completed in 1933. Scholars continue to recognize the importance of her work, which reflects Heian court society at its peak. Since the 13th century her works have been illustrated by Japanese artists and well-known ukiyo-e woodblock masters.

Early life

Murasaki Shikibu was born c. 973[1] in Heian-kyō, Japan, into the northern Fujiwara clan descending from Fujiwara no Yoshifusa, the first 9th-century Fujiwara regent. The Fujiwara clan dominated court politics until the end of the 11th century through strategic marriages of Fujiwara daughters into the imperial family and the use of regencies. In the late 10th century and early 11th century, Fujiwara no Michinaga arranged his four daughters into marriages with emperors, giving him unprecedented power.[3] Murasaki's great-grandfather, Fujiwara no Kanesuke, had been in the top tier of the aristocracy, but her branch of the family gradually lost power and by the time of Murasaki's birth was at the middle to lower ranks of the Heian aristocracy—the level of provincial governors.[4] The lower ranks of the nobility were typically posted away from court to undesirable positions in the provinces, exiled from the centralized power and court in Kyoto.[5]
Despite the loss of status, the family had a reputation among the literati through Murasaki's paternal great-grandfather and grandfather, both of whom were well-known poets. Her great-grandfather, Fujiwara no Kanesuke, had fifty-six poems included in thirteen of the Twenty-one Imperial Anthologies,[6] the Collections of Thirty-six Poets and the Yamato Monogatari (Tales of Yamoto).[7] Her great-grandfather and grandfather both had been friendly with Ki no Tsurayuki, who became notable for popularizing verse written in Japanese.[5] Her father, Fujiwara no Tametoki, attended the State Academy (Daigaku-ryō)[8] and became a well-respected scholar of Chinese classics and poetry; his own verse was anthologized.[9] He entered public service around 968 as a minor official and was given a governorship in 996. He stayed in service until about 1018.[5][10] Murasaki's mother was descended from the same branch of northern Fujiwara as Tametoki. The couple had three children, a son and two daughters.[9]

The names of women were not recorded in the Heian era. Murasaki's real name is not known; as was customary for women of the period, she went by a nickname, Murasaki Shikibu. Women took nicknames associated with a male relative: "Shikibu" refers to (Shikibu-shō), the Ministry of Ceremonials where her father was a functionary; "Murasaki" may be derived from the color violet associated with wisteria, the meaning of the word fuji, although it is more likely that "Murasaki" was a court nickname. Michinaga mentions the names of a few ladies-in-waiting in a 1007 diary entry; one, Fujiwara Takako (Kyōshi), may be Murasaki's real name.[]
In Heian-era Japan, husbands and wives kept separate households; children were raised with their mothers, although the patrilineal system was still followed.

Murasaki was unconventional because she lived in her father's household, most likely on Teramachi Street in Kyoto, with her younger brother Nobunori.

Their mother died, perhaps in childbirth, when the children were quite young.

Murasaki had at least three half-siblings raised with their mothers; she was very close to one sister who died in her twenties.
]
Murasaki was born at a period when Japan was becoming more isolated, after missions to China had ended and a stronger national culture was emerging.

In the 9th and 10th centuries, Japanese gradually became a written language through the development of kana, a syllabary based on abbreviations of Chinese characters. In Murasaki's lifetime men continued to write in Chinese, the language of government, but kana became the written language of noblewomen, setting the foundation for unique forms of Japanese literature.[17]
Chinese was taught to Murasaki's brother as preparation for a career in government, and during her childhood, living in her father's household, she learned and became proficient in classical Chinese.[8] In her diary she wrote, "When my brother ... was a young boy learning the Chinese classics, I was in the habit of listening to him and I became unusually proficient at understanding those passages that he found too difficult to understand and memorize. Father, a most learned man, was always regretting the fact: 'Just my luck,' he would say, 'What a pity she was not born a man!'"[18] With her brother she studied Chinese literature, and she probably also received instruction in more traditional subjects such as music, calligraphy and Japanese poetry.[13] Murasaki's education was unorthodox. Louis Perez explains in The History of Japan that "Women ... were thought to be incapable of real intelligence and therefore were not educated in Chinese."[19] Murasaki was aware that others saw her as "pretentious, awkward, difficult to approach, prickly, too fond of her tales, haughty, prone to versifying, disdainful, cantankerous and scornful".[20] Asian literature scholar Thomas Inge believes she had "a forceful personality that seldom won her friends."[8]

Aristocratic Heian women lived restricted and secluded lives, allowed only to speak to men when they were close relatives or household members. Murasaki's autobiographical poetry shows that she socialized with women but had limited contact with men other than her father and brother; she often exchanged poetry with women but never with men.[13] Unlike most noblewomen of her status, she did not marry on reaching puberty; instead she stayed in her father's household until her mid-twenties or perhaps even to her early thirties.[13][21]
In 996 when her father was posted to a four-year governorship in Echizen Province, Murasaki went with him, although it was uncommon for a noblewoman of the period to travel such a distance on a trip that could take as long as five days.[22] She returned to Kyoto, probably in 998, to marry her father's friend Fujiwara no Nobutaka (c. 950 – c. 1001), a much older second cousin.[5][13] Descended from the same branch of the Fujiwara clan, he was a court functionary and bureaucrat at the Ministry of Ceremonials, with a reputation for dressing extravagantly and as a talented dancer.[22] In his late forties at the time of their marriage, he had multiple households with an unknown number of wives and offspring.[7] Gregarious and well known at court, he was involved in numerous romantic relationships that may have continued after his marriage to Murasaki.[13] As was customary, she would have remained in her father's household where her husband would have visited her.[7] Nobutaka had been granted more than one governorship, and by the time of his marriage to Murasaki he was probably quite wealthy. Accounts of their marriage vary: Richard Bowring writes that the marriage was happy, but Japanese literature scholar Haruo Shirane sees indications in her poems that she resented her husband.[5][13]

The couple's daughter, Kenshi (Kataiko), was born in 999. Two years later Nobutaka died during a cholera epidemic.[13] As a married woman Murasaki would have had servants to run the household and care for her daughter, giving her ample leisure time. She enjoyed reading and had access to romances (monogatari) such as The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter and the Tales of Ise.[22] Scholars believe she may have started writing The Tale of Genji before her husband's death; it is known she was writing after she was widowed, perhaps in a state of grief.[2][5] In her diary she describes her feelings after her husband's death: "I felt depressed and confused. For some years I had existed from day to day in listless fashion ... doing little more than registering the passage of time .... The thought of my continuing loneliness was quite unbearable".[23]
According to legend, Murasaki retreated to Ishiyama-dera at Lake Biwa, where she was inspired to write The Tale of Genji on an August night while looking at the moon. Although scholars dismiss the factual basis of the story of her retreat, Japanese artists often depicted her at Ishiyama Temple staring at the moon for inspiration.[14] She may have been commissioned to write the story and may have known an exiled courtier in a similar position to her hero Prince Genji.[24] Murasaki would have distributed newly written chapters of Genji to friends who in turn would have re-copied them and passed them on. By this practice the story became known and she gained a reputation as an author.[25]
In her early to mid-thirties, she became a lady-in-waiting, nyōbō, at court, most likely because of her reputation as an author.[2][25] Chieko Mulhern writes in Japanese Women Writers, a Biocritical Sourcebook that scholars have wondered why Murasaki made such a move at a comparatively late period in her life. Her diary evidences that she exchanged poetry with Michinaga after her husband's death, leading to speculation that the two may have been lovers. Bowring sees no evidence that she was brought to court as Michinaga's concubine, although he did bring her to court without following official channels. Mulhern thinks Michinaga wanted to have Murasaki at court to educate his daughter Shōshi.[26]

.

Heian culture and court life reached a peak early in the 11th century.[3] The population of Kyoto grew to around 100,000 as the nobility became increasingly isolated at the Heian Palace in government posts and court service.[27] Courtiers became overly refined with little to do, insulated from reality, preoccupied with the minutiae of court life, turning to artistic endeavors.[3][27] Emotions were commonly expressed through the artistic use of textiles, fragrances, calligraphy, colored paper, poetry, and layering of clothing in pleasing color combinations—according to mood and season. Those who showed an inability to follow conventional aesthetics quickly lost popularity, particularly at court.[19] Popular pastimes for Heian noblewomen—who adhered to rigid fashions of floor-length hair, whitened skin and blackened teeth—included having love affairs, writing poetry and keeping diaries. The literature that Heian court women wrote is recognized as some of the earliest and among the best literature written in the Japanese cano

يتمة الام في الطفولة المبكرة وربما اثناء الولادة، ولها اخت كان قريبه منها ماتت وهي في العشرين من عمرها .

يتيمة الام في عامها الاول.

Chinua Achebe (born 16 November 1930 as Albert Ch&iacute;nụ̀&aacute;lụmọ̀gụ̀ &Agrave;chèbé) (pron.: /ˈtʃɪnwɑː əˈtʃɛbeɪ/)[1] is a Nigerian[2] novelist, poet, professor, and critic. He is best known for his first novel and magnum opus,[3] Things Fall Apart (1958), which is the most widely read book in modern African literature.[4]
Raised by his parents in the Igbo town of Ogidi in southeastern Nigeria, Achebe excelled at school and won a scholarship for undergraduate studies. He became fascinated with world religions and traditional African cultures, and began writing stories as a university student. After graduation, he worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS) and soon moved to the metropolis of Lagos. He gained worldwide attention for Things Fall Apart in the late 1950s; his later novels include No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). Achebe writes his novels in English and has defended the use of English, a "language of colonisers", in African literature. In 1975, his lecture An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" became the focus of controversy, for its criticism of Joseph Conrad as "a bloody racist" and was later published.
When the region of Biafra broke away from Nigeria in 1967, Achebe became a supporter of Biafran independence and acted as ambassador for the people of the new nation. The war ravaged the populace, and as starvation and violence took its toll, he appealed to the people of Europe and the Americas for aid. When the Nigerian government retook the region in 1970, he involved himself in political parties but soon resigned due to frustration over the corruption and elitism he witnessed. He lived in the United States for several years in the 1970s, and returned to the U.S. in 1990 after a car accident left him partially disabled.
Achebe's novels focus on the traditions of Igbo society, the effect of Christian influences, and the clash of Western and Traditional African values during and after the colonial era. His style relies heavily on the Igbo oral tradition, and combines straightforward narration with representations of folk stories, proverbs, and oratory. He has also published a number of short stories, children's books, and essay collections. Since 2009, he has been the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, United States.

Chinua was born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe in the Igbo village of Ogidi on November 16, 1930.[6] Isaiah Okafo Achebe and Janet Anaenechi Iloegbunam Achebe stood at a crossroads of traditional culture and Christian influence; this made a significant impact on the children, especially Chinualumogu. After the youngest daughter was born, the family moved to Isaiah Achebe's ancestral town of Ogidi, in what is now the state of Anambra.[2]
Storytelling was a mainstay of the Igbo tradition and an integral part of the community. Chinua's mother and sister Zinobia Uzoma told him many stories as a child, which he repeatedly requested. His education was furthered by the collages his father hung on the walls of their home, as well as almanacs and numerous books – including a prose adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1590) and an Igbo version of The Pilgrim's Progress (1678).[7][8] Chinua also eagerly anticipated traditional village events, like the frequent masquerade ceremonies, which he recreated later in his novels and stories.[9]

In 1936, Achebe entered St Philips' Central School. Despite his protests, he spent a week in the religious class for young children, but was quickly moved to a higher class when the school's chaplain took note of his intelligence.[10] One teacher described him as the student with the best handwriting in class, and the best reading skills.[11] He also attended Sunday school every week and the special evangelical services held monthly, often carrying his father's bag. A controversy erupted at one such session, when apostates from the new church challenged the catechist about the tenets of Christianity. Achebe later included a scene from this incident in Things Fall Apart.
At the age of twelve, Achebe moved away from his family to the village of Nekede, four kilometres from Owerri. He enrolled as a student at the Central School, where his older brother John taught.[14] In Nekede, Achebe gained an appreciation for Mbari, a traditional art form which seeks to invoke the gods' protection through symbolic sacrifices in the form of sculpture and collage.[15] When the time came to change to secondary school, in 1944, Achebe sat entrance examinations for and was accepted at both the prestigious Dennis Memorial Grammar School in Onitsha and the even more prestigious Government College in Umuahia.[16]
Modelled on the British public school, and funded by the colonial administration, Government College had been established in 1929 to educate Nigeria's future elite.[16] It had rigorous academic standards and was vigorously elitist, accepting boys purely on the basis of ability.[16] The language of the school was English, not only to develop proficiency but also to provide a common tongue for pupils from different Nigerian language groups.[17] Achebe described this later as being ordered to "put away their different mother tongues and communicate in the language of their colonisers".[18] The rule was strictly enforced and Achebe recalls that his first punishment was for asking another boy to pass the soap in Igbo.[17]
Once there, Achebe was double-promoted in his first year, completing the first two years' studies in one, and spending only four years in secondary school, instead of the standard five.[19] Achebe was unsuited to the school's sports regimen and belonged instead to a group of six exceedingly studious pupils. So intense were their study habits that the headmaster banned the reading of textbooks from five to six o'clock in the afternoon (though other activities and other books were allowed).[20]
Achebe started to explore the school's "wonderful library".[21] There he discovered Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery (1901), the autobiography of an American former slave; Achebe "found it sad, but it showed him another dimension of reality".[20] He also read classic novels, such as Gulliver's Travels (1726), David Copperfield (1850), and Treasure Island (1883) together with tales of colonial derring-do such as H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain (1887) and John Buchan's Prester John (1910). Achebe later recalled that, as a reader, he "took sides with the white characters against the savages"[21] and even developed a dislike for Africans. "The white man was good and reasonable and intelligent and courageous. The savages arrayed against him were sinister and stupid or, at the most, cunning. I hated their guts."[21]

تشينوا أتشيبي (16 نوفمبر 1930 - ) (بالإنجليزية: Chinua Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe) روائي نيجيري من قومية الإيجبو، أصبح أحد أهم الكتاب الإفريقيين. تتناول كتاباته المخلّفات المأساوية للإمبريالية البريطانية على المجتمعات الإفريقية. حلّل أتشيبي العلاقات الأسلوبية بين الأدبين الإفريقي والإنجليزي. وقد استحوذت أعماله على اهتمامات النقد الأدبي. تصف روايته «الأشياء تتداعى» (أو «عندما ينهار كل شيء») (1958م) انهيار الحياة القبلية التقليدية في وجه الوجود الاستعماري البريطاني في نيجيريا؛ كما أنها تبرز أيضًا تفوقًا في اللغة. له مؤلفات أخرى منها: سهم الرب (1964م)؛ ابن الشعب (1966م)؛ كثبان السافانا (1987م). أصدر أتشيبي كذلك قصصًا قصيرة وكتبًا للأطفال، كما اشتهر ناشرًا وناقدًا. وُلد أتشيبي في أوجيدي في شرقي نيجيريا، وتلقَّى تعليمه بالكلية الحكومية في أومواهيا وبكلية إبادان الجامعية، وعمل بالإذاعة والخدمة المدنية أيضًا. وعمل مؤخرًا بالتدريس في الجامعات النيجيرية، وجامعات الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية.

يمكننا ان نتصور كيف كانت عليه الحياة في افريقا ايام ولادة اتشنبي، من ظروف صعبة واستعمار وما الى ذلك. لا يتوفر لدينا تفاصيل حول حياته المبكرة، مجرد عموميات، ولا نعرف ظروف دراسته هل كانت في مدرسة داخلية ، هل انفصل عن واليده مبكرا، هل كان والده متعدد الزوجات ، اي هل نعتبره يتيم اجتماعي او مأزوم بسبب ظروف افريقا الصعبة في ذلك الحين. لكل ذلك سنعتبره

مجهول الطفولة.

ألف ليلة وليلة أو كما تعرف لدى الغرب (بالإنجليزية: Arabian Nights) أي الليالي العربية هي مجموعة متنوعة من القصص الشعبية عددها حوالي مائتي قصة يتخللها شعر في نحو 1420 مقطوعة، ويرجع تاريخها الحديث عندما ترجمها إلى الفرنسية المستشرق الفرنسي انطوان جالان عام 1704م، والذي صاغ الكتاب بتصرف كبير، وصار معظم الكتاب يترجم عنه طوال القرن الثامن عشر وما تلاه. وقد قُلّدت الليالي بصورة كبيرة وأستعملت في تأليف القصص وخاصة قصص الأطفال، كما كانت مصدراً لإلهام الكثير من الرسامين والموسيقيين. وتحتوي قصص ألف ليلة وليلة على شخصيات أدبية خيالية مشهورة منها كعلاء الدين، وعلي بابا والأربعين حرامي ومعروف الإسكافي وعلى زيبق المصرى والسندباد البحري، وبدور في شهرزاد وشهريار الملك، والشاطر حسن.
أما الحقائق الثابتة حول أصلها، فهي أنها لم تخرج بصورتها الحالية، وإنما أُلّفت على مراحل وأضيفت إليها على مر الزمن مجموعات من القصص بعضها له أصول هندية قديمة معروفة، وبعضها مأخوذ من أخبار العرب وقصصهم الحديثة نسبياً. أما موطن هذه القصص، فقد ثبت أنها تمثل بيئات شتى خيالية وواقعية, وأكثر البيئات بروزا هي في مصر والعراق وسوريا. والقصص بشكلها الحالي يرجح كتابتها في القرن الرابع عشر الميلادي 1500م. وقد قامت دولة مصر منذ عدة سنوات بإنتاج عمل درامي اذاعي لهذا الكتاب ،اخرجه محمد محمود شعبان بطولة الفنانة زوزو نبيل وعمر الحريري وآخرون.

حظي كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة باعتناء الغرب والشرق على حد سواء, وتوفرت منه نسخ عديدة وطبعات. وقد اصطبغ العالم الغربي في نظرته إلى المشرق الإسلامي بصبغة هذا الكتاب وفحواه; فقد حرصت السياسية الغربية على تصوير المجتمع الإسلامي بصورة مشوهة فيها الكثير من التحريف التاريخي, بل هي صورة خارجة عن التاريخ كله, وقد كان للاستشراق دور في صنع هذه الصورة ومقابلاتها وانعكاساتها.
وليس التاريخ ما ذكر في بطون الكتب التي تقص القصص, كما أنه ليس مجرد آثار تدرس ويدبج عليها بضعة أرقام لتصنيف في المتاحف على أساس هذه الرؤية المبتورة التي غالبا ما تكون زواياها غير واضحة بل ناقصة المعالم والرؤى, كما أن التاريخ طرف فيه الرواية الصحيحة التي تتحدث عن الأحداث بصورة صحيحة, فيها تناقل الرواة العدول الثقات عن امثالهم حتى منتهى السند.
وهكذا فإن كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة كتاب أسطوري بكل ما تحمل الكلمة من دلالة في عصرنا, فهناك قصد ما لكاتب ما من وراء ما جاء فيه من قص وسرد. ففيه كل الأحلام أو الآمال أو الحلول أو المفارقات التي تتلاحق في ذهن الكاتب الذي كتب هذه الليالي.
و لسنا نعلم شيئا قاطعا يدل أو يشي بمن ألف هذه الليالي

بالنظر إلى أن العالم الذي تصفه قصص "ألف ليلة وليلة" عالم مشغول بالسحر والسحرة، صاخب إلى أبلغ درجات الصخب والهوس والعربدة، ماجن إلى آخر حد، مجنون مفتون، نابض بالحياة والخلق والحكمة والطرب، مال بعض النقاد إلى أن واضع هذا الكتاب ليس فرداً واحداً. والحجة على ذلك من صلب الكتاب أن العوالم المحكية فيه، والمجتمعات الموصوفة، والمعتقدات المذكورة، كل ذلك شديد الاختلاف، مما يقوي الاعتقاد أن مؤلفها أكثر من واحد، وأن تأليفها ممتد في الزمان. ويحتوي الكتاب على حكايات عديدة نسبت إلى مصر والقاهرة والإسكندرية والهند وبلاد فارس وحكايات تنسب إلى بغداد والكوفة والبصرة.
أصبحت حكايات ألف ليلة وليلة رمزاً حقيقياً أصيلاً لمدينة بغداد، بغداد المجد والعظمة، وقد توافد المئات من المفكرين والشعراء والكتاب على مدينة بغداد منذ مطلع القرن العشرين حتى بداية الغزو الأمريكي للعراق، وقاموا بتاليف العديد من الكتب والروايات والقصص التي تربط بين هذه الحكايات وعظمة مدينة بغداد وتاريخ العراق الهائل الغني. وقد كان شارع أبي نواس في بغداد هو الرمز التصويري لهذه القصص والحكايات حتى إن المطربة الأسترالية الشهيرة تينا ارينا قد ذكرت مجد بغداد وربطتها بتاريخ شهرزاد وألف ليلة وليلة في أغنيتها المشهروة "اسمي بغداد" (Je m'appelle Bagdad)، وقد غنتها باللغة الفرنسية وحققت نجاحا هائلا في الفن الغنائي في عام 2005 وما تلاه.
وقد كتب محسن مهدي في مقدمة طبعة ا. ي. بريل عام 1984 أنه "بعد أن انتقلت نسخة الكتاب الخطية بين مصر والشام مدة تزيد على أربعة قرون من الزمن، وترجم من نسخ خطية إلى اللغة التركية والفرنسية والإنجليزية، وظهرت منه مقتطفات مطبوعة في إنجلترا في نهاية القرن الثامن عشر من الميلاد، طبع الكتاب لأول مرة في كلكتا في الهند في جزئين، في المطبعة الهندوستانية برعاية كلية فورت وليم - الجزء الأول بعنوان "حكايات مائة ليلة من ألف ليلة وليلة" عام 1814 م، والجزء الثاني بعنوان "المجلد الثاني من كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة يشتمل على حكايات مائة ليلة وأخبار السندباد مع الهندباد" عام 1818 م - نشره الشيخ أحمد بن محمود شيرواني اليماني أحد أعضاء هيئة التدريس في قسم اللغة العربية في الكلية المذكورة. وقد اقتصر الناشر على وضع مقدمة موجزة باللغة الفارسية ذات الأسلوب الهندي في أول كل واحد من الجزئين هذا نصها وترجمتها:
"لا يخفى أن مؤلف ألف ليلة وليلة شخص عربي اللسان من أهل مصرأوالعراق. وكان غرضه من تأليف هذا الكتاب أن يقرأه من يرغب في أن يتحدث بالعربية فتحصل له من قرائته طلاقة في اللسان عند التحدث بها. ولهذا كتب بعبارات سهلة كما يتحدث بها العرب، مستعملاً في بعض المواضع ألفاظًا ملحونة بحسب كلام العرب الدارج. ولذلك فلا يظن من يتصفح هذا الكتاب ويجد ألفاظًا ملحونة في مواضع منه أنها غفلة من المصحح، وإنما وضعت عمدًا تلك الألفاظ التي قصد المؤلف استعمالها كما هي."
وإن كان محسن مهدي يرجع ما يصفه الشيخ شيرواني بالألفاظ الملحونة إلى التعديلات التي قام الأخير بها "كما اشتهى وكما أملاه طبعه اللغوي وذوقه الأدبي" وهي إشارة من محسن مهدي أن النسخة الأصلية قد مرت بأطوار من التعديلات على مر الناشرين.

One Thousand and One Nights (Arabic: كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة‎ Kitāb alf laylah wa-laylah) is a collection of West and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights, from the first English language edition (1706), which rendered the title as The Arabian Nights' Entertainment.[1]
The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West, Central, South Asia and North Africa. The tales themselves trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Indian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian folklore and literature. In particular, many tales were originally folk stories from the Caliphate era, while others, especially the frame story, are most probably drawn from the Pahlavi Persian work Hazār Afsān (Persian: هزار افسان‎, lit. A Thousand Tales) which in turn relied partly on Indian elements.[2]
What is common throughout all the editions of the Nights is the initial frame story of the ruler Shahryār (from Persian: شهريار‎, meaning "king" or "sovereign") and his wife Scheherazade (from Persian: شهرزاد‎, possibly meaning "of noble lineage"[3]) and the framing device incorporated throughout the tales themselves. The stories proceed from this original tale; some are framed within other tales, while others begin and end of their own accord. Some editions contain only a few hundred nights, while others include 1,001 or more.
Some of the stories of The Nights, particularly "Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp", "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" and "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor", while almost certainly genuine Middle Eastern folk tales, were not part of The Nights in Arabic versions, but were added into the collection by Antoine Galland and other European translators.[4] The innovative and rich poetry and poetic speeches, chants, songs, lamentations, hymns, beseeching, praising, pleading, riddles and annotations provided by Scheherazade or her story characters are unique to the Arabic version of the book. Some are as short as one line, while others go for tens of lines.

The main frame story concerns a Persian king and his new bride. He is shocked to discover that his brother's wife is unfaithful; discovering his own wife's infidelity has been even more flagrant, he has her executed: but in his bitterness and grief decides that all women are the same. The king, Shahryar, begins to marry a succession of virgins only to execute each one the next morning, before she has a chance to dishonour him. Eventually the vizier, whose duty it is to provide them, cannot find any more virgins. Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father reluctantly agrees. On the night of their marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell the king a tale, but does not end it. The king, curious about how the story ends, is thus forced to postpone her execution in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins (and only begins) a new one, and the king, eager to hear the conclusion, postpones her execution once again. So it goes on for 1,001 nights.
The tales vary widely: they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques and various forms of erotica. Numerous stories depict Jinns, Ghouls, Apes,[5] sorcerers, magicians, and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and geography, not always rationally; common protagonists include the historical AbbasidcaliphHarun al-Rashid, his Grand Vizier, Jafar al-Barmaki, and his alleged court poetAbu Nuwas, despite the fact that these figures lived some 200 years after the fall of the Sassanid Empire in which the frame tale of Scheherazade is set. Sometimes a character in Scheherazade's tale will begin telling other characters a story of his own, and that story may have another one told within it, resulting in a richly layered narrative texture.
The different versions have different individually detailed endings (in some Scheherazade asks for a pardon, in some the king sees their children and decides not to execute his wife, in some other things happen that make the king distracted) but they all end with the king giving his wife a pardon and sparing her life.
The narrator's standards for what constitutes a cliffhanger seem broader than in modern literature. While in many cases a story is cut off with the hero in danger of losing his life or another kind of deep trouble, in some parts of the full text Scheherazade stops her narration in the middle of an exposition of abstract philosophical principles or complex points of Islamic philosophy, and in one case during a detailed description of human anatomy according to Galen—and in all these cases turns out to be justified in her belief that the king's curiosity about the sequel would buy her another day of life.

المؤلف مجهول .. وبالتالي مجهول الطفولة.

WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR. On his third birthday Oskar decides to stop growing. Haunted by the deaths of his parents and wielding his tin drum Oskar recounts the events of his extraordinary life; from the long nightmare of the Nazi era to his anarchic adventures is post-war Germany

The Tin Drum
(German: Die Blechtrommel) is a 1959 novel by Günter Grass. The novel is the first book of Grass's Danziger Trilogie (Danzig Trilogy). It was adapted into a 1979 film, which won both the Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film that year.

The story revolves around the life of Oskar Matzerath, as narrated by himself when confined in a mental hospital during the years 1952–1954. Born in 1924 in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), with an adult's capacity for thought and perception, he decides never to grow up when he hears his father declare that he would become a grocer. Gifted with a piercing shriek that can shatter glass or be used as a weapon, Oskar declares himself to be one of those "auditory clairvoyant babies", whose "spiritual development is complete at birth and only needs to affirm itself". He retains the stature of a child while living through the beginning of World War II, several love affairs, and the world of postwar Europe. Through all this a tin drum that he received as a present on his third birthday remains his treasured possession, and he is willing to kill to retain it.
Oskar considers himself to have two "presumptive fathers"—his mother's husband Alfred, a member of the Nazi Party, and her secret lover and cousin Jan, a Danzig Pole, who is executed for defending the Polish Post Office in Danzig during the German invasion of Poland. Oskar's mother having died, Alfred marries Maria, a woman who is secretly Oskar's first mistress. After marrying Alfred, Maria gives birth to Oskar's possible son, Kurt. But Oskar is disappointed to find that the baby persists in growing up, and will not join him in ceasing to grow at the age of three.
During the war, Oskar joins a troupe of performing dwarfs who entertain the German troops at the front line. But when his second love, the diminutive Roswitha, is killed by Allied troops in the invasion of Normandy, Oskar returns to his family in Danzig where he becomes the leader of a criminal youth gang. The Russianarmy soon captures Danzig, and Alfred is shot by invading troops after he goes into seizures while swallowing his party pin to avoid being revealed as a Nazi.
Oskar moves with his widowed stepmother and their son to Düsseldorf, where he models in the nude with Ulla and works engraving tombstones. Oskar decides to live apart from Maria and her son Kurt after mounting tensions. He decides on a flat owned by the Zeidlers. Upon moving in, he falls in love with Sister Dorothea, a neighbor, but he later fails to seduce her. During an encounter with Klepp, Klepp asks Oskar how he has an authority over the judgement of music. Oskar, willing to prove himself once and for all to Klepp, a fellow musician, picks up his drum and sticks despite his vow to never play again after Alfred's death and plays a measure on his drum. The ensuing events lead Klepp, Oskar, and Scholle, a guitarist, to form the Rhine River Three jazz band. They are discovered by Mr. Schmuh, who invites them to play at the Onion Cellar club. After a virtuoso performance, a record company talent seeker discovers Oskar the jazz drummer and offers a contract. Oskar soon achieves fame and riches. One day while walking through a field he finds a severed finger: the ring finger of Sister Dorothea, who has been murdered. He then meets and befriends Vittlar. Oskar allows himself to be falsely convicted of the murder and is confined to an insane asylum, where he writes his memoirs.

نبذة النيل والفرات:
ولدت فكرة رواية الطبل الصفيح في ذهن "غونترغراس" عندما رأى طفلاً في الثالثة من عمره يحمل طبلاً ويتجول ضائعاً بين الموائد متجاهلاً عالم الكبار. كتب "غراس" الرواية ما بين 1956 و1959 في باريس. وفي مطلع عام 1958 قام برحلة غلى مدينة "غدانسك" للتحقيق من بعض الأحداث والتحري عن مجريات القتال بين المؤيدين للرايخ الألماني والمؤيدين لبولندا في مطلع الحرب العالمية الثانية في أيلول 1939.
كان هدف "غراس" أن يعرض المضمون الخيالي لقصته في إطار واقعي دقيق ويزاوج بين المستويين الواقعي والخيالي. وبالفعل حاول خلال رحلته أن يلتقي بعض أولئك الذين اشتركوا في معركة البريد واستطاعوا الإفلات من الحصار. الشخصية المحورية في الرواية هي القزم أوسكار "أوسكار ماتزرات"، وهو نزيل مستشفى للأمراض العقلية، ويكتب فيه مذكراته بين عامي 1952و1954، تتسلسل الأحداث في تتابع تاريخي واضح على هذا المستوى. ويقص علينا الراوي قصته مع مجتمع ما بعد الحرب، ذلك المجتمع الذي ما ‘ن انتهت الحرب حتى اندفع في إعادة الأعمار وانغمس في السعي إلى الثراء والاقتناء والاستهلاك.
أما الماضي القريب فقد استعان عليه بنفيه، من دائرة الوعي والحديث وكأنه كابوس فحسب. رفض هذا المجتمع ما جرى من أحداث شارك فيها وغلف الماضي بالكتب التام أو بالذكريات الساترة المزيفة. يرى "أوسكار" هذا المجتمع الجديد كمظهر آخر للقديم ويخيم على روايته على هذا المستوى الشعور بالسأم والاجتهاد اللامعنى. وعلى مستوى آخر، يعود بنا الراوي إلى قصة ميلاده ونشأته ومجرى حياته في ظل النازية والحرب وفي النهاية يلتقي المتسويان وذلك في عيد ميلاد (داولكار) الثلاثين ينفي أوسكار عن حق أنه يكتب سيرة ذاتية، كما ذهب بعض النقاد والأصح أنه يكتب سيرة ذاتية سافرة بمعنى أنه يحاول رؤية التاريخ من منظور حياة شديدة الخصوصية، من منظور ذلك القزم المسمى "أوسكار ماتزرات". إلا أن القضية أكثر تعقيداً، فأوسكار ذاته عاجز عن الإلمام بذلك الواقع الذي يعايشه، وهو يرفض ويتمرد عليه، وهو في الوقت نفسه مراه عكرة أو متكسرة لذلك الواقع. وفي النهاية هو شخصية فنية مصطنعة.

بعد أن نشر الروائي الألماني الكبير غونترغراس «من مواليد 16 اكتوبر 1927» مجموعته الشعرية الأولى بعنوان «ديك الريح الحديدي المحبوب» عام 1956، وتلاها عام 1957 أربع مسرحيات، وبعدها نص باليه بعنوان «فضلات أو قصاصات» - أصدر «غراس» روايته الأولى «الطبل الصفيح» التي أثارت الكثير من الجدل عام 1959، وجعلت منه.. مع روايته القصيرة «بنج موضعي» أو «مخدر موضوعي» 1969 وغيرها من الروايات واحداً من أكبر الروائيين في العالم الغربي.
تتمحور رواية «الطبل الصفيح» حول القزم أوسكار - الشخصية الرئيسة في الرواية.. تلك الرواية التي بيع منها أكثر من مليون ونصف نسخة في كل أنحاء العالم، وأثارت فزع وانبهار القراء فى ست عشرة لغة.. ولقد استوعب القراء وتعمقوا رؤية هذا القزم المحيرة والعميقة الغور لقيام وسقوط الرايخ الثالث.. فصرخة «أوسكار» التي كان يصرخها ويستطيع بها تحطيم أي زجاج، وطبلته السحرية التي تحمله إلى الأمام وإلى الخلف في الزمان.. وكان أفضل حيلة التي قام بها في الرواية إفساد تنظيم المواكب النازية وطوابيرها... وحين اختفى تحت مقصورة المتفرجين ودق على طبلته ألحاناً معاكسة ومضادة ومخالفة لتلك التي كان يعزفها النازيون، وصارت طبلة «غونترغراس» رمزاً لهؤلاء الذين عليهم أن يعزفوا ويدقوا ألحان غيرهم دائماً.. أو ينتظرون من يدق عليها كي تصدر الأصوات - الأوامر.. وهو في هذه الرواية يعمد إلى توظيف أسلوب سردي من التهويل والترويع سبيلاً لاستجلاء أبعاد الماضي.. فمن خلال ذلك الكم الهائل منالمفارقات والنوادر التي تروي غرائب الأمور وعجائبها، وتمزج الواقعي بالفانتازي - فضلاً عن تلك اللغة التي تصور ما هو سوقي ومبتذل - بفصاحة.. يبقي وجدان القارئ يقظاً ومتنبها، والأهم من ذلك - عاجزاً عن الركون إلى الصورة المألوفة للكينونات والحوادث طبقاً لما يصوره الوجدان المشترك. وعندما تحول هذه التدابير التقنية دون أمر ما... فإنها تحول دون التأويل الرمزي للتاريخ - بما هو اختزال لظاهرة الماضي الذي يسلم في نهاية المطاف بانقضائها - إلى ذلك فإنها تنبه القارئ إلى حقيقة التشويه الشامل الذي تعرض له الواقع الألماني في ظل النازية. وليس يعوز الكاتب تبرير خارجي لاستخدام تقنيات سردية كهذه طالما أنها التقنيات الوحيدة التي يمكن لشخصية مثل «أوسكار ماتسراث» بطل الرواية وراويها، استخدامها على وجه مقنع.. فهو فضلاً على أنه نزيل مستشفى للأمراض العقلية، فهو كائن عجيب، قزم في الخامسة عشرة.. يرفض منذ سن الثالثة أن ينمو مثل بقية البشر، ومن ثم - فإنه لا مناص من أن يبدو العالم لناظريه ضخماً ضخامة كاريكاتورية تثير الروع حينا وتبعث على الضحك أحياناً - ولكن تشبث «أوسكار» بالطفولة - رافضاً الانضواء في عالم الراشدين - فإنه لا يتلاعب بالفارق بين الطفولة والصبيانية.. فهو يريد التشبث بالبراءة وعدم التورط.. فلا يتُهم بالصبيانية، ومن ثم بالطيش وانعدام المسؤولية.. وما عالم الكبار.. على ما يستشف من تصوير «أوسكار» له - إلا عالم صبياني يتصنع أفراده الجدية المفرطة في المواقف التي تدعو إلى السخرية والضحك، وينشغل أهله انشغالاً تاماً بتافه الأمور وصغيرها - في حين يولون الشؤون المدنية والسياسية العامة أقل اهتمامهم، ولذا فإن «أوسكار» يرفض الانتماء إلى من هم معدومو النضج المتنصلون من المسؤولية والمراوغون للإحساس بالذنب الذي يدعونه، وهو يدين أخلاق البرجوازية الألمانية التي توانت في مواجهة المد النازي، وتصنعت الجهل بدورها فيما جرى، وما يزدريه أوسكار بشكل خاص هي تلك الرقابة الذاتية التي يفرضها الواحد من أبناء هذه الطبقة على نفسه مخافة الإدانة الجماعية أو حتى الخروج من القطيع.. و«الأوسكار» ليس بطلاً بالمعنى التقليدي، ويوظفه «غراس» كصوت الضمير الألماني المكبوت في العصر المظلم، وإنما هو أيضاً شخصية ملتبسة التباس الشخصية الألمانية العادية في زمن الحرب وبعده، وهو إذ يعري الواقع الألماني. فإنه هو نفسه عاجز عن الإقرار بالذنب، وقصارى ما يعترف به، وما يميزه عن أبناء الطبقة التي ينتمي إليها - هو أنه مرواغ ومتهرب من المسؤولية، وهو ذو انتهازية صريحة، ويقوم بدوري الملاك وإبليس.. وذلك انسجاماً مع المهنة التي يزاولها كبهلوان، وهو لا يكتفي بتسليط الضوء على الإلتباس الذى يعتري التاريخ وإنما أيضاً الإلتباس الذي يكتنف محاولة كتابة ما جرى من موقع من ينتمي إلى الطبقة المدانة هنا. فالراوي - شأنه في ذلك شأن الكاتب المنحدر من عائلة برجوازية منحازة لهتلرفضلاً عن انضوائه عضواً في الشبيبة الهتلرية، ليس من البراءة والحيادية بما يسوغ قبول روايته من دون شك أو سؤال.. وبذا فإن «غونتز غراس» الساعي إلى محاسبة الأمة الألمانية حساباً يكفل عدم تكرار ما جرى.. لا يزعم احتلال موقع الحكم الأخلاقي المتعالي تعالياً تاريخياً عما فعله أبناء أمته. وحيث إن الكاتب لا«يستثني» نفسه، فإنه يحرص على تنبيه القارئ بأن ما يرويه مجرد عمل أدبي - لا من حيث إنه سلسلة من الحوادث المتخيلة التي لم تقع فعلياً، وإنما من حيث أنه - رجل لا سلطة مطلقة له في سرد وقائع ما جرى، وأن المواطن الألماني الغارق في البحبوحة الاقتصادية التي شهدتها المانيا بعد الحرب ليتوجب أن يشاطره هم التفكير فيما جرى، والحيلولة دون التغافل والنسيان.. فالعجيب في شخصية «أوسكار» هذا الذي لا يحتمل، والهدام، والشاذ المنظر، ومع ذلك لا يخلو من جاذبية.. فهو يستطيع أن يؤثر في الناس عن طريق حكايات يحكيها خلال نقراته على الطبلة، ويستطيع أن يرفع صوته بالصراخ فيصل إلى مسافة يمكن أن نتصورها أو لا نتصورها، ويحدث نتيجة لهذا الصوت أن تتكسر جميع ألواح الزجاج التي تكون في طريق صوت أوسكار وعندما يتحدث عن الجنس فإنه يتحدث عن القراميط، وعن اللعاب، وعن البودرة، ومستخدماً ألفاظاً وتعبيرات وصوراً تدعو للاشمئزاز والرعب لذا يرى الناقد الإنجليزي «ريفيو شيرمان» أن النقاد لن يجدوا صعوبة في الربط بين شخصية أوسكار وبين «جوبلز» وزير الدعاية في العهد النازي وبين العقلية النازية، ولن يجدوا صعوبة في الربط بين صوت أوسكار وبين صوت «أدولف هتلر».. لكن «غراس» لا يوافق على هذا الرأي، وينكر أنه تعمد استعمال الرمز للتعبير عن معنى معين.. ورغم ذلك فالرواية أشبه بالسيرة الذاتية، وهي أشبه - أيضاً - بمن يكتب منتقداً الذاكرة الجماعية التي أدت إلى الكارثة، ومن خلال ذاكرته الشخصية. ولقد أحدثت هذه الرواية ضجة كبيرة، وتم شجبها في المانيا على أنها تعرض الروح والعقل البشري للخطر، إن لم تكن تدمرهما على ما يحتمل، وجرت محاولات لحظرها.. إذ إن الألمان كانوا تواقين إلى نسيان ماضيهم، ومن الناحية الجنائية، بدا «غراس» غير مسؤول.. لأنه يروي ثانية حكايات سنوات الحكم النازي بتفاصيل تعافها النفس، بل ميتة. وظهر أن اختياره ليروي الحكاية كان مهيناً في حد ذاته - حيث إنه اختار قزما ماكراً ماجنا هو «أوسكار»، وهو بالنسبة لمظهره الجسدي طفل في الثالثة.. له عقل رجل بالغ، وشهوة جنسية نامية تماماً، وموهبة في السخرية، وبصيرة ثاقبة، ولأنهم عدوه طفلاً لم يتقن المشي بعد أن كانوا يمارسون في وجوده أمورهم الجنسية.. وهو طبال بصورة اضطرارية، ويحتاج باستمرار إلى دمى في شكل طبول من الصفيح يحولها بعد أسبوعين من الاستعمال إلى خردة. و«أوسكار» مثل «مبتدعة - غراس» ولد في «دانزنج» وكان في الخامسة من عمره حين وصل النازيون إلى السلطة، ويراقب بني جلدته من المواطنين، وهم يكيفون أنفسهم للنظام الجديد وفي «كريستا لنخت» في نوفمبر 1938.. حين خربت محلات اليهود التجارية، يقابل بالمصادفة - صاحب محل اللعب المفضلة عنده - ميتاً وسط أطلال المتجر الملوثة، وبعد عشرة أشهر كان «أوسكار» ووالده بين المدافعين عن مبنى مكتب البريد البولندي، حين دمره النازيون، وقد وجدا وسط التشويه المستديم وقتاً للعبة ورق غريبة.. ينزف فيها واحد من اللاعبين حتى الموت، ويظل قابضاً على أوراق لعبه.. وفي أثناء الحرب يسافر «أوسكار» إلى فرنسا مع فرقة تمثيلية لتسلية الجند، وتصل إلى «نورماندي» في الوقت المحدد لغزو الحلفاء بالضبط، ولكنه يعود إلى «دننزج» حيث يحرر الجيش الأحمر المدينة، وبينما يأتي الجنود الروس مصلصلين، وهم يهبطون سلم القبو يحاول زوج أم أوسكار - على نحو يائس - أن يبتلع شارة حزبه النازي، ويختنق بها، وتحيره طلقات رصاص واحد من المحررين الذي يمسك حنجرته المعذبة - باعتبار أن ذلك نوع من الاستعراض العدائي.
وتعادل سخرية «أوسكار» الباردة كل لون من ألوان الرعب، وكان الحب العظيم في حياته لممثلة قصيرة القامة تكون معه في «نورماندي» حينما يبدأ الحلفاء ضربها بالقنابل، وتجري إلى مطبخ الميدان بحذائها ذي الكعب العالي، وتصل إلى مشروب القهوة شديد السخونة.. وفي الوقت نفسه بالضبط تصل دانة من مدفع بحري. أما شخصيات الرواية المساعدة فهي نابضة بالحياة على نحو دال، وتذكرنا كيف يمكن أن تكون الكائنات البشرية لا تطاق - فهناك «جريف» بائع الخضار والفاكهة العاشق المغرم بالغلمان، والبارع في الآلات الميكانيكية، والذي يشنق نفسه على مشانق موسيقية مخترعة بعناية، وهناك «ميين» عازف البوق الذي ينضم إلى فرقة شباب هتلر، ويحظى بالمديح لتدميره معبدا يهوديا، ولكنه يطرد بمنطق نازي معصوم من الخطأ بتهمة القسوة على القطط.. وبدا أن «غراس» قد خطط روايته الغريبة كمجموعة من القصائد أصلاً.. ونشهد في الرواية كيف يتجول «أوسكار» وأمه قرب بحر البلطيق، ويسحب «صياد سمك» رأس حصان يزحف بسمك الأتلكيس، وربما يلمح هذا إلى الخيالة البولندية المحكوم عليها بالموت، وهذا أحد رموز الرواية المتكررة - لكن المشكلة الرئيسة بالنسبة للقارئ - عندما يتقدم الصياد ليعصر سمك الأتلكيس، وتندهش أم أوسكار كيف لا يصيب المرض الصياد، وتبذل أم أوسكار مجهوداً كبيراً كي تحضر وجبة فطور دسمة إرضاء للنوارس الصارخة التي تلتهمها، وفي الرواية لمسات مؤثرة أخرى مثل: أن فتحتي أنف أوسكار الحادتين تميزان النساء بروائحهن الطيبة، وتفوح من «ماريا» زوجة أبيه، ورفيقة الفراش - رائحة الفطريات البرية وعطر «الونيلية» وهو نبات أمريكي استوائي،ويتربى «أوسكار» «مثل غراس» في محل بقالة العائلة حيث تكمن فيه روائحه المختلطة مثل: الرنجة، والفواكه المجففة بأنواعها.. في أغوار نفسه.
وفي هذه الرواية أحرز «غراس» قصب السبق إلى «سحر الواقعية».. حيث يجعل كتابته بدرجة أكثر، وليس بدرجة أقل - لكنها تستجيب لمطالب موضوعه، ويجعلك تشعر أنك لكي تتكلم عن الأحداث في مستوى معين.. ربما يكون الصوت النثري غير لائق - لكنه قد يقبلها على أنها معقولة ويعلق الناقد «نيل اشكرسون» على هذه الرواية «نيو ستبتسمان - سبتمبر 1994» بقوله: «يشعر المرء - وهو متحير بالحدث الجارف القائم على الخيال الجامح الذي اكتنفه الغموض بكل ما يقصده غونتر غراس - مثل العالم الحيواني الذي يكتشف حيواناً ثديياً وحشياً غير مسجل، يلتهم أوراق الشجر، ربما تكون له قرون جميلة، ولكن هي ماهيته؟.. وهذه أول رواية لرسام ورموزها ليست عضوية.. إنما تتكرر بالطريقة التي تتكرر بها أشكال الدروع في عمل تشكيلي للفنان «ماكس أرنست» أو آلة المندولين الموسيقية في عمل «بيكاسو»، وقد أصبح «غراس» من أعلام الأدب الألماني القصصي في هذا القرن، وقارن البعض هذه الرواية بملحمة «توماس مان» الروائية «جبل السحر»، وعدها البعض الآخر زوبعة أدبية استفزازية. ولعل هذه الرواية هي السبب الذي ارتأته الأكاديمية الملكية السويدية لمنح «غونتز غراس»، جائزة نوبل لعام 1999، والذي يتمثل في ناحية من نواحي عالمه الروائي الشاسع وذلك لأنه ينقل الوجه المنسي للتاريخ من خلال حكايات مروية على ألسنه الحيوانات في قالب من السخرية اللاذعة، لكنه نقل أيضاً تحولات هذا التاريخ والتناقضات التي شهدها، وكان خير معبر عن الواقع الألماني والمراحل الصعبة، والخطرة التي اجتازها. وروايته «الطبل الصفيح» تشهد فعلاً - لاعلى موهبته الروائية الكبيرة فقط.. وإنما على ارتباطه الوثيق بالتاريخ والذاكرة وبالواقع والوجدان العام.. فالبطل الذي يدعى «أوسكار» هو صورة واضحة عن الشخصية الألمانية التي تتذكر ما عانت وما شهدت من أحداث وجرائم هي جرائم الرايخ الثالث، بل هو نموذج للبطل المضاد والمعقد الذي يتمرد ويرفض ويواجه الموت واليأس والخراب الكبير المنتشر من حوله. وحين صدورها في العام 1959 - اعتبرت رواية «الطبل الصفيح» رواية المرحلة، وربما رواية «العصر»، وسرعان ما ترجمت إلى لغات شتى، وحققت لكاتبها شهرة عالمية حتى بات اسمه مرتبطاً بها.. علماً بأن الرواية هذه كانت أولى الثلاثية التي سوف تعرف «بثلاثية دانتزيج».
ومنذ صدور «الطبل الصفيح» عام 1959 تلقى «غراس» عروضاً كثيرة بتحويلها إلى فيلم - دون أن يعجبه أي مشروع عرض عليه.. ولكن الأمر كان مختلفاً مع المخرج «فولكر شولندورف» - فقد أقنعه عام 1978 - بعد صدور الرواية بحوالي عشرين عاماً - بمحاورته الدائمه له، وأسئلته بأنه توصل إلى جوهر الرواية، واستطاع أن يعيده إلى الكتاب الذي كان قد أحس بأنه أصبح بعيداً عنه بحيث كان ممكناً - بفضل أسئلة «شولندورف» المثيرة أن يشترك «غراس» نفسه في كتابة حوار الفيلم، وشارك في كتابة السيناريو الفرنسي «جان كلود كاريير»، وفلوكرشولندورف، وفرانزساتيز». ويعلق «غراس» بقوله: ولمست على الفور أنه قد فهم أبعاد الفترة التي يتناولها الكتاب.. وأنه يملك من القوة ما يكفي لإعادة تشكيل المادة.. ليس بالخضوع الأعمى للكتاب.. وإنما بأن يستبدل بأدوات الأدب أدوات السينما.. وتم بالطبع - استبعاد بعض الفصول وبعض القصص والمواقف، وكان «شولوندورف» يطلعني على تطورات السيناريو لأعطيه أنا وجهة نظري.. وكان البعض يحدثونني أثناء ذلك عن قزم بشع.. بينما كان الموضوع - والكتاب نفسه - يقول ذلك بوضوح - عن طفل توقف عن النمو.. وكان «شولندورف» مصمماً على ألا يكون هناك أي أقزام.. فأين المتفرج الذي يمكن أن يتوحد مع قزم، إن لكل منا طفولته التي يفتقدها والتي يود أن يسترجعها.. وكثير مما في «أوسكار ماتزيراث» يمكن العثور عليه في جيل اليوم في الشباب.. وكثيرون يودون لو استطاعوا الهرب من البلوغ والمسؤوليات.. وهذا هو السبب في أن التجسيد الأدبي «لأوسكار ماتزيراث» يبدو لي موجوداً اليوم.. محاصراً بالحاضر باستمرار.

Günter Wilhelm Grass
(born 16 October 1927) is a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is widely regarded as Germany's most famous living writer.[
Grass was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland).
- In 1945, he came to West Germany as a homeless refugee, though in his fiction he frequently returns to the Danzig of his childhood.
Grass is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism, and the first part of his Danzig Trilogy, which also includes Cat and Mouse and Dog Years. His works are frequently considered to have a left-wing political dimension and Grass has been an active supporter of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The Tin Drum was adapted into a film, which won both the 1979 Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The Swedish Academy, upon awarding him the Nobel Prize in Literature, noted him as a writer "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history".[5]

Early life
Grass was born in the Free City of Danzig on 16 October 1927, to Wilhelm Grass (1899–1979), a Protestantethnic German, and Helene (Knoff) Grass (1898–1954), a Roman Catholic of Kashubian-Polish origin. Grass was raised a Catholic. His parents had a grocery store with an attached apartment in Danzig-Langfuhr (now Gdańsk Wrzeszcz). He has one sister, who was born in 1930.
Grass attended the Danzig Gymnasium Conradinum. In 1943 he became a Luftwaffenhelfer, then he was conscripted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst.

In November 1944, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, he volunteered- for submarine service with the Kriegsmarine, "to get out of the confinement he felt as a teenager in his parents' house" which he considered stuffy Catholic lower middle class.[
However, he was not accepted by the Navy and instead was drafted into the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg.
He saw combat with the Panzer Division from February 1945 until he was wounded on 20 April 1945.
He was captured in Marienbad and sent to an American prisoner-of-war camp. Danzig had been captured by the Soviet Army and was then annexed by Poland, which expelled its German population. Grass could not return home and found refuge in western Germany.
His military service became the subject of debate in 2006, after he disclosed in an interview and a book that he had been conscripted into the Waffen-SS while a teenager in late 1944. At that point of the war, youths could be conscripted into the Waffen-SS instead of the regular Armed Forces (Wehrmacht), although Grass' division functioned like a regular Panzer division.
In 1946 and 1947 he worked in a mine and received training in stonemasonry. For many years he studied sculpture and graphics, first at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, then at the Berlin University of the Arts. Grass worked as an author, graphic designer, and sculptor, traveling frequently. He married in 1954 and since 1960 has lived in Berlin as well as part-time in Schleswig-Holstein. Divorced in 1978, he remarried in 1979. From 1983 to 1986 he held the presidency of the Berlin Academy of the Arts.
Major work>

English-language readers probably know Grass best as the author of Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum), published in 1959 (and subsequently filmed by director Volker Schl&ouml;ndorff in 1979). It was followed in 1961 by Katz und Maus (Cat and Mouse), a novella, and in 1963 by the novel Hundejahre (Dog Years). Together these three works form what is known as the Danzig Trilogy. All three works deal with the rise of Nazism and with the war experience in the unique cultural setting of Danzig and the delta of the Vistula River. Dog Years, in many respects a sequel to The Tin Drum, portrays the area's mixed ethnicities and complex historical background in lyrical prose that is highly evocative.[who?]
In 2002, Grass returned to the forefront of world literature with Im Krebsgang (Crabwalk). This novella, one of whose main characters first appeared in Cat and Mouse, was Grass's most successful work in decades.

غونتر غراس
(بالألمانية: Günter Grass) ولد في 16 أكتوبر1927 في مدينة دانتسيغ (ضمت إلى بولندا بعد الحرب العالمية التانية). شارك غونتر غراس سنة 1944 في الحرب العالمية الثانية كمساعد في سلاح الطيران الألماني. وبعد انتهاء الحرب وقع سنة 1946 في أسر القوات الأمريكية إلى أن أطلق سراحه في نفس السنة. يعد غونتر غراس أحد أهم الأدباء الألمان في فترة ما بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية, حاز على جائزة نوبل للآداب سنة 1999. وهو يعيش اليوم بالقرب من مدينة لوبيك في شمال ألمانيا.

نالت روايته الطبل والصفيح Die Blechtrommel شهرة عالمية كبيرة وترجم هذا العمل الادبي إلى لغات عالمية كثيرة من بينها العربية أيضا. وهذه الرواية هي جزء من ثلاثيته المعروفة بـ "ثلاثية داينتسيغ"Danziger Trilogie وتضم أيضا الروايتين "القط والفأر" Katz und Maus (1961) و"سنوات الكلاب"Hundejahre (1963) ومن رواياته المشهورة هناك أيضا "مئويتي" Mein Jahrhundert (1999) و"مشية السرطان"Im Krebsgang (2002).
حصل غراس في سنة 1999 على جائزة نوبل للآداب عن دوره في إثراء الأدب العالمي وخصوصا في ثلاثيته الشهيرة "ثلاثية داينتسيغ" بالإضافة إلى جوائز محلية كثيرة منها جائزة كارل فون اوسيتسكي Carl von Ossietzky سنة 1967 وجائزة الأدب من قبل مجمع بافاريا للعلوم والفنون سنة 1994.وفي سنة 2005 حصل على شهادة الدكتوراه الفخرية من جامعة برلين.

تعرض في أبريل 2012 إلى موجة انتقادات بعد نشره لقصيدة نثرية بعنوان «ما ينبغي أن يقال» (بالألمانية: Was gesagt werden mu&szlig;) قال فيها[1] أن إسرائيل من خلال تحضيراتها لضرب المنشآت النووية في إيران تمثل تهديداً للسلام العالمي، ولدرء هذا التحديد يجب التكلم الآن، وأنه سئم من نفاق الغرب فيما يتعلق بإسرائيل، وأهوال النازية ليست ذريعة للصمت.[2] وانتقد بلده ألمانيا على بيع غواصات يمكن تجهيزها بأسلحة نووية إلى إسرائيل، وشنت وسائل الإعلام الألمانية، مثل دي فيلت ودير شبيغل، حملة عليه تتهمه بمعاداة السامية مذكِّرةً بأنه خدم في شبابه في قوات إس إس.[3] وقد طرح غراس في قصيدته أن إيران وإسرائيل كليهما يجب أن تخضعا لرقابة دولية على أسلحتهما النووية.[4]
فيما يلي لائحة لأهم كتاباته الادبية: