Barbara Kingsolvera writer of fiction, documentary, verse and essaysupports entertaining stories with profound themes of ecological responsibility and defense of human rights. This work is an introduction and overview of the authors literary achievements, opening with an annotated chronology of Kingsolvers life, activism, works, and awards, followed by a family tree. The 122 alphabetical entries in the main text provide data and analysis on characters, dates, historical figures and events, allusions, literary motifs, and themes from Kingsolvers works, combining insights with generous...

In the mid-1980s, Amy Tan was a successful but unhappy corporate speechwriter. By the end of the decade, she was perched firmly atop the best-seller lists with The Joy Luck Club, with more hugely popular novels to follow. Tan's work - once pigeonholed as ethnic literature, a niche market with limited appeal - resonates with universal themes that cross cultural and ideological boundaries, and proved wildly successful with readers of all stripes. Chinese culture and its affect on women - Amy Tan's work earned her both praise and excoriation from critics, adoration from fans, and a place as one...

Walter Dean Myers, preeminent author of teen fiction biography and verse, refines the image of black characters that are frequently trivialized or vilified in juvenile literature, advertising, television, and film. From his saga The Glory Field to his novel The Young Landlords, Myers's canon surveys the complex realm of the teen years as colliding settings in home, school, and the street. This volume introduces readers to both the writer and his work, with an emphasis on the characters, dates, events, motifs, and themes from the books. Myers's 101 A-to-Z entries offer concise,...

With novels like Ellen Foster and A Virtuous Woman, award-winning writer Kaye Gibbons has gained both critical acclaim and a large, devoted following among readers. This literary companion equips the reader with information about characters, plots, dates, allusions, literary motifs, and themes from the bestselling author's works. After an annotated chronology of Gibbons? life, the work presents 103 A-Z entries that include Snodgrass's analysis, cover the writings of reviewers and critics, and provide selected bibliographies. Appendices offer an historical timeline with references to...

Deeply concerned with South Pacific culture, especially the lives of its most downtrodden citizens, the author uses popular art as a tool for raising the consciousness of readers. This book provides an introduction to the author's life, as well as a guided overview of his body of work.

This book covers the canon of playwright Edward Albee, perhaps best known as the author of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Comprehensive entries detail each of the plays and major characters, and all works are cross referenced with important themes. Other features include biographical information focusing on Albee's artistic beliefs, his understanding of the playwright's responsibility, the importance of music in drama, and the technical craft of writing plays.

This companion provides a two-part introduction to best-selling author Stephen King, whose enormous popularity over the years has gained him an audience well beyond readers of horror fiction, the genre with which is most often associated. Part I considers the reception of King's work, the film adaptations that they gave rise to, the fictional worlds in which some of his novels are set, and the more useful approaches to King's varied corpus. Part II consists of entries for each series, novel, story, screenplay and even poem, including works never published or produced, as well as characters...

William Gibson, a founding father of cyberpunk, is one today's most popular science fiction writers. This companion is meant both for general readers and for scholars interested in Gibson's oeuvre. It provides literary and cultural context for works ranging from Gibson's first short story, Fragments of a Hologram Rose (1977), to his seminal cyberpunk classic Neuromancer (1984), to his best-selling novel Zero History (2010), and includes commentary on Gibson's subjects, themes, and approaches. Existing scholarship on Gibson is surveyed, and is accessible to and useful for fans and scholars...

A three-time National Book Award for Fiction winner, Saul Bellow (1915-2005) is one of the most highly regarded American authors to emerge since World War II. His 60-year career produced 14 novels and novellas, two volumes of nonfiction, short story collections, plays and a book of collected letters. His 1953 breakthrough novel The Adventures of Augie March was followed by Seize the Day (1956), Herzog (1964) and Mr. Sammler's Planet (1970). His Humboldt's Gift won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 and contributed to his receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature that year. This literary...

Surveying the life, work and accolades of Irish playwright Brian Friel, this literary companion investigates his personal and professional relationships and his literary topics and themes, such as belonging, violence, patriarchy and hypocrisy. Character summaries describe his most significant figures, particularly St. Columba, the victims of Derry's Bloody Sunday, and Hugh O'Neill, the Lord of Tyrone. Entries analyze Friel's style in detail, from his column in the Irish Times and his short fiction in the New Yorker to his most recent plays, Philadelphia, Here I Come ,...