Portal:Literature
Introduction
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, plays, and poems. It includes both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment. It can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.
Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoirs, letters, and essays. Within its broad definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles, or other written information on a particular subject. (Full article...)
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The Hunger Games is a 2008 science fiction novel by the American writer Suzanne Collins. It is written in the voice of 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in the dystopian, post-apocalyptic nation of Panem in North America. The Capitol, a highly advanced metropolis, exercises political control over the rest of the nation. The Hunger Games are an annual event in which one boy and one girl aged 12–18 from each of the twelve districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle to the death.
The book received mostly positive feedback from major reviewers and authors. It was praised for its storyline and character development, though some reviewers have noted similarities between Collins' book and Koushun Takami's Battle Royale (1999). In writing The Hunger Games, Collins drew upon Greek mythology, Roman gladiatorial games, and contemporary reality television for thematic content. The novel won many awards, including the California Young Reader Medal, and was named one of Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of the Year" in 2008. The novel is the first in The Hunger Games trilogy, followed by Catching Fire (2009) and Mockingjay (2010). A film adaptation, directed by Gary Ross and co-written and co-produced by Collins herself, was released in 2012.
Selected excerpt
“ | It occurred to him that what had appeared perfectly impossible before, namely that he had not spent his life as he should have done, might after all be true. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family, and all his social and official interests, might all have been false. He tried to defend all those things to himself and suddenly felt the weakness of what he was defending. There was nothing to defend. | ” |
— Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych |
More Did you know
- ... that although the protagonist of F.D.J. Pangemanann's novel Tjerita Si Tjonat is evil without a single redeeming feature, he was portrayed as a popular hero in wartime Indonesia?
- ... that Hungarian writer Károly Pap lived in desperate poverty?
- ... that Jeanne Galzy's novel Burnt Offering, winner of the 1930 Prix Brentano, explores a love between a teacher and a 12-year-old female student?
- ... that Ananda Chandra Barua was a writer, poet, playwright, translator, journalist and actor from Assam, who received Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award of the country in 1970?
- ... that Tio Ie Soei's novel Sie Po Giok has been called the only work of Chinese Malay literature fit for children to read?
Selected illustration
Did you know (auto-generated) -
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg/47px-Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg.png)
- ... that 19th-century Polish ethnographer Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski travelled the countryside as a "wild man" and later appeared as a literary character?
- ... that a teacher of medieval literature and comic books writes the blog Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle?
- ... that Romanian literary scholar Dan Simonescu, who edited a chronicle dealing with the reign of Michael the Brave, had to delete any mention of Michael having "all the Jews murdered"?
- ... that more than 1000 tons of paper were used every year printing car literature for the British Motor Corporation by the in-house Nuffield Press?
- ... that the lands of the Shirvanshah served as the focal point for Persian literature during the 12th century?
- ... that Hammersmith by Gustav Holst was acclaimed by Frederick Fennell for having "some of the most treacherous stretches of music making" in band literature?
Today in literature
- 1596 - Constantijn Huygens, Dutch poet born
- 1896 - Antonin Artaud, French playwright born
- 1905 - Mary Renault, English novelist born
- 1908 - Richard Wright, American writer born
- 1909 - Clyde Fitch, American dramatist and playwright died
- 1916 - José Echegaray, Spanish writer died
- 1924 - Joan Aiken, English writer born
- 1974 - Marcel Achard, French playwright died
- 1989 - Georges Simenon, French author died
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Regions: | Australian literature · Indian literature · Persian literature |
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