Browsing Literary Essays by Title
Now showing items 1-20 of 45
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Alien and Adrift: The Diasporic Consciousness in V.S. Naipaul’s 'Half a Life' and J.M. Coetzee's 'Youth'
(New Literatures Review, 2003)In this paper, I look at some similarities in sensibility of Naipaul and Coetzee, one clearly a diasporic writer and the other less identifiably so, as expressed in these two recent books. I discuss to what extent their ... -
Attitudes to Political Commitment in Three Indian Novels: Raja Rao's 'Kanthapura', Khushwant Singh's 'Train to Pakistan' and Nayantara Sahgal's 'Rich Like Us'
(Prestige Books, 2001)An examination of attitudes to political commitment portrayed by three Indian novels written in English, Raja Rao's 'Kanthapura', Khushwant Singh's 'Train to Pakistan' and Nayantara Sahgal's 'Rich Like Us'. -
An Autobiography of Everyone? Intentions and Definitions in Doris Lessing's Memoirs of a Survivor
(Routledge, 2009-04)Doris Lessing's novel 'Memoirs as a Survivor' was described by Lessing as 'an attempt at autobiography'. This paper examines the autobiographical element, and the ideological concepts which formed Lessing's attitude to ... -
An Autobiography of Everyone? Intentions and Definitions in Doris Lessing’s “Memoirs of a Survivor”. [abstract].
(2006)"Memoirs of a Survivor" was first published in 1974, and is the second of what Lessing has described as her “unrealistic stories”. The “real” setting of the novel is an unnamed English city in the near future, when for ... -
Doris Lessing Versus Her Readers: The Case of 'The Golden Notebook'
(Prestige Books, New Delhi, 2006)Doris Lessing is a major force in contemporary English literature, holding a unique position as an iconoclastic, outspoken critic of society and politics with a sage-like, almost magisterial status. However, she has not ... -
'A Dozy City': Adelaide in J.M. Coetzee's Slow Man and Amy T. Matthews's End of the Night Girl
(Adelaide University Press, 2013)Since Salman Rushdie’s comments about Adelaide at Writers’ Week in 1984, the city has become notorious for being a place of bizarre murders and unexplained disappearances, and this impression has been encouraged by a number ... -
Every Reader is a Stranger: The Novels of Tabish Khair
(Roman Books, 2013)A study of Tabish Khair's first two novels, 'The Bus Stopped' and 'Filming' -
Feste Ansichten in his own person: J.M. Coetzee speaks
(Media Tropes, 2014)Three recent books by J.M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello (2003), Diary of a Bad Year (2007), and Here and Now (2013), have included extensive expressions of opinion. The wide-ranging discussions in these books cover topics ... -
‘Figures of Good: comparing Mansfield Park with Iris Murdoch's A Fairly Honourable Defeat’
(Jane Austen’s Regency World, 2010-01)Comparison of the 'figures of good' Fanny Price in 'Mansfield Park' and Tallis Browne in 'A Fairly Honourable Defeat' by Iris Murdoch. -
Fiji: Republican Rome in the Pacific?
(CRNLE, 2000)Review of 'Fiji: Paradise in Pieces' by Satendra Nandan. -
Getting to Know Matthew: A Personal Account of Editing Flinders' Private Journal.
(L'Harmattan, 2006) -
The Horizon Conquerors: Post-war London through Colonial Eyes.
(New Literatures Review, 2003)Doris Lessing and V.S. Naipaul both arrived in London a few years after the end of the Second World War. This paper looks at their perceptions of the city as 'colonials', as seen from their fiction and non-fiction writings. -
'The Imaginative Promptings of My Many-Sided Background': V.S. Naipaul's Diasporic Sensibility
(Pencraft International, 2011)Twice displaced from his ancestral homeland of India, V.S. Naipaul seems to epitomise the diasporic writer. But categorisation of such an extraordinary individual is not easy, even if the categories are clearly defined, ... -
An Interview with Marion Halligan
(Antipodes, 2004-06)Marion Halligan has won awards for her novels, essays and short stories. She has published fifteen books including, most recently, the novels The Fog Garden and The Point. Born and raised in the New South Wales industrial ... -
Iris Murdoch's Novels of Male Adultery: The Sandcastle, An Unofficial Rose, The Sacred and Profane Love Machine, and the Message to the Planet.
(Routledge, 2009-08)The moral problem of adultery obviously fascinated Iris Murdoch as a novelist – as of course it has many other writers. In her novels we often see a situation where one party to a marriage, often the husband, has divided ... -
Iris Murdoch’s Use of First-Person Narrative in The Black Prince
(English Studies, 2004-04)Many critics place Iris Murdoch’s first-person novels, narrated by a more or less egotistical and unperceptive male who is also the protagonist, near the summit of her achievement as a novelist, and most agree that The ... -
The Library at Soho Square: Matthew Flinders, Sir Joseph Banks and the Publication of A Voyage to Terra Australis.
(Bibliographical Society of ANZ, 2017)An account of Matthew Flinders' research and writing of the introduction to his Voyage to Terra Australis, including his use of London libraries like that of Sir Joseph Banks. -
Looking Back in Anger: The Transformation of Childhood Memories in Two West Indian Novels.
(Pencraft International, 2013)Anger, for all its negative aspects, can provide creative urges which produce works of art of great power. The anger of the adult writer is often directed against the forces which tried to control and repress that writer ... -
Looking Back in Anger: The Transformations of Childhood Memories in V.S. Naipaul's 'A House for Mr Biswas' and Jamaica Kincaid's 'Annie John'
(Prestige Books, 2000)A comparison of the novels 'Annie John' by Jamaica Kincaid, set in Antigua, and 'A House for Mr Biswas' by V.S. Naipaul, set in Trinidad. Both novels build upon angry memories of childhood in a West Indian setting. -
MARIANNE AND WILLOUGHBY, LUCY AND COLIN: BETRAYAL, SUFFERING, DEATH AND THE POETIC IMAGE
(Mimesis, 2018)Many of the song lyrics in Jane Austen’s personal music books (some collected or transcribed by her, some inherited or passed on from family members) are couched in the sentimental poetic diction prevalent in the eighteenth ...