Engl 145: Survey of World Literature II

Isabelle Allende: - 1942 to present - Chilean novelist known from bringing magical realism to her experience as a woman - Worked for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization before beginning a career in journalism - Left Chile for Venezuela because she felt her family wouldn't allow her to continue her journalism career because she was expected to be a woman and take on motherly duties - Allende wrote her first novel as a letter to her grandfather when he was dying And of Clay Are We Created: - Set in 1980's Chile - Told from the perspective of one of Allende's recurring characters Eva Luna - Her boyfriend is named Rolf Carle and is a reporter - A young girl named Azucena was found trapped in a mudslide created after a volcanic eruption and an avalanche happened together. The news of this tragedy travels around the world quickly - Rolf Carle flies there by helicopter and is the first to arrive on the scene because other reporters had trouble getting arou...

This week, I felt my strongest work was my revised project. I originally thought that because I was just explaining my reasoning for why I thought they'd make good reading for students, I didn't think I needed specific quotes. However, after getting some feedback, I realized that choosing quotes that prove what I'm saying about why each piece would make a good lesson makes my overall argument stronger. The feedback I got on this project has been really helpful, and it's made me appreciate that cooperative aspect of this class, even though it used to embarrass me to have others reading me work. I read a lot of great projects too, and those helped me get some ideas on how to better word my analyses to make my points more clear. I weeded out unnecessarily complicated sentences and broke them down into smaller ones that got to the point more quickly. As we approach the end of the semester, I can feel my anxiety getting worse and worse. It's becoming difficult to manage...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenzabur%C5%8D_%C5%8Ce I started out with Kenzaburo because I was interested in the fact that he had a brain damaged son who influence much of his writing, and also the fact that he was one of the first Japanese Nobel laureates in writing. I learned that he described his writing as primarily being about the "dignity of human beings". I became interested in others like him, so I decided to look at the list of other Nobel laureates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_Nobel_laureates Overall, there have been 23 Japanese Nobel prize winners. The most won category is Physics with 9, the least won is Peace with only 1. From the list, I wanted to know who the first Japanese Nobel prize winner was and what he won a prize for, so I followed that link. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideki_Yukawa Hideki Yukawa was the first Japanese Nobel prize winner for his advancements in theoretical physics. Not much is written about his personal l...

I've read the announcements and backed up my work.

Oe Kenzaburo: - Born 1935 to present - Second Japanese writer to receive the Nobel Prize in 1994 - Writing is "grotesque realism" - His main motifs in writing: the threat of nuclear weapons, the corrupted innocence of the youth, and making responsible choices in the face of overwhelming situations The Clever Rain Tree: - Likely to be somewhat auto biographical of the author's life, as many locations and details seem to be very specific - The title is a reference to a certain type of tree called a rain tree, named such because the leaves are so tightly packed that when it rains, the tree holds the water even after the rain is over. This leads to the leaves dripping and giving the appearance of rain. The "clever" rain tree is one specific tree that holds water even more than the other rain trees, because its leaves are even more tightly packed. - The narrator of the story is attending a seminar sponsored by the University of Hawaii's East West Cente...

Wolf Soyinka: - 1934 to present - Political activist and playwrite - Draws from Yoruba tradition, using Yoruba folktales and performance styles Death and the King's Horsemen: -Main character is Elesin, the King's Horseman - It is believed by his people that when the king dies, the king's horseman must commit ritual suicide to accompany him in death, and serve as his guide to the afterlife - Elesin intends to do it but at the last minute a British colonial ruler stops him because he thinks the ritual is barbaric - The people are outraged and tragedies follow such as the suicide of Elesin's son Olunde, who kills himself in an attempt to restore his family's honor and restore the cosmic balance - Elesin ends up killing himself anyway, but it is implied that this is not enough to save his soul or the world Toni Morrison: - 1931 to present - Born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, took the name of Saint Anthony (later shortened to Toni) as her middle name and began...