Notable American Writers of the 20th Century. American writers and their works
Modern American literature is a whole army interesting authors and a sea of varied books. It's very easy to get lost here. Together with the MTS Mobile Library, we have compiled a guide to the most important US writers right now. Of course, not everyone is on the list.
JONATHAN FRANZEN
Why is he on our list. Franzen is called perhaps the most important writer modern America. It brings the reader back to the form of a great novel, ignoring that it is not very fashionable now. To understand Franzen a little, it is worth knowing that he chooses Faulkner over Hemingway, admires Tolstoy, and proudly considers Nabokov an American writer. Jonathan Franzen received the prestigious National Award for his novel The Corrections. book award.
Of course, this "Sinlessness" . The odyssey of a young girl named Purity who didn't know her father and is trying to find him. In her search, she is helped and hindered by Internet libertarian Andreas Wolf, freelance journalist Tom Aberant, and Anabelle's paranoid mother.
Cost in MTS mobile library :
Other important books by Franzen
"Amendments"- America, 1990s. The Lambert family, whose head suffers from Parkinson's disease, gets together at Christmas to unwittingly arrange the usual family showdown.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 4 rubles if read in 20 days.
"Freedom"- America, already 2000s, behind 9/11. Walter and Patti Berglund try to save their marriage and reflect on their search for freedom.
Cost in MTS mobile library :
DON DELILLO
Why is he on our list. The famous critic Harold Bloom (the same one who ridiculed Stephen King for his National Book Award) called Don DeLillo one of the most important American writers of his time, along with Pynchon, Roth and McCarthy.
In his youth, he read a lot of Faulkner and Hemingway (usually they are opposed to each other), began to write in order not to work, and eventually became a famous postmodernist writer. The resounding success of Don DeLillo brought the novel "White Noise" - National Book Award in 1985.
His Great American Novel
Novels equally claim this role. "White noise" And "Scales". Let's dwell on the latter, because this book is about "seven seconds that broke the back of America" - the assassination of Kennedy. The book tells the stories of Lee Harvey Oswald, the CIA agents who planned the fake assassination attempt on JFK (conspiracy!) and archivist Nicholas Branch studying the assassination.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
Other important books by DeLillo
"White noise" - satirical story about a professor of Hitler studies who is terribly afraid of death, and also of exposure in his “scientific” discipline. DeLillo also targets TV, religion, supermarkets, etc.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
"Falling"- one of the first attempts in American literature to comprehend the tragedy of 9/11. The hero sees the towers fall and is forced to live on with this disastrous experience.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Why is he on our list. Thanks to McCarthy, Javier Bardem played one of his best roles - the psychopath Anton Chigurh in the Coen brothers' thriller No Country for Old Men. McCarthy, of course, wrote a novel of the same name. Seriously speaking, Cormac McCarthy is one of the most venerable American writers, who is often called Faulkner's heir.
His books are included in various top 100 best novels in English. For The Road, McCarthy won the Pulitzer Prize. The novel "Horses, Horses" was awarded the National Book Award and the National Book Critics' Award.
His Great American Novel
"Blood Meridian"
- cruel story a teenager who joined a gang of thugs on the US-Mexico border. War against everyone: Indians, Mexicans, Rangers, each other. A harsh novel about the nature of violence.
Other Important McCarthy Books
"Horses, horses" - like a novel about a young cowboy who rushed to Mexico from West Texas after the death of his grandfather. In fact, a book about growing up and testing the spirit.
"Road"- hopeless post-apocalyptic. Father and son try to cross former America destroyed by the cataclysm to reach the sea.
Cost in MTS mobile library :
MICHAEL CHABON
Why is he on our list. Chabon is equally good at psychological novels, detective stories, science fiction - he turns all this into a unique intellectual prose. The novels "Pittsburgh Mysteries" (first) and "Geeks" (second) were filmed, and it is a pity that this has not yet happened with The Adventures of Cavalier and Clay.
Michael Chabon dreamed up a Jewish colony in Alaska and won two major science fiction awards, the Hugo and Nebula, for his novel The Jewish Policemen's Union. And the novel about Cavalier and Clay earned him a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize and an American literary prize PEN/Faulkner. Yes, even Chabon had a hand in the film "Spider-Man 2", becoming a screenwriter.
His Great American Novel
"The Incredible Adventures of Cavalier and Clay" is a novel about the American dream that the characters are trying to achieve. Josef Kavaler flees the Nazis in a coffin with a golem, his cousin Sammy draws comics in New York. Two geeks come up with a cartoon character, The Escapist, who fights Hitler, and begin their takeover of America's comics industry.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
Other important books by Chabon
Union of Jewish Policemen - inseparable friends, detectives Meir Landsman and Berko Shemets, are investigating the murder of a famous chess player. It takes place in Jewish Alaska.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 2 rubles if read in 10 days.
"Moonlight" - memoirs of grandfather Chabon, turned into literature. Main character participates in the Second World War, hunts for German rocket men and Wernher von Braun, collaborates with NASA, falls in love with a Jewish girl... Chabon's very personal book.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
STEVEN KING
Why is he on our list. Stephen King takes a close look at nature in his books. ordinary person, not always attractive. And if you want to consider him a horror writer, you run the risk of following a not-so-smart stereotype.
Listing all the awards and achievements of King is simply pointless, there are too many of them. Let's just say that in 2003 he received a medal for outstanding contribution to American literature (US National Book Award).
His Great American Novel
"Hearts in Atlantis" - a poignant book, deliberately collected from stories-fragments. The girl whom the hero of the first story saves from hooligans grows into a rebellious student. She appears in the second story of the novel, the most "American", where King described the college campus of the 1970s, the life of young Americans and the anti-Vietnam protests. Looping the story, King again brings the heroes together in the final...
Other important books by King
"It"- an amazing story about childhood friendship, which is destined to undergo severe trials. After all, a terrifying monster wants everyone to go flying.
"Confrontation" - when the world falls from the flu epidemic, Randall Flagg, the "black man", the dark messiah, will enter the scene. But many Americans will not want to submit to him.
DONNA TARTT
Why is she on our list. Donna Tartt writes her novels once every ten years. She has published three books in total: secret history"(1992)," Little friend"(2002) and "Goldfinch" (2013). But, despite their small number, Donna Tartt has already taken important place in American literature. Her novels are compared with the books of Shakespeare, Dickens and Umberto Eco (quite strange at first glance). Tartt immerses the reader, as she herself says, in gleeful, greedy reading (happy, greedy reading).
The latest novel brought the writer the Pulitzer Prize and the Carnegie Medal for the best fiction book in the United States.
This "Goldfinch"- an adventurous romance and a romance of upbringing in one. Young Theo Decker loses his mother in an explosion at a New York museum. From this begins his wanderings through families, cities and time. Throughout his life, Theo is accompanied by the painting The Goldfinch, which he inexplicably stole from the museum after the explosion.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 5 rubles if read in 25 days.
Two other important books by Tartt
"Secret History" - the adult hero remembers a strange college murder that destroyed a group of friends.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 4 rubles if read in 20 days.
"Little friend" - an example of American "Southern Gothic" in a modern version. Young Harriet tries to solve the mystery of the tragic death younger brother which happened when she was three years old.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 4 rubles if read in 20 days.
THOMAS PYNCHON
Why is he on our list. Because he wrote Gravity's Rainbow. In principle, this was enough to stake out a place in eternity. Pynchon was rumored to have attended Nabokov's seminar at Cornell University. And also for a long time they thought about him that he was Salinger, so well Pynchon kept his incognito.
Pynchon's favorite topics are entropy, paranoia, conspiracy theories, opposition to the System. Pynchon heavily influenced postmodernism and the cyberpunk novel. By the way, they decided not to award him the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 - his "Rainbow" was considered unreadable and obscene. Pynchon did not accept the National Book Award for the novel himself, sending a comedian to the presentation.
His Great American Novel
Against all odds, this is not a "Rainbow" (for that it is too complex and cosmopolitan), but "Birth defect" . America in the early 1970s, detective Doc Sportello with a hippie background is looking for an ex-girlfriend and her wealthy suitor. The classic confrontation between the outsider and the System.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
Other important books by Pynchon
"Gravity's Rainbow" - a complex plot is built around the search for a mysterious "black block" for the V-2 rocket with the number 00000. "Rainbow" is considered the most difficult postmodern novel of the 20th century.
"Screaming Lot 49" - confrontation between two postal companies Thurn und Taxis and Trystero. The latter, fictional, is considered the prototype of the Internet and e-mail.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
TOM WOLF
Why is he on our list. He's great at wearing a white suit! Actually Tom Wolfe - bright Star American documentaries, prose and journalism. Moreover, he practically invented the "new journalism", perceiving the newspaper genre as a real art.
He wrote about cool non-fiction, about the American auto industry during its heyday, the brilliant Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters hippie commune, the space battle between Americans and Russians. Author of four novels, the last written in 2012. Recipient of the National Book Foundation Medal for Contribution to US Literature.
His Great American Novel
"Bonfires of Ambition" - a bright canvas depicting New York in the 1980s, and at the same time a novel that touches on the social problem of racism and social stratification. A stockbroker and his mistress accidentally run over a teenager in the "black" ghetto, and he dies. The culprits hide the accident, but terrible secret can't keep a secret...
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
Other Important Wolfe Books
"Voice of Blood" - the book describes modern Miami, where immigrants from all over the world have mixed. In the center of the plot is a policeman who is forced to balance between the law and the interests of his diaspora.
"Electrocooling Acid Test" - a story about the life of Ken Kesey from 1958 to 1966 and his influence on the American subculture, in particular the hippies. A masterpiece of new journalism.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 2 rubles if read in 10 days.
JENNIFER EGAN
Why is she on our list. Jennifer Egan is considered one of the most interesting contemporary writers America, although she wrote not so much (note, more Donna Tartt). Egan began writing short stories for The New Yorker and New York Times magazine. The debut novel "The Invisible Circus" was filmed with Cameron Diaz in the title role.
In 2010, Jennifer Egan won the Pulitzer Prize for Time Has the Last Laugh.
Her Great American Novel
"Time Laughs Last" - the youth of the heroes coincided with the birth of punk rock, and today they are already over forty. The successful producer and failed punk rocker Benny Salazar continues his run in the circle of rock music, breaking away, touring, etc. But time does not lag behind the heroes by a single step.
Other Important Books by Egan
"Citadel"- story cousins who met twenty years later. One of them has changed a lot and now invited the second to restore the neglected mansion he bought. The old castle promises many surprises for the brothers.
"Invisible Circus" (not yet translated) - the young heroine goes to Portugal in the footsteps of her older hippie sister, who unexpectedly committed suicide for everyone.
WILLIAM GIBSON
Why is he on our list. Of course, he's here primarily because of the Neuromancer and the dainty unique style. The mentioned novel became the “New Testament of cyberpunk” (according to Timothy Leary), in fact, gave rise to this genre, unleashed literary war with American science fiction humanists. "Neuromant" collected all significant awards in science fiction: Hugo, Nebula, Philip Dick Award, Australian Ditmar and Japanese Seiun Award.
To Gibson's credit, he shook the dust of cyberpunk off his feet as the genre began to die, and moved on to futuristic prose that explored new media, technologies, religions, and so on. He owns famous saying: "The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed."
His Great Post-American Novel
"Peripherals" , last novel writer. For Gibson, America no longer exists as a single state. The heroine Flynn and her brother Burton, a local war veteran, are forced to earn extra money as semi-legal freelancers in online games. One such game turns out to be not a game at all, but another reality, the inhabitants of which manipulate people in our world.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
Other Important Gibson Books
The whole trilogy "Cyberspace" , including "Neuromancer", "Count Zero", "Mona Lisa overdrive": data matrix hacks, illegal technologies, cyberwar with corporations and yakuza, bioimplants, etc.
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September 24 marks the 120th birthday of one of the most famous American writers, Francis Scott Fitzgerald. It is also one of the most difficult to understand, although at first the eye and mind of the reader is blinded by the brilliance of the parties described, deep moral and social problems lie behind it. The editors of YUGA.ru, together with the Chitay-gorod bookstore chain, have selected six more iconic works by this date that will help to look at America and Americans with different eyes.
"The Great Gatsby" - great romance, but neither in life nor in the soul of his protagonist there is no greatness, there are only sparkling illusions, "which give the world such brilliance that, having experienced this magic, a person becomes indifferent to the concept of true and false." The lucrative millionaire Jay Gatsby had already lost them and with them lost the opportunity to taste life and love again - and yet all their treasures were at his feet.
The reader is presented with the America of Prohibition, gangsters, playboys and brilliant parties to the music of Duke Ellington. That same "jazz age", a magnificent age, when it still seemed that all desires were fulfilled, and you could get a star from the sky without even standing on tiptoe.
The portrait of the protagonist of the trilogy of desire, Frank Cowperwood, is largely based on a real person, millionaire Charles Yerkes, and in the past few years, viewers around the world have been following life central figure House of Cards series by Frank Underwood. It can be assumed that even the president borrowed the name "great and terrible" from the character created by Dreiser. His whole life revolves around success, he is a prudent financier and builds his empire, using everything and everyone for his own purposes. That's right, "The Financier" is the name of the first novel of the trilogy, where we see how the personality of a prudent businessman was formed, who is ready, without hesitation, to step over the law and moral principles if they become an obstacle in his path.
The most acutely social and diatribe book ever written in and about the US, The Grapes of Wrath affects the reader, perhaps not less lyrics Solzhenitsyn. The cult novel was first published in 1939, won the Pulitzer Prize, and the author himself was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. The portrait of a nation in one of the most difficult periods in history, the Great Depression, is drawn through the story of a farming family, which, after being ruined, is forced to take off and seek food in an exhausting journey across the country on the same "Route 66". Like thousands, hundreds of thousands of other people, they go to sunny California for a illusory hope, but even greater difficulties, hunger and death await them.
Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which paper ignites. Bradbury's philosophical dystopia paints a picture post-industrial society: this is the world of the future, in which all written publications are ruthlessly destroyed by a special squad of firefighters, the possession of books is prosecuted by law, interactive television successfully serves to fool everyone, punitive psychiatry decisively deals with rare dissidents, and an electric dog goes on the hunt for incorrigible dissidents. Today, in Russia in 2016, the relevance of the novel published in 1953 (already 63 years ago!) is greater than ever - in different parts of the country, homegrown censors are raising their heads, who seek to restrict freedom of speech just by destroying and banning books.
The life of Jack London was as romantic - at least if you look at his biography through some lyrical prism - and filled with events, like his novels, and "Martin Eden" is considered the pinnacle of his work. This is a work about a man who achieved recognition of his talent by society, but was deeply disappointed in that respectable bourgeois stratum that finally accepted him. According to the writer himself, this is "the tragedy of a loner who is trying to inspire the truth in the world." A truly timeless work and a hero whose feelings are understandable to the reader on any continent and in any era.
One of the most difficult to understand, but at the same time incredibly interesting and multifaceted authors, Kurt Vonnegut wrote, mixing genres and always leaving the reader with uncertainty - what exactly did he just read, was it not an appeal to himself through the pages of the book and what is being said here. In "Breakfast for Champions" the author surprisingly subtly and accurately destroys stereotypes of perception, showing us a person and life on Earth with a detached look, looking as if from another planet where they do not know what an apple or a weapon is. The protagonist, writer Kilgore Trout, is both the author's alter ego and his interlocutor, and is about to win a literary prize. At the same time, someone who has read his novel (this character, Duane Hoover, played by Bruce Willis in the 1999 film adaptation), slowly goes crazy, taking everything written in it at face value and losing touch with reality, as he begins to doubt it contains the reader.
In John Updike's first novel in the Rabbit series, Harry Engstrom - and that's exactly his nickname - is a young man whose rose-colored glasses of youth have already been shattered by the inexorable reality. From the star of the high school basketball team, he became a husband and father, forced to work in a supermarket to provide for his family. He is not able to come to terms with this and embarks on a "run". Updike and Kerouac seem to be talking about the same people, but in a different tone - so those who have read the latter's "On the Road" will be interested in moving from beatnik literature to complex psychological prose, and those who have not read it will undoubtedly have a lot of fun by switching their attention and diving even deeper into the same topic.
1. Truman Capote - "Summer Cruise"
Truman Capote is one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century, author of such bestsellers as Breakfast at Tiffany's and Other Voices, Other Rooms, In Cold Blood and Meadow Harp. Your attention is invited to the debut novel, written by the twenty-year-old Capote, when he first came from New Orleans to New York, and for sixty years was considered lost. The manuscript for "Summer Cruise" surfaced at Sotheby's in 2004 and was first published in 2006. In this novel, Capote describes with unsurpassed stylistic grace the dramatic events of the life of high-society debutante Grady McNeil, who is staying in New York for the summer while her parents sail to Europe. She falls in love with a car parking attendant and flirts with her childhood friend, remembers past hobbies and dances in trendy dance halls...
2. Irving Shaw - "Lucy Crown"
The book includes one of the most famous novels by the American prose writer and playwright Irwin Shaw "Lucy Crown" (1956). Like other works of the writer - "Two Weeks in Another City", "Evening in Byzantium", "Rich Man, Poor Man" - this novel opens the reader to a world of fragile ties and complex, sometimes unpredictable relationships between people. The story of how one mistake can turn the whole life of a person and his loved ones, of an invaluable and destroyed family happiness, is told deceptively. plain language, strikes with author's knowledge human psychology and invites the reader to reflection and empathy.
3. John Irving - "Men are not her life"
Undoubted classic modern literature West and one of its undeniable leaders plunges the reader into a mirror labyrinth of reflections: fears from children's books once popular writer Ted Cole is suddenly overgrown with flesh, and now the fabulous man-mole turns into a real maniac-killer, so that almost forty years later Ruth Cole, the writer's daughter, also a writer, collecting material for the novel, became a witness to his cruel crime. But first of all, Irving's novel is about love. The atmosphere of condensed sensuality, love without shores and restrictions fills its pages with some kind of magnetic force, turning the reader into a participant in a magical action.
4. Kurt Vonnegut - "Mother Darkness"
A novel in which the great Vonnegut, with his characteristic dark and mischievous humor, explores inner world... a professional spy, reflecting on his own direct participation in the destinies of the nation.
The writer and playwright Howard Campbell, recruited by American intelligence, is forced to play the role of an ardent Nazi - and gets a lot of pleasure from his cruel and dangerous masquerade.
He deliberately piles absurdity upon absurdity - but the more surreal and comical his Nazi "exploits", the more he is trusted, the more more people listen to his opinion.
However, wars end in peace - and Campbell will have to live without the opportunity to prove his innocence in the crimes of Nazism ...
5. Arthur Hailey - "Final Diagnosis"
Why Arthur Hailey's novels have conquered the whole world? What made them classics of world fiction? Why, as soon as `Hotel` and `Airport` came out in our country, they were literally swept off the shelves, stolen from libraries, given to friends to read `in queue`?
Very simple. The works of Arthur Haley are a kind of `pieces of life`. Airport life, hotel, hospital, Wall Street. A closed space in which people live - with their joys and sorrows, ambitions and hopes, intrigues and passions. People work, fight, fall in love, break up, succeed, break the law - such is life. Such are Hayley's novels...
6. Jerome Salinger - The Glass Saga
Jerome David Salinger's series of stories about the Glass family is a masterpiece American Literature XX century, "a blank piece of paper instead of an explanation." Zen Buddhism and non-conformism in Salinger's books inspired more than one generation to rethink life and search for ideals.
Salinger loves the Glasses more than God loves them. He loves them too exclusively. Their invention became a hermit's hut for him. He loves them to the point that he is ready to limit himself as an artist."
7. Jack Kerouac - Dharma Bums
Jack Kerouac gave voice to a whole generation in literature, for his short life managed to write about 20 books of prose and poetry and became the most famous and controversial author of his time. Some branded him as a subverter of the foundations, others considered him a classic modern culture, but all the beatniks and hipsters learned to write from his books - you don’t know what to write, but what you see, firmly believing that the world itself will reveal its nature.
Dharma Drifters is a celebration of backcountry and bustling metropolis, Buddhism and the San Francisco poetic renaissance, a jazz improvised tale of the spiritual quest of a generation that believed in kindness and humility, wisdom and ecstasy; generation, the manifesto and bible of which was another Kerouac novel, On the Road, which brought the author worldwide fame and entered the golden fund of American classics.
8. Theodore Dreiser - "An American Tragedy"
The novel "An American Tragedy" is the pinnacle of the work of the outstanding American writer Theodore Dreiser. He said: "No one creates tragedies - they are created by life. Writers only depict them." Dreiser managed to depict the tragedy of Clive Griffiths so talentedly that his story leaves no one indifferent and modern reader. A young man who has tasted all the charm of the life of the rich, is so eager to establish himself in their society that he goes to crime for this.
9. John Steinbeck - Cannery Row
Inhabitants of a poor quarter in a small seaside town...
Fishermen and thieves, petty merchants and swindlers, "moths" and their sad and cynical "guardian angel" - a middle-aged doctor...
The heroes of the story cannot be called respectable, they do not get along too well with the law. But it is impossible to resist the charm of these people.
Their adventures, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, under the pen of the great John Steinbeck turn into a real saga about a Man - both sinful and holy, mean and ready for self-sacrifice, deceitful and sincere...
10. William Faulkner - The Mansion
"Mansion" - last book trilogy by William Faulkner "Village", "City", "Mansion", dedicated to the tragedy of the aristocracy of the American South, which faced a painful choice - to keep the old ideas of honor and fall into poverty, or break with the past and join the ranks of nouveau riche businessmen who make ambulances. and not too clean money on progress.
The mansion in which Flem Snopes settles gives the name to the whole novel and becomes the place where the inevitable and terrible events that rocked Yoknapatof County.
"Sinlessness" became a real sensation last year: it is called the most scandalous and most Russian novel by Franzen. Reasoning about acute social problems, the totalitarian nature of the Internet, feminism and politics are intertwined with a deep, very personal history of one family.
The life of a young girl named Pip is a complete mess: she does not know her father, she cannot pay off her student debt, she does not know how to build relationships, she goes to boring work. But her life changes dramatically when she becomes an assistant to the hacker Andreas Wulff, who most of all loves to publicly reveal other people's secrets.
2. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
Richard Paypen remembers student years at a closed college in Vermont: he and several of his comrades attended closed course an eccentric teacher ancient culture. One trick of an elite circle of students ended in a murder that only at first glance went unpunished.
After the incident, other secrets of the heroes are revealed, which lead to new tragedies in their lives.
3. "American Psycho", Bret Easton Ellis
Most famous novel Ellis is already considered modern classics. The protagonist is Patrick Bateman, a handsome, wealthy and seemingly intelligent young man from Wall Street. But behind the good looks and expensive costumes lies greed, hatred and rage. At night he tortures and kills people with the most in sophisticated ways, without a system and without a plan.
4. "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer
A touching story from the face of a 9-year-old boy Oscar. His father died in one of the twin towers on September 11, 2001. Looking around his father's pantry, Oscar finds a vase, and in it is a small envelope with the inscription "Black" and a key inside. Encouraged and filled with curiosity, Oscar is ready to go around all the Blacks in New York to find the answer to the riddle. This is a story about overcoming a bereavement, New York after a disaster, and human kindness.
5. "It's Good to Be Quiet" by Stephen Chbosky
"The Catcher in the Rye" about modern teenagers - this is how critics dubbed the book by Stephen Chbosky, which sold a million copies and was filmed by the author himself.
Charlie is a typical quiet man, a silent observer of what is happening, goes into high school. After a recent nervous breakdown he shut himself up. To overcome inner feelings, he begins to write letters. letters to a friend, to an unknown person- the reader of this book. On the advice of his new comrade Pete, he tries to become "not a sponge, but a filter" - to live full life rather than watching her from the sidelines.
6. The Clock, Michael Cunningham
The story of a day in the life three women from different eras from the Pulitzer Prize winner. The fate of the British writer Virginia Woolf, the American housewife Laura from Los Angeles and the editor of the publishing house Clarissa Vaughan, at first glance, are connected only by the book - the novel Mrs. Dalloway. But by the end it becomes clear that the lives and problems of the heroines, despite all the external differences, are the same.
7 Gone Girl Gillian Flynn
Nick and Amazing Amy - perfect couple. But on the day of the fifth anniversary, Amy disappears from the house - there are all traces of a kidnapping. The whole city goes in search of the missing person and sympathizes with Nick, until Amy's diary falls into the hands of the police, because of which her husband becomes the main suspect in the murder. The main intrigue of the novel is who in this situation turned out to be the real victim.
Roman Flynn attracts with a non-standard view of modern marriage: partners marry beautiful projections of each other and then are very surprised when a living person whom they do not know at all is discovered behind the invented image.
8. "Slaughterhouse Five, or the Children's Crusade" by Kurt Vonnegut
The hard military experience of the writer is reflected in this novel. Memories of the bombing in Dresden are shown through the eyes of the ridiculous timid soldier Billy Pilgrim - one of those foolish children who were thrown into a terrible war. But Vonnegut would not be himself if he had not introduced an element of fantasy into the novel: either due to post-traumatic stress disorder, or due to the intervention of aliens, Pilgrim learned to travel in time.
Despite the fantastic nature of what is happening, the message of the novel is quite real and clear: Vonnegut ridicules stereotypes about “real men” and demonstrates the senselessness of wars.
9. Beloved, Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison received Nobel Prize in Literature for bringing to life an important aspect of her novels full of dreams and poetry American reality". And the novel "Beloved" was named one of the 100 best books in the English language by Time magazine.
The main character is the slave Seti, who, together with her children, escaped from cruel masters and stayed free for only 28 days. When the chase overtakes Sethe, she kills her daughter with her own hands - so that she does not know slavery and does not experience the same as her mother. The memory of the past and this terrible choice haunts Seti all her life.
10. A Song of Ice and Fire, George Martin
fantasy epic about magical world The Seven Kingdoms, where the struggle for the Iron Throne does not stop, while a terrible winter is approaching the entire continent. On this moment five novels out of a planned seven were published. The remaining two parts are waiting for both fans of the writer's work and fans of "" - a series based on the saga that breaks all popularity records.
Instruction
Perhaps the first American writer who managed to acquire world fame, became a poet and, at the same time, the founder detective genre Edgar Allan Poe. Being a deep mystic by nature, Poe was not at all like an American. Perhaps that is why his work, not finding followers in the writer's homeland, had notable influence on European literature era of modernity.
great place The United States is occupied by adventure novels, which are based on the development of the continent and the relationship of the first settlers with the indigenous population. The largest representatives of this trend were James Fenimore Cooper, who wrote a lot and fascinatingly about the Indians and the clashes of American colonists with them, Mine Reed, whose novels masterfully combine love line and detective-adventure intrigue, and Jack London, who sang the courage and courage of the pioneers of the harsh lands of Canada and Alaska.
One of the most remarkable American 19th century is the outstanding satirist Mark Twain. His works such as "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" are read with equal interest by both young and adult readers.
Henry James lived in Europe for many years, but did not stop being an American writer. In his novels "Wings of the Dove", "The Golden Cup" and others, the writer showed naive and simple-minded Americans by nature, who often fall victim to the intrigues of insidious Europeans.
Of particular note in the American 19th century is the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose anti-racist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin largely contributed to the liberation of blacks.
The first half of the 20th century could be called the American Renaissance. At this time, such wonderful authors as Theodore Dreiser, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway create their works. Dreiser's first novel, Sister Kerry, whose heroine achieves success at the cost of losing her best human qualities, at first seemed immoral to many. Based on a crime chronicle, an American tragedy turned into a crash story. american dream».
The works of the king of the Jazz Age (a term coined by himself) Francis Scott Fitzgerald are largely based on autobiographical motifs. First of all, this refers to the magnificent novel Tender is the Night, where the writer told the story of his difficult and painful relationship with his wife Zelda. The collapse of the "American dream" Fitzgerald showed in famous novel"The Great Gatsby".
A tough and courageous perception of reality distinguishes creativity Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway. Among the most outstanding works writer - the novels "Farewell to Arms!", "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and the story "The Old Man and the Sea".
