Nasreddin or Nasreddin Hodja (1208–1285) is a character in the folklore of the Muslim world from the Balkans to China, and a hero of humorous short stories and satirical anecdotes. There are frequent statements about his existence in real life and even archaeological evidence in specific places, for example, a tombstone in the city of Akşehir, Turkey. At the moment, there is no confirmed information or serious grounds to talk about the specific date or place of Nasreddin's birth, so the question of the reality of his existence remains open.
The term sonnet derives from the Italian word sonetto. It refers to a fixed verse poetic form, traditionally consisting of fourteen lines adhering to a set rhyming scheme. Originating in 13th century Sicily, the sonnet was in time taken up in many European language areas, mainly to express romantic love at first, although eventually any subject was considered acceptable. Many formal variations were also introduced, including abandonment of the quatorzain limit - and even of rhyme altogether in modern times.
Oulipo is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians who seek to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. Other notable members have included novelists Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, poets Oskar Pastior and Jean Lescure, and poet/mathematician Jacques Roubaud.
Raymond Queneau was a French novelist, poet, critic, editor and co-founder and president of Oulipo, notable for his wit and cynical humour.
Aladdin is a Middle-Eastern folk tale. It is one of the best-known tales associated with The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, despite not being part of the original text; it was added by the Frenchman Antoine Galland, based on a folk tale that he heard from the Syrian Maronite storyteller Hanna Diyab.
"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" is a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio was a Spanish playwright, poet, and novelist who was a key figure in the Spanish Golden Age (1492–1659) of Baroque literature. In the literature of Spain, Lope de Vega is second to Miguel de Cervantes. Cervantes said that Lope de Vega was “The Phoenix of Wits” and “Monster of Nature”.
Barbara Winifred Wright was an English translator of modern French literature.
Göran Tunström was a Swedish author. He grew up in Sunne, Värmland County. Tunström's style is personal and intimate, and has a clear autobiographical tone. Although active as an established author for nearly four decades, it was particularly after his Juloratoriet was adapted as a movie in 1996 that he became widely known to the (Swedish) public. He participated in the Oslo International Poetry Festival.
Trina Schart Hyman was an American illustrator of children's books. She illustrated over 150 books, including fairy tales and Arthurian legends. She won the 1985 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration, recognizing Saint George and the Dragon, retold by Margaret Hodges.
Sergio Frusoni was a poet and promoter of the Cape Verdean Creole language.
Christian poetry is any poetry that contains Christian teachings, themes, or references. The influence of Christianity on poetry has been great in any area that Christianity has taken hold. Christian poems often directly reference the Bible, while others provide allegory.
Gilbert Adair was a Scottish novelist, poet, film critic, and journalist. He was critically most famous for the "fiendish" translation of Georges Perec's postmodern novel A Void, in which the letter e is not used, but was more widely known for the films adapted from his novels, including Love and Death on Long Island (1997) and The Dreamers (2003).
Alexandra Flinn is an American writer of novels for young adults. Her books have appeared on the New York Times and USA Today Bestseller lists and have been translated into over twenty foreign languages. Many of her books have made the American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults lists, as well as Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. Many of her novels are modernized versions of classic fairy tales.
Shot-for-shot is a way to describe a visual work that is transferred almost completely identically from the original work without much interpretation.
99 Ways To Tell a Story: Exercises in Style is a 2005 experimental graphic novel by Matt Madden, published by the Penguin Group. Inspired by Raymond Queneau's book Exercises in Style, it tells the same simple story in 99 different ways. These ways include
The Decameron, subtitled Prince Galehaut and sometimes nicknamed l'Umana commedia, is a collection of short stories by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men; they shelter in a secluded villa just outside Florence in order to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city. Boccaccio probably conceived of the Decameron after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353. The various tales of love in The Decameron range from the erotic to the tragic. Tales of wit, practical jokes, and life lessons contribute to the mosaic. In addition to its literary value and widespread influence, it provides a document of life at the time. Written in the vernacular of the Florentine language, it is considered a masterpiece of early Italian prose.
"The Gigantic Turnip" or "The Enormous Turnip" is a cumulative Russian and Ukrainian fairy tale, collected in Arkhangelsk Governorate and published in 1863 by folklore researcher Alexander Afanasyev in his collection Russian Fairy Tales, a collection not strictly Russian, but which included stories from Ukraine and Belarus alongside Russian tales. The tale is also considered a Ukrainian fairy tale, well-known as adapted by Ivan Franko.
Robert Massin was a French graphic designer, art director and typographer, notable for his innovative experimentation with expressive forms of typographic composition. Massin stopped using his first name in the 1950s.
99 Variations on a Proof is a mathematics book by Philip Ording, in which he proves the same result in 99 different ways. Ording takes an example of a cubic equation,
