Animal Farm is a satirical allegorical novella, in the form of a beast fable, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It tells the story of a group of anthropomorphic farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, the rebellion is betrayed, and under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon, the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before.
Eric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and support of democratic socialism.
John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, Updike published more than twenty novels, more than a dozen short-story collections, as well as poetry, art and literary criticism and children's books during his career.
Philip Milton Roth was an American novelist and short-story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophically and formally blurring the distinction between reality and fiction, for its "sensual, ingenious style" and for its provocative explorations of American identity. He first gained attention with the 1959 short story collection Goodbye, Columbus, which won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. Ten years later, he published the bestseller Portnoy's Complaint. Nathan Zuckerman, Roth's literary alter ego, narrates several of his books. A fictionalized Philip Roth narrates some of his others, such as the alternate history The Plot Against America.
Godric is the tenth novel by the American author and theologian, Frederick Buechner. Set in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the novel tells the semi-fictionalised life story of the medieval Roman Catholic saint, Godric of Finchale. It was first published in 1980 by Atheneum, New York, and was a finalist for the 1981 Pulitzer Prize.
A Prayer for Owen Meany is the seventh novel by American writer John Irving. Published in 1989, it tells the story of John Wheelwright and his best friend Owen Meany growing up together in a small New Hampshire town during the 1950s and 1960s. According to John's narration, Owen is a remarkable boy in many ways; he believes himself to be God's instrument and sets out to fulfill the fate he has prophesied for himself.
A bestseller is a book or other media noted for its top selling status, with bestseller lists published by newspapers, magazines, and book store chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and specialties. An author may also be referred to as a bestseller if their work often appears in a list. Well-known bestseller lists in the U.S. are published by Publishers Weekly, USA Today, The New York Times, and IndieBound. The New York Times tracks book sales from national and independent bookstores, as well as sales from major internet retailers such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
Andrew Holleran is the pseudonym of Eric Garber, an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer, born on the island of Aruba. Most of his adult life has been spent in New York City, Washington, D.C., and a small town in Florida. He was a member of The Violet Quill with Christopher Cox, a gay writer's group that met in 1980 and 1981 and also included Robert Ferro, Edmund White and Felice Picano. Following the critical and financial success of his first novel Dancer from the Dance in 1978, he became a prominent author of post-Stonewall gay literature. Historically protective of his privacy, the author continues to use the pseudonym Andrew Holleran as a writer and public speaker.
Robert Polito is a poet, biographer, essayist, critic, educator, curator, and arts administrator. He received the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography in 1995 for Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson. The founding director of the New School Graduate Writing Program in New York City, he was President of the Poetry Foundation from 2013–2015, before returning to the New School as a professor of writing.
Tao Lin is an American novelist, poet, essayist, short-story writer, and artist. He has published four novels, a novella, two books of poetry, a collection of short stories, and a memoir, as well as an extensive assortment of online content. His third novel, Taipei, was published by Vintage on June 4, 2013. His nonfiction book Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change was published by Vintage on May 1, 2018. His fourth novel, Leave Society, was published by Vintage on August 3, 2021.
Peter Orner is an American writer. He is the author of two novels, two story collections and a book of essays. Orner holds the Professorship of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College and was formerly a professor of creative writing at San Francisco State University. He spent 2016 and 2017 on a Fulbright in Namibia teaching at the University of Namibia.
Snowball's Chance is a parody and unofficial sequel to George Orwell's Animal Farm written by John Reed, in which Snowball the pig returns to the Manor Farm after many years' absence, to install capitalism — which proves to have its own pitfalls.
"Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast" is an essay by Tom Wolfe that appeared in the November 1989 issue of Harper's Magazine criticizing the American literary establishment for retreating from realism.
Adam Johnson is an American novelist and short story writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2012 novel, The Orphan Master's Son, and the National Book Award for his 2015 story collection Fortune Smiles. He is also a professor of English at Stanford University with a focus on creative writing.
Authoritarian literature is a term used by John Gardner to designate the body of literature written by persons living under an authoritarian governmental regime. Literary works produced in these regimes share common characteristics that make the designation useful. Authoritarian regimes revere their leaders, who historically were typically referred to as kings, along with advisors to the king. These leaders were considered innately better than ordinary people. The authoritarian leader, and his approved circle, if not directly writing about a subject themselves, were the only ones who could designate, approve, and sanction writers as acceptable authorities. Government authorities also financially supported writers under a patronage system. The writers in such a system therefore must necessarily be careful to ensure the composition of their work met the approval of authorities. Failure to comply risked official warnings, loss of governmental sanction, and sometimes even imprisonment or loss of life.
Whitney Otto is an American novelist best known for her debut novel How to Make an American Quilt.
The Goldfinch is a novel by the American author Donna Tartt. It won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, among other honors. Published in 2013, it was Tartt's first novel since The Little Friend in 2002.
Dimitry Elias Léger is a Haitian-American novelist, journalist, and humanitarian. Léger is best known for the acclaimed novel God Loves Haiti (2015), which the New York Times praised as "a powerful portrait of a nation in peril and the citizens who inhabit it." His writing has appeared in many magazines and newspapers. Since 2010, he has worked as a communications advisor at the United Nations around the world, including in Haiti, Switzerland, and Mali.
The Topeka School is a 2019 novel by the American novelist and poet Ben Lerner about a high school debate champion from Topeka, Kansas in the 1990s. The book is considered both a bildungsroman and a work of autofiction, as the narrative incorporates many details from Lerner's own life. The novel was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Girl, Woman, Other is the eighth novel by Bernardine Evaristo. Published in 2019 by Hamish Hamilton, it follows the lives of 12 characters in the United Kingdom over the course of several decades. The book was the co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize, alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments.
