Barbara Mary Crampton Pym was an English novelist. In the 1950s she published a series of social comedies, of which the best known are Excellent Women (1952) and A Glass of Blessings (1958). In 1977 her career was revived when the critic Lord David Cecil and the poet Philip Larkin both nominated her as the most under-rated writer of the century. Her novel Quartet in Autumn (1977) was nominated for the Booker Prize that year, and she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Dame Jean Iris Murdoch was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her first published novel, Under the Net, was selected in 1998 as one of Modern Library's 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Her 1978 novel The Sea, the Sea won the Booker Prize. In 1987, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to literature. In 2008, The Times ranked Murdoch twelfth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Jeffrey Kent Eugenides is an American novelist and short story writer. He has written numerous short stories and essays, as well as three novels: The Virgin Suicides (1993), Middlesex (2002), and The Marriage Plot (2011). The Virgin Suicides served as the basis of a feature film, while Middlesex received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in addition to being a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the International Dublin Literary Award, and France's Prix Médicis.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1985.
Rosamunde Pilcher, OBE was a British writer of romance novels, mainstream fiction, and short stories, from 1949 until her retirement in 2000. Her novels sold over 60 million copies worldwide. Early in her career she was also published under the pen name Jane Fraser. In 2001, she received the Corine Literature Prize's Weltbild Readers' Prize for Winter Solstice.
A romance novel or romantic novel is a type of genre fiction novel which places its primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and usually has an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." There are many subgenres of the romance novel, including fantasy, gothic, contemporary, historical romance, paranormal fiction, and science fiction. Although women are the main readers of romance novels a growing number of men enjoy them as well. The Romance Writers of America cite 16% of men read romance novels. "Many people today don’t realize that romance is more than a love story. Romance can be a complex plotline with a setting from the past in a remote, faraway place. Instead of focusing on a love story, it idealizes values and principles that seem lost in today’s world of technology and instant gratification. However, romance may also be a typical, romantic, love story that makes people sigh with wishful thinking." "Romance is a natural human emotion. Sad love songs and poems when one is recovering from a broken heart can help express unspoken feelings. Happy romantic movies and plays help people feel optimistic that someday they will also find true love. However, there is some criticism that many modern romantic stories make people develop unrealistic views about real relationships, as they expect love to be like it is in the movies."
Ernest Cook Poole was an American journalist, novelist, and playwright. Poole is best remembered for his sympathetic first-hand reportage of revolutionary Russia during and immediately after the Revolution of 1905 and Revolution of 1917 and as a popular writer of proletarian-tinged fiction during the era of World War I and the 1920s.
John Francisco Rechy is an American novelist, essayist, memoirist, dramatist and literary critic. In his novels, he has written extensively about gay culture in Los Angeles and wider America, among other subject matter, and is among the pioneers of modern LGBT literature. City of Night, his debut novel published in 1963, was a best seller. Drawing on his own background, he has contributed to Chicano literature, notably with his novel The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez, which has been taught in several Chicano literature courses throughout the United States.
Macmillan Publishers Ltd is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publishers. Founded in London in 1843 by Daniel and Alexander MacMillan, since 1999 it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group with offices in 41 countries worldwide and operations in more than thirty others.
Nora Roberts is an American author of more than 225 romance novels. She writes as J. D. Robb for the in Death series and has also written under the pseudonyms Jill March and for publications in the U.K. as Sarah Hardesty.
Alan James Hollinghurst is an English novelist, poet, short story writer and translator. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 1989 Somerset Maugham Award, the 1994 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 2004 Booker Prize.
Sam Lipsyte is an American novelist and short story writer.
Colin Gerald Dryden Thubron, FRAS is a British travel writer and novelist. In 2008, The Times ranked him among the 50 greatest postwar British writers. He is a contributor to The New York Review of Books, The Times, The Times Literary Supplement and The New York Times. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages. Thubron was appointed a CBE in the 2007 New Year Honours. He is a Fellow and, between 2009 and 2017, was President of the Royal Society of Literature.
Hope Raue Larson is an American illustrator and cartoonist. Her main field is comic books.
— Opening lines from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, first published this year
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2007.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Robert Edward McGinnis is an American artist and illustrator. McGinnis is known for his illustrations of more than 1,200 paperback book covers, and over 40 movie posters, including Breakfast at Tiffany's, Barbarella, and several James Bond and Matt Helm films.
Established in 1948, University of Queensland Press (UQP) is an Australian publishing house.
