Within Asian and Hindu literature like the literature of other cultures, we often find the values, morality,

and principles of proper or right human conduct values by such cultures. From the writings of Confucius
to the Noh plays to the epic Ramayana, we see such principles illustrated as a means of helping human
beings live a harmonious, peaceful, and moral life.

As a whole Asian literature is a compact of ideas wherein culture, belief,religion, and values collide. This
can be reflected from the different writers or authors all over Asia who wants to share thier views, ides,
emotion through different literary pieces.

However, this may not be enough to serve as your reference yet this could probabaly help you to get a
hint on what to do and what to read.

Asian Writers
SINGAPOREAN WRITERS

Russell Lee,- mysterious author of popular True Singapore Ghost Stories series.
Aaron Lee, poet and lawyer
Gopal Baratham, neurosurgeon and writer
Boey Kim Cheng, poet
Colin Cheong, poet and novelist
Felix Cheong, poet

Top 5 Thailand Writers

Binlah Sonkalagiri
Binlah Sonkalagiri (Thai: บินหลา สันกาลาคีร,ี RTGS: Binla Sankalakhiri) is the pen-name of Thai
author Wuthichat Choomsanit (วุฒช ่ สนิท, born 1965). He won the S.E.A. Write Award in
ิ าติ ชุม
2005 for his work, Chao Ngin (Princess). Wuthichat graduated high school from
Mahavajiravudh Songkhla School in Songkhla Province. He attended the Faculty of Fine Arts
at Chulalongkorn University but did not graduate before starting his career as editor-in-chief
Pai Yarn Yai, a publication belonging to writer and singer.
Chart Korbjitti
Chart Korbjitti (Thai ชาติ กอบจิตติ, born June 25, 1954 in Samut Sakhon) is a Thai writer. He
first came to prominence with the publication of his novel Khamphiphaksa (The Judgment) in
1981. Named as Book of the Year by Thailand's Literature Council, the book won him the
S.E.A. Write Award. He received a second S.E.A. Write Award in 1994 for Wela (Time). He
was named a National Artist in Literature in 2004, and was among the honorees of the
inaugural Silpathorn Award, given to Thai contemporary artists.

Chit Phumisak
Chit Phumisak (Thai: จิตร ภูมศ ั ดิ,์ 25 September 1930 – 5 May 1966) was a Thai author,
ิ ก
historian and poet. His most influential book was The Face of Thai Feudalism
(โฉมหน ้าศักดินาไทย, Chomna Sakdina Thai), written in 1957 under the pseudonym Somsamai
Srisootarapan. Other pen names used by Chit include Kawi Kanmuang and Kawi Srisayam.
Born into a poor family in Prachinburi Province, eastern Thailand, he studied philology at
Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.

Hem Vejakorn
Hem Vejakorn (Thai: เหม เวชกร, January 17, 1904, Phra Nakhon, Bangkok – April 16, 1969,
Thon Buri, Bangkok) was a Thai artist and writer. He is best known for his illustrations for the
covers of 10-satang pulp novels, which have in turn influenced subsequent generations of
Thai artists and illustrators. It is estimated that he produced more than 50,000 pieces of art,
including pen and pencil drawings, watercolors, posters and oil paintings. He portrayed rural
life, Thai history and figures from Thai.

Kanokphong Songsomphan
Kanokphong Songsomphan (Thai: กนกพงศ์ สงสมพันธุ,์ February 9, 1966 in Khuan Khanun,
Phatthalung Province, Thailand – February 13, 2006 in Nakhon Si Thammarat) was a Thai
writer. He was the winner of the S.E.A. Write Award for Thailand in 1996 for his collection of
short stories, Phaendin Uen (Another Land). His name is sometimes transliterated as
Kanogpong Songsompuntu. His other major work was Saphan Khard (The Broken Bridge),
which was translated into Japanese. Kanokphong completed his primary education.

PHILIPPINE WRITERS

Nick Joaquin
Nicomedes "Onching" M. Joaquin was born on May 4, 1917 in Paco, Manila. His mother was a
public school teacher and a colonel father in the Philippine Revolution of 1896.

Nick Joaquin started to write short stories, poems, and essays in 1934. Consider as a brilliant
kid, he did not get to finish high school, he discovered that he could study more by reading
books on his own, and his father's library had countless of the books he mind to read. He
wrote so variedly and so well about so many phase of the Filipino throughout his entire life
span.

Gregorio F. Zaide
Legendary historian to Philippine history, Dr. Zaide has made noteworthy contributions. A
diligent scholar, he authored 67 books, some were use as textbooks in history for secondary
and colleges in the country. He has also written more than 500 articles in history printed in
local and foreign journals.

Encarnacion Alzona
Alzona was a reputed historian and guru to a generation of other famous historian's and at
the same time as University of the Philippines professor in history. She acknowledged the
Lone Prize awarded by the Congress de Hespanitas de Filipinas in 1954 for her El Legado de
Espana a Filipina. She is a prolific writer; a number of her historical writing’s have already
becomes Classics, mainly her A History of Education in the Philippines.
Univers

Teodoro Agoncillo
Agoncillo wrote abundant books and papers about Philippine History. To name a number of
his famous works are History of the Filipino People; The Crisis of the Republic; The Revolt of
the Masses; The Story of Bonifacio and the Katipunan; Ang Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas; and the
Malolos, Philippine History (adopted as official textbook in Philippine History).

JAPANESE WRITERS

Abe Kobo (安部公房, March 7, 1924 - January 22, 1993)

was a Japanese writer. He was born in Tokyo, grew up in Manchuria and
graduated in 1948 with a medical degree from Tokyo Imperial University on
the condition that he wouldn't practice. He published his first novel in 1948
and worked as an avant-garde novelist and playwright, but it wasn't until he
published The Woman in the Dunes in 1960 that he won widespread
international acclaim.

In the 1960s, he collaborated with Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara in

adapting to film The Pitfall, The Woman in the Dunes, The Face of Another and
The Ruined Map.

Abe's surreal and often nightmarish explorations of the individual in

contemporary society earned him comparisons to Kafka and his influence
extended well beyond Japan, particularly with the success of The Woman in
the Dunes at the Cannes Film Festival.
Abe is a very famous Japanese novelist and playwright for works and he has
been compared to German writer Franz Kafka.

Osamu Dazai (太宰 治 Dazai Osamu?); (June 19, 1909 – June 13, 1948) was a

Japanese author who is considered one of the foremost fiction writers of 20th-century Japan.
He is noted for his ironic and gloomy wit, his obsession with suicide, and his brilliant fantasy.

Japanese writer. Pseudonym of Tsushima Shuji. Osamu Danzai became "the literary voice of
his generation." He's known for works like Shayo (1947, The Setting Sun) and Ningen
Shikkaku (1948, No Longer Human).

In what was probably a surprise to all parties concerned, Shūji kept his promise and managed
to settle down a bit. He managed to obtain the assistance of established writer Masuji Ibuse,
whose connections enabled him to get his works published, and who helped establish his
reputation.

The next few years were productive, Shūji wrote at a feverish pace and used the pen name
"Osamu Dazai" for the first time in a short story called Ressha (列車 Train 1933): his first

experiment with the first-person autobiographical style that later became his trademark. But
in 1935, it started to become clear that Dazai could not graduate, and he failed to obtain a
job at a Tokyo newspaper as well. He finished The Final Years, intended to be his farewell to
the world, and tried to hang himself on 19 March 1935 - failing yet again.

Worse was yet to come, as less than three weeks after his third suicide attempt Dazai
developed acute appendicitis and was hospitalized, during which time he become addicted to
Pabinal, a morphine-based painkiller. After fighting the addiction for a year, in October 1936
he was taken to a mental institution, locked in a room and forced to quit cold turkey. The
"treatment" lasted over a month, during which time Dazai's wife Hatsuyo committed adultery
with his best friend Zenshirō Kodate. This eventually came to light and Dazai attempted to
commit double suicide with his wife. They both took sleeping pills, but neither one died, so
he divorced her. He quickly remarried, this time to a middle school teacher named Michiko
Ishihara (石原美知子 Ishihara Michiko). Their first daughter, Sonoko (園子), was born in June

1941.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Dazai wrote a number of subtle novels and short stories that are
frequently autobiographical in nature. His first story, Gyofukuki (魚服記 1933), is a grim

fantasy involving suicide. Other stories written during this period include Dōke no hana (The
Flowers of Buffoonery, 1935), Gyakkō (逆行 Against the Current, 1935), Kyōgen no kami (狂
言の神 The God of Farce, 1936), and those published in his 1936 collection Bannen (Declining

Years), which describe his sense of personal isolation and his debauchery.

The single most distinguishing feature of Dazai's works is their “first person” viewpoint, a
style known in Japanese as "I Novels (私小説 Shishōsetsu?)". All of his stories are

autobiographical in some manner. His modes of expression could take the form of a diary,
essay, letter, journalistic type reporting, or soliloquy.

Dazai's works are also characterized by a profound pessimism, not surprising from an author
who made several unsuccessful suicide attempts before finally succeeding. In his novels the
protagonist similarly consider suicide as the only viable alternative to a hellish existence, yet
(often) fail to kill themselves due to an equally savage apathy towards their own existence
i.e. the question of whether to live or not becomes trivial. In his works, he shifts from pathos
to comedy, from melodrama to humor, adjusting his vocabulary accordingly.

His opposition to the prevailing social and literary trends was shared by fellow members of
the Buraiha school, including Ango Sakaguchi and Sakunosuke Oda.

Top Ten Works by American Authors

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925). Perhaps the most searching fable of
the American Dream ever written, this glittering novel of the Jazz Age paints an unforgettable portrait of
its day — the flappers, the bootleg gin, the careless, giddy wealth. Self-made millionaire Jay Gatsby,
determined to win back the heart of the girl he loved and lost, emerges as an emblem for romantic
yearning, and the novel’s narrator, Nick Carroway, brilliantly illuminates the post–World War I end to
American innocence.
 2. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884). Hemingway proclaimed, “All
modern American literature comes from . . . ‘Huckleberry Finn.’ ” But one can read it simply as a
straightforward adventure story in which two comrades of conve nience, the parentally abused rascal
Huck and fugitive slave Jim, escape the laws and conventions of society on a raft trip down the
Mississippi. Alternatively, it’s a subversive satire in which Twain uses the only superficially naïve Huck to
comment bitingly on the evils of racial bigotry, religious hypocrisy, and capitalist greed he observes in a
host of other largely unsympathetic characters. Huck’s climactic decision to “light out for the Territory
ahead of the rest” rather than submit to the starched standards of “civilization” reflects a uniquely
American strain of individualism and nonconformity stretching from Daniel Boone to Easy Rider.

3. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851). This sweeping saga of obsession, vanity, and
vengeance at sea can be read as a harrowing parable, a gripping adventure story, or a semiscientific
chronicle of the whaling industry. No matter, the book rewards patient readers with some of fiction’s most
memorable characters, from mad Captain Ahab to the titular white whale that crippled him, from the
honorable pagan Queequeg to our insightful narrator/surrogate (“Call me”) Ishmael, to that hell-bent
vessel itself, the Pequod.

4. The stories of Flannery O’Connor (1925–64). Full of violence, mordant comedy, and a
fierce Catholic vision that is bent on human salvation at any cost, Flannery O’Connor’s stories are like no
others. Bigots, intellectual snobs, shyster preachers, and crazed religious seers —a full cavalcade of what
critics came to call “grotesques”—careen through her tales, and O’Connor gleefully displays the moral
inadequacy of all of them. Twentieth-century short stories often focus on tiny moments, but O’Connor’s
stories, with their unswerving eye for vanity and their profound sense of the sacred, feel immense.
 5. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (1929). A modernist classic of Old South
decay, this novel circles the travails of the Compson family from four different narrative perspectives. All
are haunted by the figure of Caddy, the only daughter, whom Faulkner described as “a beautiful and
tragic little girl.” Surrounding the trials of the family itself are the usual Faulkner suspects: alcoholism,
suicide, racism, religion, money, and violence both seen and unseen. In the experimental style of the
book, Quentin Compson summarizes the confused honor and tragedy that Faulkner relentlessly evokes:
“theres a curse on us its not our fault is it our fault.”

6. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner (1936). Weaving mythic tales of biblical urgency
with the experimental techniques of high modernism, Faulkner bridged the past and future. This is the
story of Thomas Sutpen, a rough-hewn striver who came to Mississippi in 1833 with a gang of wild slaves
from Haiti to build a dynasty. Almost in reach, his dream is undone by plagues of biblical (and
Faulknerian) proportions: racism, incest, war, fratricide, pride, and jealousy. Through the use of multiple
narrators, Faulkner turns this gripping Yoknapatawpha saga into a profound and dazzling meditation on
truth, memory, history, and literature itself.

7. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960). Tomboy Scout and her brother Jem are the
children of the profoundly decent widower Atticus Finch, a small-town Alabama lawyer defending a black
man accused of raping a white woman. Although Tom Robinson’s trial is the centerpiece of this Pulitzer
Prize–winning novel —raising profound questions of race and conscience —this is, at heart, a tale about
the fears and mysteries of growing up, as the children learn about bravery, empathy, and societal
expectations through a series of evocative set pieces that conjure the Depression-era South.

8. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952). This modernist novel follows the bizarre, often
surreal adventures of an unnamed narrator, a black man, whose identity becomes a battleground in
racially divided America. Expected to be submissive and obedient in the South, he must decipher the
often contradictory rules whites set for a black man’s behavior. Traveling north to Harlem, he meets white
leaders intent on controlling and manipulating him. Desperate to seize control of his life, he imitates
Dostoevsky’s underground man, escaping down a manhole where he vows to remain until he can define
himself. The book’s famous last line, “Who knows, but that on the lower frequencies I speak for you,”
suggests how it transcends race to tell a universal story of the quest for self-determination.

9. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939). A powerful portrait of Depression-era

America, this gritty social novel follows the Joad family as they flee their farm in the Oklahoma dust bowl
for the promised land of California. While limping across a crippled land, Ma and Pa Joad, their pregnant
daughter Rose of Sharon, and their recently paroled son Tom sleep in ramshackle Hoovervilles filled with
other refugees and encounter hardship, death, and deceit. While vividly capturing the plight of a nation,
Steinbeck renders people who have lost everything but their dignity.

10. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James (1881). James’s Portrait is of that superior
creature Isabel Archer, an assured American girl who is determined to forge her destiny in the drawing
rooms of Europe. To this end, she weds the older and more cultivated Gilbert Osmond, and eventually
finds that she is less the author of her fate than she thought. Throughout, James gives us a combination
of careful psychological refraction and truly diabolical plotting. The result is a book at once chilling and
glorious.

Homer c.8th/9th Century BCE

 The Iliad and Odyssey are two of the most important epic poems in western
history, both having a profound effect on the development of written arts and
culture. Traditionally these poems are ascribed to Greek poet Homer, although he
may simply have written and shaped works which had been in the oral memory of
his ancestors. That said, by writing them down in the manner he did, Homer
earnt a place as one of Europe’s greatest poets. Of the man we know little.

Sophocles 496 – 406 BCE

A well-educated man from a wealthy family, Sophocles served several roles in

Athenian society, including a role as a military commander. He also wrote plays,
entering and winning the drama element of the Dionysian festival possibly over
20 times, more than esteemed contemporaries. His field was tragedies, of which
only seven full-length pieces survive, including Oedipus the King, referenced by
Freud when discovering the Oedipus complex.

Aristophanes c. 450 – c. 388 BCE

An Athenian citizen who wrote during the era of the Peloponnesian War,
Aristophanes’ work constitutes the greatest surviving body of ancient Greek
comedies from one person. Still performed today, his most famous piece is
probably Lysistrata, where women go on a sex strike until their husbands make
peace. He is also believed to be the only surviving example of what is termed "Old
Comedy", different from the more realistic "New Comedy".

Virgil 70 – 18 BCE

Virgil was regarded as the best of the Roman poets during the Roman era, and this
reputation has been maintained. His most famous, albeit unfinished, work is the Aeneid,
the story of a Trojan founder of Rome, written during the period of Augustus’ reign. His
influence has been felt widely in literature and, as Virgil’s poems were studied in Roman
schools, by children.

Horace 65 – 8 BCE
The son of a freed slave, Horace’s early career saw him commanding units in the
army of Brutus, who was defeated by future Roman emperor Augustus. He
returned to Rome and found employment as a treasury clerk, before achieving
great renown as a poet and satirist of the highest order, even corresponding with
Augustus, now emperor, and praising him in some works.

Dante Alighieri 1265 – 1321 CE

A writer, philosopher and political thinker, Dante wrote his most famous work
while in exile from his beloved Florence, forced out by his role in the politics of
the day. The Divine Comedy has been interpreted by each successive age in a
slightly different way, but it has greatly influenced popular depictions of hell, as
well as culture, and his decision to write in Italian rather than Latin helped
prompt the spread of the former language in the arts.

Giovanni Boccaccio 1313 – 1375

Boccaccio is best known as the author of the Decameron, an earthy and tragic-
comic look at life which, because it was written in vernacular Italian, helped raise
the language to the same level of regard as Latin and Greek. Shortly after
completing the Decameron he changed to writing in Latin, and less known today
is his work in humanist scholarship during the period. Together with Petrarch, he
is said to have helped lay the groundwork the Renaissance.

Geoffrey Chaucer c. 1342 / 43 - 1400

Chaucer was a talented administrator who served three kings, but it is for his
poetry which he is best known. The Canterbury Tales, a series of stories told by
pilgrims en route to Canterbury, and Troilus and Criseyde have been hailed as
some of the finest poetry in the English language before Shakespeare, written as
they were in the vernacular language of the country rather than Latin.

Miguel de Cervantes 1547 – 1616

In Cervantes’ early life he enrolled as a soldier and was kept prisoner as a slave
for several years until his family raised a ransom. After this, he became a civil
servant, but money remained a problem. He wrote in many different fields,
including novels, play, poems and short stories, creating his masterpiece in Don
Quixote. He is now regarded as the main figure in Spanish literature, and Don
Quixote has been hailed as the first great novel.

William Shakespeare 1564 – 1616

A playwright, poet, and actor, Shakespeare’s work, written for the company of a
London theatre, has seen him called one of the world’s great dramatists. He
enjoyed success in his lifetime but has gone on to ever greater and wider
appreciation for works like Hamlet, Macbeth, or Romeo and Juliet, as well as his
sonnets. Perhaps strangely, although we know quite a lot about him, there is a
constant current of people who doubt he wrote the works.

Voltaire 1694 - 1778

Voltaire was the pseudonym of François-Marie Arouet, one of the greatest French
writers. He worked in many forms, imparting wit, critique and satire against the
religious and political system which saw him become hugely famous during his
one lifetime. His most known works are Candide and his letters, which
encompass enlightenment thought. During his life he spoke on many non-literary
subjects like science and philosophy; critics have even blamed him for the French
Revolution.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm 1785 – 1863 / 1786 - 1859

Known collectively as “The Brothers Grimm”, Jacob and Wilhelm are

remembered today for their collection of folk tales, which helped start the study
of folklore. However, their work in linguistics and philology, during which they
compiled a dictionary of the German language, coupled with their folk tales,
helped forge the idea of a modern “German” national identity.

Victor Hugo 1802 – 1885

Best known abroad for his 1862 novel Les Misérables, thanks in part to a modern
musical, Hugo is remembered in France as a great poet, one of the nation’s most
important Romantic era writers and as a symbol of French republicanism. The
latter was thanks to Hugo’s activity in public life, in which he supported
liberalism and the republic, as the period he spread in exile and opposition
during the Second Empire under Napoleon III.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky 1821 – 1881

Having been hailed as great by a vicious critic for his first novella, Dostoyevsky’s
career took a difficult turn when he joined a group of intellectuals discussing
socialism. He was arrested and put through a mock execution, complete with last
rights, then imprisoned in Siberia. When free, he wrote works such as Crime and
Punishment, examples of his superb grasp of psychology. He is considered an all
time great novelist.

Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910

 Born to wealthy aristocratic parents who died while he was still young, Tolstoy
began his career in writing before serving in the Crimean War. After he this
turned to a mixture of teaching and writing, creating what have been labeled two
of the great novels in literature: War and Peace, set during the Napoleonic
Wars and Anna Karenina. During his lifetime, and ever since he has been
considered a master of human observation.

Émile Zola 1840 – 1902

Although famed as a great novelist and critic, French author Zola is known
primarily in historical circles for an open letter he wrote. Entitled “J’accuse” and
printed on the front page of a newspaper, it was an attack on the upper ranks of
the French military for their anti-Semitism and corruption of justice in falsely
condemning a Jewish officer called Alfred Dreyfus to prison. Charged with libel,
Zola fled to England but returned to France after the government fell. Dreyfus
was eventually exonerated.

DISPLAYING FEATURED LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE

ARTICLES


Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez, Colombian novelist and one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, who
was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 (see Nobel Lecture: “The Solitude of Latin
America”), mostly for his masterpiece Cien años de soledad (1967; One Hundred Years of Solitude).
He was…


Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho, Brazilian novelist known for employing rich symbolism in his depictions of the often
spiritually motivated journeys taken by his characters. Coelho was raised in Rio de Janeiro. He
rebelled against the conventions of his Roman Catholic upbringing and, as a result, was
temporarily…

Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine poet, essayist, and short-story writer whose works have become
classics of 20th-century world literature. Borges was reared in the then-shabby Palermo district of
Buenos Aires, the setting of some of his works. His family, which had been notable in Argentine
history,…


Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet, diplomat, and politician who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
in 1971. He was perhaps the most important Latin American poet of the 20th century. Neruda was
the son of José del Carmen Reyes, a railway worker, and Rosa Basoalto. His mother died within a
month of…


One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude, novel by Gabriel García Márquez, published in Spanish as Cien
años de soledad in 1967. It was considered the author’s masterpiece and the foremost example of
his style of magic realism. SUMMARY: This is the author’s epic tale of seven generations of the
Buendía family…

Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende, Chilean American writer in the magic realist tradition who is considered one of the
first successful woman novelists from Latin America. Allende was born in Peru to Chilean parents.
She worked as a journalist in Chile until she was forced to flee to Venezuela after the
assassination…


José Martí
José Martí, poet and essayist, patriot and martyr, who became the symbol of Cuba’s struggle for
independence from Spain. His dedication to the goal of Cuban freedom made his name a synonym
for liberty throughout Latin America. As a patriot, Martí organized and unified the movement for
Cuban…


Mario Vargas Llosa
Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian Spanish writer whose commitment to social change is evident in his
novels, plays, and essays. In 1990 he was an unsuccessful candidate for president of Peru. Vargas
Llosa was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his cartography of structures of power and
his…

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, poet, dramatist, scholar, and nun, an outstanding writer of the Latin
American colonial period and of the Hispanic Baroque. Juana Ramírez thirsted for knowledge from
her earliest years and throughout her life. As a female, she had little access to formal education
and…


Julio Cortázar
Julio Cortázar, Argentine novelist and short-story writer who combined existential questioning with
experimental writing techniques in his works. Cortázar was the son of Argentine parents and was
educated in Argentina, where he taught secondary school and worked as a translator. Bestiario
(1951;…


The Burning Plain
The Burning Plain, a collection of short stories (one of the same name) by Juan Rulfo, published in
1953. In his collection of short stories Rulfo was recognized as a master. Post-revolutionary scenes
in Llano Grande in the state of Jalisco overcome the rural limitations of these tales about the…

Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz, Mexican poet, writer, and diplomat, recognized as one of the major Latin American
writers of the 20th century. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990. (See Nobel Lecture:
“In Search of the Present.”) Paz’s family was ruined financially by the Mexican Civil War, and he
grew…


Carlos Fuentes
Carlos Fuentes, Mexican novelist, short-story writer, playwright, critic, and diplomat whose
experimental novels won him an international literary reputation. The son of a Mexican career
diplomat, Fuentes was born in Panama and traveled extensively with his family in North and South
America and in…


Gabriela Mistral
Gabriela Mistral, Chilean poet, who in 1945 became the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize
for Literature. Of Spanish, Basque, and Indian descent, Mistral grew up in a village of northern Chile
and became a schoolteacher at age 15, advancing later to the rank of college professor.…


 Chespirito
Chespirito, Mexican comic actor and writer who became a cultural icon in Latin America for the
characters he created and portrayed on the family-friendly TV sketch-comedy show Chespirito and
its various spin-offs. Gómez Bolaños, whose father was a painter and an illustrator for periodicals,
grew up…


Rubén Darío
Rubén Darío, influential Nicaraguan poet, journalist, and diplomat. As a leader of the Spanish
American literary movement known as Modernismo, which flourished at the end of the 19th century,
he revivified and modernized poetry in Spanish on both sides of the Atlantic through his experiments
with…


Latin American literature
Latin American literature, the national literatures of the Spanish-speaking countries of the Western
Hemisphere. Historically, it also includes the literary expression of the highly developed American
Indian civilizations conquered by the Spaniards. Over the years, Latin American literature has…


Juan Rulfo
Juan Rulfo, Mexican writer who is considered one of the finest novelists and short-story creators in
20th-century Latin America, though his production—consisting essentially of two books—was very
small. Because of the themes of his fiction, he is often seen as the last of the novelists of the…

Miguel Ángel Asturias
Miguel Ángel Asturias, Guatemalan poet, novelist, and diplomat, winner of the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1967 (see Nobel Lecture: “The Latin American Novel: Testimony of an Epoch”) and the
Soviet Union’s Lenin Peace Prize in 1966. His writings, which combine the mysticism of the Maya
with an…


Vinícius de Moraes
Vinícius de Moraes, Brazilian poet and lyricist whose best-known song was “A Garota de Ipanema”
(“The Girl from Ipanema”), which he cowrote with the composer Antonio Carlos Jobim. The author of
numerous volumes of lyrical poetry, Moraes began his literary career as an adherent of the
Brazilian…


Jorge Amado
Jorge Amado, novelist whose stories of life in the eastern Brazilian state of Bahia won international
acclaim. Amado grew up on a cacao plantation, Auricídia, and was educated at the Jesuit college in
Salvador and studied law at Federal University in Rio de Janeiro. He published his first novel at…


Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Brazilian poet, novelist, and short-story writer, a classic master of
Brazilian and world literature, whose art is rooted in the traditions of European culture and
transcends the influence of Brazilian literary schools. The son of a house painter of mixed black
and…

César Vallejo
César Vallejo, Peruvian poet who in exile became a major voice of social change in Spanish
American literature. Born the 11th child to parents who were both of mixed Spanish and Quechua
Indian origins, Vallejo as a child witnessed at first hand hunger and poverty and the injustices done
to the…

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Ernesto Sábato
Ernesto Sábato, Argentine novelist, journalist, and essayist whose novels are notable for their
concern with philosophical and psychological issues and whose political and social studies were
highly influential in Argentina in the latter half of the 20th century. Educated as a physicist and…

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Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Carlos Drummond de Andrade, poet, journalist, author of crônicas (a short fiction–essay genre
widely cultivated in Brazil), and literary critic, considered one of the most accomplished poets of
modern Brazil and a major influence on mid-20th-century Brazilian poetry. His experiments with
poetic…

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Andrés Bello
Andrés Bello, poet and scholar, regarded as the intellectual father of South America. His early
reading in the classics, particularly Virgil, influenced his style and theories. At the University of
Venezuela in Caracas he studied philosophy, jurisprudence, and medicine. Acquaintanceship with
the…

Brazilian literature
Brazilian literature, the body of written works produced in the Portuguese language in Brazil. Brazil
was claimed for Portugal in 1500 and was named for the land’s first export product, pau-brasil
(brazilwood), trade in which was initiated in 1502 by a consortium of “New Christians” (converted…


Alfonsina Storni
Alfonsina Storni, one of the foremost poets in Latin American literature. Storni’s family immigrated to
Argentina in 1896. Forced to earn her living at an early age, Storni joined a theatrical troupe and
later taught school in the rural areas of Argentina. In 1912 she bore a child out of wedlock…

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Mário de Andrade
Mário de Andrade, writer whose chief importance was his introduction of a highly individual prose
style that attempted to reflect colloquial Brazilian speech rather than “correct” Portuguese. He was
also important in Brazil’s Modernist movement. Educated at the conservatory in São Paulo,
Andrade…

João Guimarães Rosa
João Guimarães Rosa, novelist and short-story writer whose innovative prose style, derived from the
oral tradition of the sertão (hinterland of Brazil), revitalized Brazilian fiction in the mid-20th century.
His portrayal of the conflicts of the Brazilian backlanders in his native state of Minas…

In a continent as ethnically and culturally diverse as Africa,

it comes as no surprise that the literature that has
emerged from it be equally diverse and multifaceted.
Dealing with a range of social and cultural issues, from
women’s rights and feminism to post-war and post-colonial
identity, here are some of Africa’s best contemporary
writers.

Chinua Achebe
One of the world’s most widely recognized and praised writers, Chinua
Achebe wrote some of the most extraordinary works of the 20th century. His
most famous novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), is a devastating depiction of the
clash between traditional tribal values and the effects of colonial rule, as well
as the tension between masculinity and femininity in highly patriarchal
societies. Achebe is also a noted literary critic, particularly known for his
passionate critique of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899), in which he
accuses the popular novel of rampant racism through its othering of the
African continent and its people.
 Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe | Image Courtesy of Penguin Modern Classics

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Born in Nigeria in 1977, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is part of a new
generation of African writers taking the literary world by storm. Adichie’s works
are primarily character-driven, interweaving the background of her native
Nigeria and social and political events into the narrative. Her novel Purple
Hibiscus (2003) is a bildungsroman, depicting the life experience of Kambili
and her family during a military coup, while her latest work Americanah (2013)
is an insightful portrayal of Nigerian immigrant life and race relations in
America and the western world. Adichie’s works have been met with
overwhelming praise and have been nominated for and won numerous
awards, including the Orange Prize and Booker Prize.

Ayi Kwei Armah

Ayi Kwei Armah’s novels are known for their intense, powerful depictions of
political devastation and social frustration in Armah’s native Ghana, told from
the point of view of the individual. His works were greatly influenced by French
existential philosophers, such as Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, and as
such hold themes of despair, disillusionment and irrationality. His most
famous work, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968) centers around an
unnamed protagonist who attempts to understand his self and his country in
the wake of post-independence.
 The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born | Image Courtesy of Heinemann

Mariama Bâ
One of Africa’s most influential women authors, Mariama Bâ is known for her
powerful feminist texts, which address the issues of gender inequality in her
native Senegal and wider Africa. Bâ herself experienced many of the
prejudices facing women: she struggled for an education against her
traditional grandparents, and was left to look after her nine children after
divorcing a prominent politician. Her anger and frustration at the patriarchal
structures which defined her life spill over into her literature: her novel So
Long A Letter (1981) depicts, simultaneously, its protagonist’s strength and
powerlessness within marriage and wider society.

Nuruddin Farah
Born in Somalia in 1945, Nuruddin Farah has written numerous plays, novels
and short stories, all of which revolve around his experiences of his native
country. The title of his first novel From a Crooked Rib (1970) stems from a
Somalian proverb “God created woman from a crooked rib, and anyone who
trieth to straighten it, breaketh it”, and is a commentary on the sufferings of
women in Somalian society through the narrative of a young woman trapped
in an unhappy marriage. His subsequent works feature similar social criticism,
dealing with themes of war and post-colonial identity.

Aminatta Forna
Born in Glasgow but raised in Sierra Leone, Aminatta Forna first drew
attention for her memoir The Devil That Danced on Water (2003), an
extraordinarily brave account of her family’s experiences living in war-torn
Sierra Leone, and in particular her father’s tragic fate as a political dissident.
Forna has gone on to write several novels, each of them critically acclaimed:
her work The Memory of Love (2010) juxtaposes personal stories of love and
loss within the wider context of the devastation of the Sierre Leone civil war,
and was nominated for the Orange Prize for Fiction.
 The Memory of Love, Aminatta Forna | Image Courtesy of Grove Press

Nadine Gordimer
One of the apartheid era’s most prolific writers, Nadine Gordimer’s works
powerfully explore social, moral, and racial issues in a South Africa under
apartheid rule. Despite winning a Nobel Prize in Literature for her prodigious
skills in portraying a society interwoven with racial tensions, Gordimer’s most
famous and controversial works were banned from South Africa for daring to
speak out against the oppressive governmental structures of the time. Her
novel Burger’s Daughter follows the struggles of a group of anti-apartheid
activists, and was read in secret by Nelson Mandela during his time on
Robben Island.
 Burger’s Daughter | Image Courtesy of Penguin Books

Alain Mabanckou
Originating from the Republic of Congo, Alain Mabanckou’s works are written
primarily in French, and are well known for their biting wit, sharp satire and
insightful social commentary into both Africa and African immigrants in
France. His novels are strikingly character-focused, often featuring ensemble
casts of figures, such as his book Broken Glass, which focuses on a former
Congolese teacher and his interactions with the locals in the bar he frequents,
or his novel Black Bazar, which details the experiences of various African
immigrants in an Afro-Cuban bar in Paris.
 Alain Mabanckou | ©ActuaLitté/Flickr

Ben Okri
Ben Okri’s childhood was divided between England and time in his native
Nigeria. His young experience greatly informed his future writing: his first,
highly acclaimed novels Flowers and Shadows (1980) and The Landscapes
Within (1981) were reflections on the devastation of the Nigerian civil war
which Okri himself observed firsthand. His later novels met with equal
praise: The Famished Road (1991), which tells the story of Azaro, a spirit
child, is a fascinating blend of realism and depictions of the spirit world, and
won the Booker Prize.
 Infinite Riches | Image Courtesy of Vintage Publishing House

Ngugi wa Thiong’o
Ngugi wa Thiong’o is one of Africa’s most important and influential
postcolonial writers. He began his writing career with novels written in English,
which nevertheless revolved around postcolonial themes of the individual and
the community in Africa versus colonial powers and cultures. Wa Thiong’o
was imprisoned without trial for over a year by the government for the staging
of a politically controversial play; after his release, he committed to writing
works only in his native Gikuyi and Swahili, citing language as a key tool for
decolonizing the mindset and culture of African readers and writers.