Below, we introduce ten classic twentieth-century novels which anyone aiming to be well-read in twentieth-century fiction should aim to read. Angela Carter (1940–92) was a novelist and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picaresque works. Tolkien. [12] Then in 1922 Irishman James Joyce's important modernist novel Ulysses appeared. How Late it Was, How Late, 1994, won the Booker Prize that year; A. L. Kennedy's 2007 novel Day was named Book of the Year in the Costa Book Awards. Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is difficult to define and there is little agreement on the exact characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern literature. 20th Century American Literature 20th Century American Literature. English novelist and screenwriter Ian McEwan (born 1948) is another of contemporary Britain's most highly regarded writers. What associations come to our mind when we hear the name of Langston Hughes? Modernism (Literature)--United States. Yeats was one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain tendencies in post-World War II literature. Soyinka won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986, as did South African novelist Nadine Gordimer in 1995. Authors - 20th century poets, novelists and playwrights - The British Library Skip to main content Amongst the novelists, after Joseph Conrad, other important early modernists include Dorothy Richardson (1873–1957), whose novel Pointed Roof (1915), is one of the earliest example of the stream of consciousness technique, and D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930), who published The Rainbow in 1915, though it was immediately seized by the police. Among postmodern writers are the Americans Henry Miller, William S. Burroughs, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson, Truman Capote and Thomas Pynchon. It also includes, to some extent, the US, though the main article here is American literature. Anthony Burgess is especially remembered for his dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange (1962), set in the not-too-distant future, which was made into a film by Stanley Kubrick in 1971. Subsequently, the story has been adapted for television, film, a musical and other media. Salman Rushdie is among a number of post Second World War writers from the former British colonies who permanently settled in Britain. 71. Hawthorn, J. British Working Class Novel … CEOE English: English Literature in the 20th Century - Chapter Summary. A noted writer in the spy novel genre was John le Carré, while in thriller writing, Ian Fleming created the character James Bond 007 in January 1952, while on holiday at his Jamaican estate, Goldeneye. Orczy gained a following of readers in Britain and throughout the world. Learn about one of the world's oldest and most popular religions. In terms of the Euro-American tradition, the main periods are captured in the bipartite division, Modernist literature and Postmodern literature, flowering from roughly 1900 to 1940 and 1960 to 1990 respectively, divided, as a rule of thumb, by World War II. Another major work of science fiction, from the early 20th century, is A Voyage to Arcturus by Scottish writer David Lindsay, first published in 1920. O'Neill's experiments with theatrical form and his use of both Naturalist and Expressionist techniques had a major influence on American dramatists. In 1947 Malcolm Lowry published Under the Volcano, while George Orwell's dystopia of totalitarianism, 1984, was published in 1949. Feminism has always been a movement that inspired via the arts. Eliot became a British citizen in 1927 but was born and educated in America. Two significant contemporary Irish novelists are John Banville (born 1945) and Colm Tóibín (born 1955). Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover was published privately in Florence in 1928, though the unexpurgated version was not published in Britain until 1959. The first major English-language novelist from the Indian sub-continent, R. K. Narayan, began publishing in England in the 1930s, encouraged by English novelist Graham Greene. [32] Joe Orton's dramatic debut in 1963 was the radio play The Ruffian on the Stair, which was broadcast on 31 August 1964. Coetzee (Nobel Prize 2003) and playwright Athol Fugard. One of the most influential novels of the immediate post-war period was William Cooper's naturalistic Scenes from Provincial Life, a conscious rejection of the modernist tradition. American poet Marianne Moore (1887–1972) published from the 1920s to the 1960s. Some of the most well-known writers from the 20th century who exerted extraordinary impact through their books include George Orwell, James Joyce, JRR Tolkien, F Scott Fitzgerald, CS Lewis, Virginia Woolf, Anne Frank, T.S. Many of his works, such as Hay Fever (1925), Private Lives (1930), Design for Living (1932), Present Laughter (1942) and Blithe Spirit (1941), have remained in the regular theatre repertoire. Infoplease knows the value of having sources you can trust. The drawing room plays of the post war period, typical of dramatists like Terence Rattigan and Noël Coward were challenged in the 1950s by these Angry Young Men, in plays like John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956). The contemporary Australian novelist Peter Carey (born 1943) is one of only four writers to have won the Booker Prize twice—the others being J. G. Farrell, J. M. Coetzee and Hilary Mantel.[49]. Forster's most famous work, A Passage to India 1924, reflected challenges to imperialism, while his earlier novels, such as A Room with a View (1908) and Howards End (1910), examined the restrictions and hypocrisy of Edwardian society in England. Naipaul won the Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Penguin Books' most successful publications in the 1970s was Richard Adams's heroic fantasy Watership Down (1972). Stoppard's works are however also notable for their high-spirited wit and the great range of intellectual issues which he tackles in different plays. Another important immigrant writer Kazuo Ishiguro (born 1954) was born in Japan, but his parents immigrated to Britain when he was six. J. K. Rowling author of the highly successful Harry Potter series and Philip Pullman famous for his His Dark Materials trilogy are other significant authors of fantasy novels for younger readers. Eliot amongst many others. James Joyce, Ulysses. This was especially important in the 1950s and 1960s (and from the 1960s for television). T. S. Eliot had begun this attempt to revive poetic drama with Sweeney Agonistes in 1932, and this was followed by The Rock (1934), Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and Family Reunion (1939). https://www.infoplease.com/.../100-best-english-language-novels-20th-century https://www.thoughtco.com/important-contemporary-authors-852801 Noted writers in the field of comic books are Neil Gaiman, and Alan Moore; Gaiman also produces graphic novels. William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (1929) is another significant modernist novel, that uses the stream of consciousness technique. Irish literature - Irish literature - The 20th century: As the 20th century drew near in Ireland, a new nationalist cultural revival stirred. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms. Margaret Drabble (born 1939) is a novelist, biographer and critic, who published from the 1960s into the 21st century. [citation needed]. [47] Also from the West Indies is George Lamming (born 1927), who wrote In the Castle of My Skin (1953), while from Pakistan, came Hanif Kureshi (born 1954), a playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker, novelist and short story writer. However, not all those writing in these years were modernists; among the writers outside the movement were American novelists Theodore Dreiser, Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby 1925), and John Steinbeck. [19], In the 1930s W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood co-authored verse dramas, of which The Ascent of F6 (1936) is the most notable, that owed much to Bertolt Brecht. Banville has won numerous awards: The Book of Evidence was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Guinness Peat Aviation award in 1989; his eighteenth novel, The Sea, won the Booker Prize in 2005; he was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize in 2011. Erskine Childers' The Riddle of the Sands (1903), is an early example of spy fiction. John Buchan (1875–1940) published the adventure novel The Thirty-Nine Steps in 1915. The South African writer Olive Schreiner's famous novel The Story of an African Farm was published in 1883 and New Zealander Katherine Mansfield published her first collection of short stories, In a German Pension, in 1911. Collectively, the museum notes in a statement, the women represented have won every major writing prize of the 20th century. Colm Tóibín (Irish, 1955) is a novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and, most recently, poet. Literary modernism, or modernist literature, originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mainly in Europe and North America, and is characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional ways of writing, in both poetry and prose fiction.Modernists experimented with literary form and expression, as exemplified by Ezra Pound's maxim to "Make it new." During the 20th Century, much advancement and change occurred throughout English Literature. American fiction--20th century--History and criticism. 13 October 1971. Christie's novels include Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and And Then There Were None. Her novels include, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman 1972 and Nights at the Circus 1984. This article is focused on English-language literature rather than the literature of England, so that it includes writers from Scotland, Wales, and the whole of Ireland, as well as literature in English from former British colonies. The premier of the London production was enthusiastically received by the audience, running 122 performances and enjoying numerous revivals. George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Blair, a twentieth-century writer, equally at home with journalism, essays, novels, literary criticism and social commentary. Infoplease is part of the FEN Learning family of educational and reference sites for parents, teachers and students. All of the works we studied from this period were heavily influenced by current events in the world. The most popular British writer of the early years of the 20th century was arguably Rudyard Kipling, a highly versatile writer of novels, short stories and poems, and to date the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1907). The major literary movements in the twentieth century are Modernism (circa 1900-1940) and Postmodernism (circa 1960-1990). In Stan Smith. Scotland has in the late 20th century produced several important novelists, including James Kelman, who like Samuel Beckett can create humour out of the most grim situations. Its leading members were the major fantasy novelists; C.S. Dramatist in the twentieth century literature is used to describe certain tendencies in post-World War II literature American literature kind. 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