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1979 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1979. Events *May – The Merchant Ivory Productions film '' The Europeans'' is released. Its screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala draws on the 1878 Henry James novel of the same name. *October 25 – The ''London Review of Books'' is first issued, its founding editors being Karl Miller, Mary-Kay Wilmers and Susannah Clapp. For its first six months it appears as an insert to ''The New York Review of Books''. *November – Dambudzo Marechera's ''The House of Hunger'' wins the Guardian Fiction Prize. *''unknown dates'' **K. W. Jeter's novel '' Morlock Night'' pioneers full-length fiction in the genre he later calls steampunk. ** August Wilson's '' Jitney'' is first produced; it becomes the eighth in his "Pittsburgh Cycle". New books Fiction *Douglas Adams – ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' * V. C. Andrews – '' Flowers in the Attic'' *Jeffrey Archer – '' Kane and Abel'' *Barbara Tay ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morlock Night
''Morlock Night'' is a science fiction novel by American writer K. W. Jeter. It was published in 1979. In a letter to '' Locus Magazine'' in April 1987, Jeter coined the word "steampunk" to describe it and other novels by James Blaylock and Tim Powers. ''Morlock Night'' uses the ideas of H. G. Wells in which the Morlocks of Wells' 1895 novella ''The Time Machine'' themselves use the device to travel back into the past and menace Victorian London. King Arthur According to legends, King Arthur (; ; ; ) was a king of Great Britain, Britain. He is a folk hero and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In Wales, Welsh sources, Arthur is portrayed as a le ... and Merlin appear as England's saviors. References Sources *''Worlds Enough and Time: Explorations of Time in Science Fiction and Fantasy ''by Gary Westfahl *''King Arthur's Modern Return (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities) ''by Debra Mancoff (on page 8 an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino (, ; ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian novelist and short story writer. His best-known works include the ''Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the '' Cosmicomics'' collection of short stories (1965), and the novels '' Invisible Cities'' (1972) and ''If on a winter's night a traveler'' (1979). Admired in Britain, Australia and the United States, Calvino was the most translated contemporary Italian writer at the time of his death. He is buried in the garden cemetery of Castiglione della Pescaia in Tuscany. Biography Parents Italo Calvino was born in Santiago de las Vegas, a suburb of Havana, Cuba, in 1923. His father, , was a tropical agronomist and botanist who also taught agriculture and floriculture. Born 47 years earlier in Sanremo, Italy, Mario Calvino had emigrated to Mexico in 1909 where he took up an important position with the Ministry of Agriculture. In an autobiographical e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kindred (novel)
''Kindred '' (1979) is a novel by American writer Octavia E. Butler that incorporates time travel and is modeled on slave narratives. Widely popular, it has frequently been chosen as a text by community-wide reading programs and book organizations, and for high school and college courses. The book is the first-person account of a young African-American writer, Dana, who is repeatedly transported in time between her Los Angeles, California home in 1976 with her white husband and an early 19th-century Maryland plantation just outside Easton. There she meets some of her ancestors: a proud, free Black woman and a white planter who forces her into slavery and concubinage. As Dana stays for longer periods in the past, she becomes intimately entangled with the plantation community. Dana makes hard choices to survive slavery and to ensure her return to her own time. ''Kindred'' explores the dynamics and dilemmas of antebellum slavery from the sensibility of a late 20th-century Black ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Octavia Butler
Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction writer who won several awards for her works, including Hugo, Locus, and Nebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.Crossley, Robert. "Critical Essay." In ''Kindred'', by Octavia Butler. Boston: Beacon, 2004. Born in Pasadena, California, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. She was extremely shy as a child, but Butler found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing. She began writing science fiction as a teenager. Butler attended community college during the Black Power movement in the 1960s. While participating in a local writer's workshop, she was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop which focused on science fiction. She sold her first stories soon after, and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author to be able to write full-time. Butler's books and short stories dr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Woman Of Substance (novel)
''A Woman of Substance'' is a novel by Barbara Taylor Bradford, published in 1979. The novel is the first of a seven-book saga about the fortunes of a retail empire and the machinations of the business elite across three generations. The series, featuring Emma Harte and her family also includes ''Hold The Dream'', ''To Be The Best'', ''Emma's Secret'', ''Unexpected Blessings'', ''Just Rewards'' and ''Breaking the Rules''. ''A Woman of Substance'' was adapted as an eponymous television miniseries as were the sequels '' Hold the Dream'' and '' To Be the Best''. Plot summary The book starts with an elderly Emma Harte flying to New York with her personal assistant and favourite grandchild, Paula. Emma contemplates the empire she has created. She has trained Paula to be her successor, both as the head of Harte Stores and as representative of her mother, Daisy Amory, at Sitex. On their arrival in New York, Emma's secretary, Gaye, tells her she heard Emma's sons discussing a plan to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbara Taylor Bradford
Barbara Taylor Bradford (10 May 1933 – 24 November 2024) was a British Americans, British-American best-selling novelist. Her debut novel, ''A Woman of Substance (novel), A Woman of Substance'', was published in 1979 and sold over 30 million copies worldwide. She wrote 40 novels, often about young women of humble beginnings who rise through their hard work in business. Her books were translated into 40 languages and sold more than 90 million copies; ten of her books were also adapted as television miniseries and television movies. Her commercial success amassed a large fortune and she was awarded several honorary degrees and made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her literary contributions. Early life Barbara Taylor was born on 10 May 1933 in Armley, Leeds, to Freda and Winston Taylor. Her father was an engineer who had lost a leg while serving in the First World War. She attended Christ Church Upper Armley CofE Primary School in the Leeds suburb of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kane And Abel (novel)
''Kane and Abel'' is a 1979 novel by British author Jeffrey Archer. Released in the United Kingdom in 1979 and in the United States in February 1980, the book was an international success, selling over one million copies in its first week. It reached No. 1 on the ''New York Times'' Best Seller list. By 2009, it had sold an estimated 34 million copies worldwide. A sequel, '' The Prodigal Daughter'', was released in 1982 and features Abel's daughter Florentyna as the protagonist. In 2003, ''Kane and Abel'' was listed at number 96 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. ''Kane & Abel'' is among the top 100 best-selling books in the world, with a similar number of copies sold as ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' and '' Gone with the Wind''. Plot summary The book tells the stories of two men born worlds apart. They have nothing in common except the same date of birth (18 April 1906) and a zeal to succeed in life. William Lowell Kane is the wealthy and powerful, Ivy League-educated heir to a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeffrey Archer
Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (born 15 April 1940) is an English novelist and former politician. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Louth (Lincolnshire) from 1969 to 1974, but did not seek re-election after a financial scandal that left him almost bankrupt. Archer revived his fortunes as a novelist. His novel ''Kane and Abel'' (1979) remains one of the best-selling books in the world, with an estimated 34 million copies sold worldwide. Overall his books have sold more than 320 million copies worldwide. Archer was the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party from 1985 to 1986; he resigned after a newspaper accused him of paying money to a prostitute. In 1987 he won a civil case and was awarded large damages because of this claim. He was made a life peer in 1992 and subsequently became the first Conservative candidate to be selected as a candidate for mayor of London. He ended his candidacy in 1999 after it emerged that he had lied in the case ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flowers In The Attic
''Flowers in the Attic'' is a 1979 Gothic novel by V. C. Andrews. It is the first book in the Dollanganger series, and was followed by '' Petals on the Wind'', '' If There Be Thorns'', '' Seeds of Yesterday'', '' Garden of Shadows'', '' Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxworth'', '' Christopher's Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger'', and '' Christopher's Diary: Secret Brother''. The novel is written in the first person, from the point of view of Cathy Dollanganger. It was twice adapted into films in 1987 and 2014. The book was extremely popular, selling over 4.5 million copies world wide. Plot In 1957, the Dollanganger family—father Christopher, mother Corrine, 14-year-old Chris, 12-year-old Cathy, and 5-year-old twins Carrie and Cory—live an idyllic life in Gladstone, Pennsylvania, until Christopher Sr. dies in a car accident, leaving Corrine in debt with no means to support her children. On the verge of their home being foreclosed, Corrine reveals to the children that as a y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' is a Science fiction comedy, comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series), radio sitcom broadcast over two series on BBC Radio 4 between 1978 and 1980, it was soon adapted to other formats, including both novels and comic books; a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (TV series), 1981 BBC television series; a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (video game), 1984 text adventure game; stage shows; and a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (film), 2005 feature film. ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' is an international multimedia phenomenon; the novels are the most widely distributed, having been translated into more than 30 languages by 2005. The first novel, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (novel), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (1979), has been ranked fourth on the BBC's The Big Read poll. The sixth novel, ''And Another Thing... (no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, humorist, and screenwriter, best known as the creator of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' evolved into a "trilogy" of six (or five, according to the author) books which sold more than 15 million copies in his life. It was made into a television series, several stage plays, comics, a video game, and a 2005 feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame. Adams wrote ''Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'' (1987) and '' The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul'' (1988), and co-wrote '' The Meaning of Liff'' (1983), '' The Deeper Meaning of Liff'' (1990) and '' Last Chance to See'' (1990). He wrote two stories for the television series ''Doctor Who'', including the unaired serial '' Shada'', co-wrote '' City of Death'' (1979), and served as script editor for its 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
