1996 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1996. Events *July 8 – Harper Lee's ''To Kill a Mockingbird'', Mark Twain's '' Huckleberry Finn'' and 30 other books are struck from an English reading list in Lindale, Texas, as they "conflict with the values of the community." *July 11 – As requested by Nelson Mandela, Benjamin Zephaniah hosts the President's Two Nations Concert at London's Royal Albert Hall. * October 3 – The first performance is held in New York of Eve Ensler's episodic feminist play '' The Vagina Monologues''. *''unknown dates'' **In the UK, the first Orange Prize for Fiction for female novelists goes to Helen Dunmore for '' A Spell of Winter''. ** Peter O'Donnell publishes '' Cobra Trap'', a final volume featuring Modesty Blaise. The first appeared in 1965. **Margaret Mitchell's lost first novella, '' Lost Laysen'', is published, 80 years after it was written. ** Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's ''Romance Writings'', inc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Peter O'Donnell
Peter O'Donnell (11 April 1920 – 3 May 2010) was an English writer of mysteries and of comic strips, best known as the creator of '' Modesty Blaise'', an action heroine/undercover trouble-shooter. He was also an award-winning gothic historical romance novelist who wrote under the female pseudonym Madeleine Brent, in 1978, his novel ''Merlin's Keep'' won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association. Biography Born on 11 April 1920 in Lewisham, London, O'Donnell was the son of Bernard O'Donnell, a journalist on the '' Empire News'', and was educated at Catford Central School. He began to write professionally at the age of 16. In 1938 he joined the British Army, and during the war served as an NCO in mobile radio detachment (3 Corps) of Royal Corps of Signals in the 8th Army. He saw active service in Persia in 1942, after which his unit was moved to Syria, Egypt, the Western Desert, and Italy, and he was with forces that went into Greece ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Beryl Bainbridge
Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge (21 November 1932 – 2 July 2010) was an English writer. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often macabre tales set among the English working class. She won the Whitbread Awards prize for best novel in 1977 and 1996, and was nominated five times for the Booker Prize. She was described in 2007 as a national treasure. In 2008, ''The Times'' named Bainbridge on their list of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945". Biography Early life Beryl Margaret Bainbridge was born in Liverpool's Allerton suburb on 21 November 1932, the daughter of Winifred Baines and Richard Bainbridge. She grew up in the nearby town of Formby. Although she often gave her date of birth as 21 November 1934, she was born in 1932 and her birth was registered in the first quarter of 1933. When German former prisoner of war Harry Arno Franz wrote to her in November 1947, he mentioned her 15th birthday. Bainbridge enjoyed writing, and by the age ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alias Grace
''Alias Grace'' is a historical fiction novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. First published in 1996 by McClelland & Stewart, it won the Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The story fictionalizes the notorious 1843 murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery in Canada West. Two servants of the Kinnear household, Grace Marks and James McDermott, were convicted of the crime. McDermott was hanged and Marks was sentenced to life imprisonment. Although the novel is based on factual events, Atwood constructs a narrative with a fictional doctor, Simon Jordan, who researches the case. While Jordan is ostensibly conducting research into criminal behaviour, he slowly becomes personally involved in the Marks story and seeks to reconcile his perception of the mild-mannered woman he sees with the murder of which she has been convicted. Atwood first encountered the story of Marks in ''Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush'' by Susanna Moodie. I ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and an inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books, two graphic novels, and a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Her best-known work is the 1985 dystopian novel ''The Handmaid's Tale.'' Atwood has won numerous awards and honors for her writing, including two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Governor General's Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, Princess of Asturias Awards, and the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, National Book Critics and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards. A number of her works have been adapted for film and television. Atwood's works encompass a variety of themes including gender and identity, religion and myth, the power of language, climate change, and "power politics". Many of her poems are inspired by myth ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Fourth Estate (novel)
''The Fourth Estate'' is a 1996 novel by Jeffrey Archer. It chronicles the lives of two media barons, Richard Armstrong and Keith Townsend, from their starkly contrasting childhoods to their ultimate battle to build the world's biggest media empire. The book is based on two real life media barons – Robert Maxwell Ian Robert Maxwell (born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch; 10 June 1923 – 5 November 1991) was a Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovak-born British media proprietor, politician and fraudster. After escaping the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, ... and Rupert Murdoch,Hugo Barnacl"Maxwell vs Murdoch – the untold story" ''The Independent'', 11 May 1996 who fought to control the newspaper market in Britain. (Murdoch had bought ''The Sun (United Kingdom), The Sun'' and ''News of the World'' and later NI Group#Times Newspapers Ltd, Times Newspapers Ltd and Maxwell bought the ''Daily Mirror'' and the other newspapers in its group.). The concept of the Fourth Estate, f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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]   |
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A Novel Of Politics
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in English is '' a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version is often written in one of two forms: the double-storey and single-storey . The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English, '' a'' is the indefinite article, with the alternative form ''an''. Name In English, the name of the letter is the ''long A'' sound, pronounced . Its name in most other languages matches the letter's pronunciation in open syllables. History The earliest known ancestor of A is ''aleph''—the first letter of the Phoenician ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Joe Klein
Joe Klein (born September 7, 1946) is an American political commentator and author. He is best known for his work as a columnist for ''Time'' magazine and his novel '' Primary Colors'', an anonymously written roman à clef portraying Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. Klein is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a former Guggenheim Fellow. In April 2006 he published '' Politics Lost'', a book on what he calls the "pollster–consultant industrial complex." He has also written articles and book reviews for ''The New Republic'', ''The New York Times'', ''The Washington Post'', ''Life'', and ''Rolling Stone''. Early life and career Klein was born in Rockaway Beach, Queens, the son of Miram (née Warshauer) and John Klein, a printer. His maternal grandfather was professional musician Frank Warshauer. He has referred to his heritage as Jewish. Klein graduated from the Hackley School and the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in American civil ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anonymity
Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's identity is unknown. Anonymity may be created unintentionally through the loss of identifying information due to the passage of time or a destructive event, or intentionally if a person chooses to withhold their identity. There are various situations in which a person might choose to remain anonymous. Acts of charity have been performed anonymously when benefactors do not wish to be acknowledged. A person who feels threatened might attempt to mitigate that threat through anonymity. A witness to a crime might seek to avoid retribution, for example, by anonymously calling a crime tipline. In many other situations (like conversation between strangers, or buying some product or service in a shop), anonymity is traditionally accepted as natural. Some writers have argued that the term "namelessness", though technically correct, does not capture what is more centrally at stake in contexts of anonymity. The important idea here is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (née Pierrepont; 15 May 168921 August 1762) was an English aristocrat, medical pioneer, writer, and poet. Born in 1689, Lady Mary spent her early life in England. In 1712, Lady Mary married Edward Wortley Montagu, who later served as the British ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Lady Mary joined her husband on the Ottoman excursion, where she was to spend the next two years of her life. During her time there, Lady Mary wrote extensively on her experience as a woman in Ottoman Constantinople. After her return to England, Lady Mary devoted her attention to the upbringing of her family before dying of cancer in 1762. Although having regularly socialised with the court of George I and George Augustus, Prince of Wales (later King George II) , Lady Mary is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her '' Turkish Embassy Letters'' describing her travels to the Ottoman Empire, as wife to the British ambassador to Turkey, which Billie Melman ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lost Laysen
''Lost Laysen'' is a novella by Margaret Mitchell. Although it was written in 1916, it was not published until 1996. Mitchell, who is best known as the author of ''Gone with the Wind'', was believed to have only written one full book during her lifetime. However, when she was 15, she had written the manuscript to ''Lost Laysen''—a romance set in the South Pacific. She gave the two notebooks containing the handwritten work to a suitor named Henry Love Angel, who kept the manuscript along with a number of letters Mitchell had sent him. Angel died in 1945, but ''Lost Laysen'' remained undiscovered until his son found the manuscript while preparing to donate the letters to the Road to Tara Museum.Buried Treasure People.com 05-13-1996 [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |