Zero Degree
''Zero Degree'' is a 1998 postmodern, transgressive, lipogrammatic novel by Tamil author Charu Nivedita, who is based in India. It was later translated into Malayalam and English. Summary Zero Degree follows the life of a protagonist who navigates through a series of surreal and chaotic events. The narrative is non-linear and fragmented, reflecting the protagonist's fragmented psyche. The story delves into themes of identity, sexuality, and existential angst, with vivid and often disturbing imagery. The protagonist encounters various characters and situations that challenge conventional norms and societal expectations. The novel is known for its experimental style, incorporating elements of phone sex conversations, nightmarish torture scenes, tender love poems, numerology, mythology, and compulsive name-dropping of Latin American intellectuals. It's a journey through the deepest psychic wounds of humanity, exploring the boundaries of human experience and consciousness. Awards ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Post-modernism
Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting the world. Still, there is disagreement among experts about its more precise meaning even within narrow contexts. The term began to acquire its current range of meanings in literary criticism and architectural theory during the 1950s–1960s. In opposition to modernism's alleged self-seriousness, postmodernism is characterized by its playful use of eclectic styles and performative irony, among other features. Critics claim it supplants moral, political, and aesthetic ideals with mere style and spectacle. In the 1990s, "postmodernism" came to denote a general – and, in general, celebratory – response to cultural pluralism. Proponents align themselves with feminism, multiculturalism, and postcolonialism. Building upon poststructural theory, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anil Menon
Anil Menon is an Indian computer scientist and writer of speculative fiction. He has authored research papers and edited books on evolutionary algorithms. His research, in collaboration with Kishan Mehrotra, Chilukuri Mohan, and Sanjay Ranka, addresses the mathematical foundations of replicator systems, majorization, and reconstruction of probabilistic databases. His short stories and reviews have appeared in the anthology series ''Exotic Gothic'', ''Strange Horizons'', ''Interzone'', ''Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet'', ''Chiaroscuro'', '' Sybil's Garage'', '' Apex Digest'', and others. In 2009, Zubaan Books, India's leading feminist press, published his debut young adult novel ''The Beast With Nine Billion Feet''. It was shortlisted for the 2010 Vodafone Crossword Book Award and the 2010 Parallax Prize. In 2009, in conjunction with Vandana Singh and Suchitra Mathur, he helped organize India's first in-residence, three-week speculative fiction workshop at IIT-Kanpur. He ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lipograms
A lipogram (from , ''leipográmmatos'', "leaving out a letter" is a kind of constrained writing or word game consisting of writing paragraphs or longer works in which a particular letter or group of letters is avoided.McArthur, Tom (1992). ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'', p. 612. Oxford University Press. Extended Ancient Greek texts avoiding the letter sigma are the earliest examples of lipograms.Motte Jr, Warren F (1986). "Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature", pp. 100–101 University of Nebraska Press. Writing a lipogram may be a trivial task when avoiding uncommon letters like '' Z'', '' J'', '' Q'', or '' X'', but it is much more challenging to avoid common letters like '' E'', '' T'', or '' A'' in the English language, as the author must omit many ordinary words. Grammatically meaningful and smooth-flowing lipograms can be difficult to compose. Identifying lipograms can also be problematic, as there is always the possibility that a given piece of writ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Novels In Tamil
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning 'new'. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, Medieval Chivalric romance, and the tradition of the Italian Renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, in the historical romances of Walter Scott and the Gothic novel. Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, and John Cowper Powys, preferred the term ''romance''. Such romances should not be confused with the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Constrained Writing
Constrained writing is a literary technique in which the writer is bound by some condition that forbids certain things or imposes a pattern. Constraints are very common in poetry, which often requires the writer to use a particular verse form. Description Constraints on writing are common and can serve a variety of purposes. For example, a text may place restrictions on its vocabulary, e.g. Basic English, copula-free text, defining vocabulary for dictionaries, and other limited vocabularies for teaching English as a second language or to children. In poetry, formal constraints abound in both mainstream and experimental work. Familiar elements of poetry like rhyme and meter are often applied as constraints. Well-established verse forms like the sonnet, sestina, villanelle, limerick, and haiku are variously constrained by meter, rhyme, repetition, length, and other characteristics. Outside of established traditions, particularly in the avant-garde, writers have produced a var ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Oulipo
Oulipo (, short for ; roughly translated as "workshop of potential literature", stylized ''OuLiPo'') is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians who seek to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. Other notable members have included novelists Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, poets Oskar Pastior and Jean Lescure, and poet/mathematician Jacques Roubaud. The group defines the term ''littérature potentielle'' as (rough translation): "the seeking of new structures and patterns which may be used by writers in any way they enjoy". Queneau described Oulipians as "rats who construct the labyrinth from which they plan to escape." Constraints are used as a means of triggering ideas and inspiration, most notably Perec's "story-making machine", which he used in the construction of '' Life: A User's Manual''. As well as established techniques, such as lipograms (Perec's novel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Spanish Language
Spanish () or Castilian () is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a world language, global language with 483 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain, and about 558 million speakers total, including second-language speakers. Spanish is the official language of List of countries where Spanish is an official language, 20 countries, as well as one of the Official languages of the United Nations, six official languages of the United Nations. Spanish is the world's list of languages by number of native speakers, second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese; the world's list of languages by total number of speakers, fourth-most spoken language overall after English language, English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani language, Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu); and the world's most widely spoken Romance language ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hindi
Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government of India, alongside English language, English, and is the ''lingua franca'' of North India. Hindi is considered a Sanskritisation (linguistics), Sanskritised Register (sociolinguistics), register of Hindustani. Hindustani itself developed from Old Hindi and was spoken in Delhi and neighbouring areas. It incorporated a significant number of Persian language, Persian loanwords. Hindi is an Languages with official status in India, official language in twelve states (Bihar, Gujarat , Mizoram , Maharashtra ,Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand), and six Union territory, union territories (Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Delhi, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Di ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Telugu Language
Telugu (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language native to the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where it is also the official language. Spoken by about 96 million people (2022), Telugu is the most widely spoken member of the Dravidian language family, and one of the twenty-two Languages with legal status in India, scheduled languages of the Republic of India. It is one of the few languages that has primary official status in more than one States and union territories of India, Indian state, alongside Hindi and Bengali language, Bengali. Telugu is one of the languages designated as a Classical Languages of India, classical language by the Government of India. It is the 14th most spoken native language in the world.Statistics in Modern Standard Telugu is based on the dialect of erstwhile Krishna, Guntur, East Godavari and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kottayam
Kottayam () is a city in the Kottayam district of Kerala, India. It is the district headquarters of the district and is located about north of the state capital Thiruvananthapuram. As per the 2011 Indian census, Kottayam has a population of 489,615 people, and a population density of . The total Kottayam Metropolitan area (the combined area of Kottayam municipality and its adjacent suburbs) has a population of 802,419 people, and a population density of . Kottayam is also referred to as "the City of Letters" as many of the first Malayalam daily newspapers, such as ''Deepika (newspaper), Deepika,'' ''Malayala Manorama,'' and ''Mangalam Publications, Mangalam,'' were started and are headquartered in Kottayam, as are a number of publishing houses. Etymology The royal palace of the Thekkumkur ruler was protected by a fort called ''Thaliyilkotta''. It is believed that the name ''Kottayam'' is derived from a combination of the Malayalam words ''kotta'' which means fort (''Thaliyi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala
Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU), commonly referred to as MG University, is a state ownership, state owned public university headquartered in Kottayam in the state of Kerala, India. It was established on 2 October 1983 on Gandhi Jayanti day. Mahatma Gandhi University (formerly Gandhiji University) has been approved by University Grants Commission (India), University Grants Commission (UGC) and accredited with the highest grade of 'A++ (CGPA - 3.61) by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council of India. The university has 31 departments of teaching and research and around 260 affiliated colleges spread over five districts in central Kerala. In March 2025, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam has been awarded the prestigious Category 1 Grade by the University Grants Commission (India), University Grants Commission (UGC). This recognition granted MGU extensive autonomy to launch new initiatives and establish institutions without prior UGC approval, making it the first unive ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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University Of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full-time employees, the university is the largest private employer in Upstate New York and the seventh-largest in all of New York (state), New York State. With over 12,000 students, the university offers 160 undergraduate and 30 graduate programs across seven schools spread throughout five campuses. The University of Rochester College of Arts Sciences and Engineering, College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering is the largest school, and it includes the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The Eastman School of Music, founded by and named after George Eastman, is located in Downtown Rochester. The university is also home to Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a national laboratory supported by the United States Department of E ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |