Newest Study Guides
Each study guide includes essays, an in-depth chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quiz. Study guides are available in PDF format.
Each study guide includes essays, an in-depth chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quiz. Study guides are available in PDF format.
Published in 1986 in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's native language, Gĩkũyũ, Matigari ma Njiruungi follows the story of a mythologized revolutionary who survives a revolution in an unnamed country. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o wrote Matigari largely in exile in a...
Kamala Markandaya's Nectar In A Sieve is a 1954 novel about a family of Hindu farmers living in a remote Indian village over several decades in the first half of the twentieth century. During a period of urbanization, the family navigates...
Siegfried Sassoon was a British writer and poet whose work challenged common patriotic conceptions about World War One. "The Rear-Guard," published in Sassoon's 1918 collection Counter-Attack and Other Poems, follows a soldier making his way along...
Demon Copperhead is a 2022 novel by American author Barbara Kingsolver. It tells the story of a young boy who grows up in rural Appalachia, navigating numerous difficulties. Kingsolver has said it is a modern, Southern retelling of Charles Dickens...
Siegfried Sassoon was a British poet and novelist, best known for his antiwar poetry published after serving as a soldier in the First World War. "Attack," first published in 1918 in the collection Counter-Attack and Other Poems, gives a harrowing...
Siegfried Sassoon was a British poet and novelist who is best known today for his angry, satirical, and compassionate poems concerning the horrors of World War I. "Suicide In The Trenches," published in 1918 in a collection of poems called ...
Margaret Atwood's The Heart Goes Last (2015) is a dystopian novel about a desperate couple who sign away their freedom in exchange for the safety and comfort offered by an experimental walled community.
When a financial crash devastates the Rust...
Anna Seghers' The Seventh Cross was published in 1942, during the height of World War II. The novel is set in the Westhofen camp, which is fictitious but based in part on real-life concentration camps. It follows a young man named George Heisler,...
Robert Seethaler's The Tobacconist (2017) is a novel about war and friendship. The novel is set during the Nazi occupation of Vienna, Austria, during WWII. It follows a seventeen-year-old young man named Franz Huchel, who travels to Vienna to...
Siegfried Sassoon was a British writer and poet who is remembered today for his angry, satirical, and compassionate poems concerning the horrors of World War I. "The Death Bed," published in the 1917 collection The Old Huntsman and Other Poems, ...
"Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" was published in Richard Wilbur's 1956 collection Things of This World, and part of its title forms the title of that volume. It has been, as critics have noted, much anthologized—that is, included in...
Siegfried Sassoon was a British poet and novelist who is best known today for his angry, satirical, and compassionate poems concerning the horrors of World War One. "Base Details," written in the poet's diary in 1917 and published in the...
Jurek Becker first imagined Jacob the Liar as a screenplay, "Jakob der Lügner," in 1965, intended for production by the East German state-sponsored film studio, Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft (DEFA). However, DEFA rejected "Jakob der Lügner"...
Published in 1405, Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies is considered a landmark text for feminist rights. Structured as an allegory in which three ladies depicting Reason, Justice, and Rectitude call upon the author while in her...
An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamel Andrews, or better known simply as Shamela, is a satirical novel published in 1741. Published by Conny Keyber, it is believed that the writer is Henry Fielding and that he published the novel under a pen...
Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man is a novel by Indian author U.R. Ananthamurthy, first published in 1965. The book tells the story of a man from India's highest social class who dies unexpectedly, thereby creating an internal conflict in his town.
...Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist, and filmmaker whose work traverses the borders of Pakistan, her country of origin, and her adopted countries of India and the UK. "The right word,” originally published in Dharker's 2006 collection The terrorist...
Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist, and filmmaker whose work traverses the borders of Pakistan, her country of origin, and her adopted countries of India and the UK. "Tissue,” originally published in Dharker's 2006 collection The terrorist at my...
The Turning is a short story collection written by Tim Winton. The book was published in 2004. It has received critical acclaim for its examination of various themes related to Australian life and culture.
It consists of seventeen interconnected...
Steven Amsterdam's Things We Didn't See Coming (2010) is a coming-of-age novel comprised of several different stories set over three decades. It follows the journey of a young boy into adulthood over the course of three decades. The novel begins...
Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu's The Theory of Flight (2018) tells the story of Genie, a young woman who spent much of her childhood isolated from the rest of her country and the world in a field of dandelions. But The Theory of Flight doesn't tell just...
Matt de la Peña's Mexican Whiteboy (2008) is undoubtedly an innovative and unique novel. Through its use of Spanglish (a language variety mixing English and Spanish) and other themes, the novel explores the trial and tribulations often associated...
Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House (2019) is a unique and innovative memoir that chronicles Machado's abusive relationship with her abusive partner while studying for her Master of Fine Arts at a university in Iowa. In the memoir, which is...
“Praise Song for my Mother” was published in Grace Nichols’ first poetry collection I is a Long-Memoried Woman (1983). The anthology was awarded the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1983 and was adapted into a Channel 4 film and BBC radio play. The...