Portal:Literature/Did you know

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Did you know 1

Portal:Literature/Did you know/1

... that Polish writer Irena Jurgielewiczowa was also an underground teacher and a resistance fighter in WWII?
... that Kwee Tek Hoay's novel Drama dari Krakatau blames the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa on deliberate damage to a Vishnu statue?
... that a famous line by Li E reads "rain/wash/autumn/lush/people/pale"?
... that the memoir Wave is based on the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami?
... that George Packer's book The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America won the 2013 National Book Award for Nonfiction?

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Did you know 2

Portal:Literature/Did you know/2

... that Danilo Kiš's 1965 novel Garden, Ashes mixes fact and fiction, with both the narrator and the author having lost their fathers in the Holocaust?
... that in Lady of Sherwood, Jennifer Roberson chose to write about the demise of Richard I because the "death of a popular monarch always provide fodder for novelists"?
... that blind poet María Josefa Mujía was Bolivia's first woman writer after its independence?
... that De Scheepsjongens van Bontekoe, the 1924 Dutch children's book based on a real-life shipwreck in 1618, has sold more than 250,000 copies?
... that Iosif Vulcan changed the name of a young literary debutant to Mihai Eminescu, later Romania's national poet?

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Did you know 3

Portal:Literature/Did you know/3

... that Begum Akhtar Riazuddin, the first woman to write modern Urdu travelogues, was one of the 1000 PeaceWomen nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005?
... that Danilo Kiš's final work, the 1983 collection The Encyclopedia of the Dead, helped make him one of the most important figures for the post-Yugoslav generation of writers?
... that Joe D'Cruz won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel Korkai, which is based on history and the lives of Parathavars?
... that the satirical novel Er ist wieder da was priced at €19.33, a deliberate reference to Hitler's ascent to power in that year?
... that although Maya Angelou is best known for her autobiographies, she has also been successful as a poet?

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Did you know 4

Portal:Literature/Did you know/4

... that Meralda Warren and several children on Pitcairn Island wrote the first book published in both English and Pitkern, a South Pacific creole language?
... that octogenarian poet Joyce La Mers donated $500,000 to Light Quarterly, the US's only literary magazine devoted to light verse?
... that the non-fiction book The Siege: The Attack on the Taj is set during the 2008 Mumbai attacks?
... that Lancelot de Carle, an eyewitness to the trial and execution of Anne Boleyn, wrote a poem detailing her life and the circumstances surrounding her death?
... that writer Hu Yepin was betrayed by rival communists, arrested by the British police, and executed by the Kuomintang?

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Did you know 5

Portal:Literature/Did you know/5

... that Samuel Minturn Peck was the first Poet Laureate of Alabama, a title created for him, from 1930 until his death in 1938?
... that James McBride was described as "clearly stunned" when his novel The Good Lord Bird won the National Book Award for Fiction?
... that Arishima Ikuma, Japanese novelist, published his new-style poems and short stories as a vehicle to introduce the works of the French impressionist painter Paul Cézanne to the Japanese public?
... that German-born Jewish Egyptologist Käte Bosse-Griffiths published a novel in the Welsh language?
... that John Fowles' postmodern novel The French Lieutenant's Woman both emulated and parodied popular Victorian novels, like those of Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy?

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Did you know 6

Portal:Literature/Did you know/6

... that in Googled: The End of the World as We Know It, Ken Auletta uses the story The Purloined Letter to describe the attitude of the traditional media executives toward Google?
... that Miriam Roth grew up in a Hungarian-speaking town, studied at a German-speaking university, and wrote best-sellers in Hebrew?
... that in the 1895 play Trilby, the role of Svengali was created by American actor Wilton Lackaye?
... that Louisa Venable Kyle wrote a children's book on The Witch of Pungo?
... that Walter Arthur Berendsohn, who successfully nominated Nelly Sachs and Willy Brandt for their respective Nobel Prizes, wrote Die humanistische Front, the seminal book on German exile literature?

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Did you know 7

Portal:Literature/Did you know/7

... that Norwegian surrealist poet Triztán Vindtorn changed his first name into the name of his favorite pub?
... that The Six Wives of Henry VIII inspired Lecia Cornwall to write historical novels?
... that Stolen Childhood was the first full-length book on the history of children enslaved during the American slave-era?
... that the Indian poet and philosopher Dwijendranath Tagore wrote the book Boxometry about the construction of boxes?
... that The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five, a science fiction novel by Doris Lessing, was adapted for the opera in 1997 by Philip Glass?

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Did you know 8

Portal:Literature/Did you know/8

... that Irish poet John Keegan Casey was released from prison on the condition he leave for Australia, but instead he stayed in Dublin in disguise?
... that the 1916 children's novel Just David was the second in a series of four consecutive bestsellers in the United States for Eleanor H. Porter?
... that a decasyllabic quatrain is a poetic form in which each stanza consists of four lines of ten syllables, usually with a rhyme scheme of AABB or ABAB?
... that in late 2008, Norwegian novelist Johan Harstad won the Brage Prize and was hired as the first in-house playwright at the National Theatre of Norway?
... that the Franciscan friar Manuel Antonio de Rivas, who was tried for heresy in 1775 in Mexico, wrote the first science-fiction text in the Americas?

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Did you know 9

Portal:Literature/Did you know/9

... that literary critics credit William Shakespeare's Hamlet as a significant contributor to Sigmund Freud's idea of the Oedipus complex?
... that the only copy of the book La Promenade du sceptique by Denis Diderot was confiscated by police on two occasions?
... that shenmo, the "gods and demons" genre of Chinese literature, includes fantasy novels such as Journey to the West and Investiture of the Gods?
... that singer Morrissey's Autobiography was published in Penguin Classics, an imprint normally reserved for venerated and long-dead authors?
... that The Gentleman Usher is the only play in which late 16th-century playwright George Chapman takes a positive view of women?

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Did you know 10

Portal:Literature/Did you know/10

... that William Blake's character Spectre, which represents unchanging reason in his spiritual mythology, may have been inspired by the poet William Cowper?
... that the Pingyao Zhuan, a shenmo fantasy novel written in the Ming Dynasty, is loosely based on a historical revolt?
... that the novels of Jane Austen became popular with the public only after the publication of A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1869?
... that, as a prize for having written "O Armatolos", Bulgarian poet Grigor Parlichev was awarded a laurel wreath by king Otto of Greece?
... that the Goosebumps novella One Day at Horrorland was adapted into a two-part television episode, two video games, a comic, and a book series?

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Did you know 11

Portal:Literature/Did you know/11

... that an episode in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream may have been a "riff" on the medieval German poem Der Busant?
... that Spock Must Die! and Spock, Messiah! were the first two original novels for adults to be written in the Star Trek universe?
... that the poem Nachuk Tahate Shyama, written by Swami Vivekananda, relates to one's surrender to the Hindu goddess Kali?
... that in 1845 Robert Browning met Elizabeth Barrett and wrote "Meeting at Night", the "most sensual poem" he had written up to that time?
... that according to James Joyce, Édouard Dujardin's 1887 novel Les Lauriers sont coupés is the first example of the stream of consciousness technique?

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Did you know 12

Portal:Literature/Did you know/12

... that Thio Tjin Boen's novel Tjerita Oeij Se, with a man who becomes rich after finding a kite made of paper money, has been read as a condemnation of interethnic marriage?
... that Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes is the first known children's book published in America?
... that Hella Haasse submitted her debut novel Oeroeg under the pseudonym Soeka toelis ("Like to write")?
... that Russian-born Yiddish playwright Peretz Hirshbein tried his hand at farming, both in the Catskills and in Argentina?
... that the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel The 34th Rule was intended to be an allegory for the Japanese American internment during the Second World War?

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Did you know 13

Portal:Literature/Did you know/13

... that And Still I Rise, Maya Angelou's third volume of poetry, contains two of the author's most famous poems?
... that Kwee Tek Hoay's stage play Allah jang Palsoe was published seven years before the first canonical Indonesian drama?
... that The Monk As Man: The Unknown Life of Swami Vivekananda is one of the many books written on Swami Vivekananda?
... that the recent popularity of Amish romance novels has been seen as a reaction to the increasing popularity of erotic fiction such as Fifty Shades of Grey?
... that Jacques Rabemananjara, former Vice President of Madagascar, was also an important negritude poet and playwright?

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Did you know 14

Portal:Literature/Did you know/14

... that though Amir Hamzah was a Muslim, analyses of his poem "Padamu Jua" have found Christian influences?
... that Claude Houghton's novel I Am Jonathan Scrivener may have influenced the film Citizen Kane?
... that in one of his 75 poems, Chairil Anwar predicted his place of burial?
... that the first edition of the Star Trek novel Killing Time included overtones of Kirk/Spock slash fiction?
... that publication of one of Adam Mickiewicz's first poems, "Ode to Youth", was delayed due to censorship?

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Did you know 15

Portal:Literature/Did you know/15

... that John Donne's Devotions upon Emergent Occasions is one of only seven printed works he acknowledged authorship of?
... that Amir Hamzah left one of his fifty poems in his prison cell before being executed?
... that the Hongwu Emperor was so fond of Gao Ming's play The Lute that he ordered it to be performed every day at court?
... that both the Star Trek novels The Tears of the Singers and Uhura's Song included Uhura as a main character as the authors thought she was underdeveloped in the show?
... that author Colum McCann described the subject of his 2003 novel Dancer, Rudolf Nureyev, as "a monster"?

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Did you know 16

Portal:Literature/Did you know/16

... that although the protagonist of F.D.J. Pangemanann's novel Tjerita Si Tjonat is evil without a single redeeming feature, he was portrayed as a popular hero in wartime Indonesia?
... that Hungarian writer Károly Pap lived in desperate poverty?
... that Jeanne Galzy's novel Burnt Offering, winner of the 1930 Prix Brentano, explores a love between a teacher and a 12-year-old female student?
... that Ananda Chandra Barua was a writer, poet, playwright, translator, journalist and actor from Assam, who received Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award of the country in 1970?
... that Tio Ie Soei's novel Sie Po Giok has been called the only work of Chinese Malay literature fit for children to read?

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Did you know 17

Portal:Literature/Did you know/17

... that the John Steinbeck play adaptation Of Mice and Men debuted on Broadway while the novel of the same name was still on the best seller lists?
... that Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Eminent Characters series includes: a lawyer, a speaker, a Unitarian, a general, a rebel, a betrayer, a poet, an actress, a philosopher, a friend, a playwright and a lord?
... that The Insider, a roman à clef, was Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao's first novel?
... that a possible source for the poem The Fox, the Wolf and the Husbandman, by the 15th-century Scottish poet Robert Henryson, was Aesop's Fables as published by William Caxton?
... that Maria Konopnicka's poem Rota became so popular it was seen as an unofficial anthem of Poland?

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Did you know 18

Portal:Literature/Did you know/18

... that the reality television poetry competition Prince of Poets is more popular than football in countries of the Arab world, where it airs?
... that The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won a record-tying seven Olivier Awards at the 2013 Laurence Olivier Awards on April 28, 2013?
... that Berit Brænne's first children's book, from 1958, is a story about a sailor's family who adopted children from different parts of the world?
... that the 1934 Jeanne Galzy novel Jeunes filles en serre chaude, with its seductive title, was deemed to contain "dangerous aberrations" and "strong emotional reaction[s] of an undesirable nature"?
... that Fu Sheng was credited with saving the Confucian classic Book of Documents from the book burning of the First Emperor of China?

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Did you know 19

Portal:Literature/Did you know/19

... that Mei Ze's forgery of Kong Anguo's compilation of the Book of Documents was officially recognized as a Confucian classic for over 1000 years?
... that, although Ernest Hemingway wrote many words, he probably didn't write "For sale: baby shoes, never worn"?
... that Goodnight Mister Tom, which is an adaptation of the children's novel of the same name, won the Olivier Award for Best Entertainment at the 2013 Olivier Awards?
... that the 17th-century English poet Thomas Jordan wrote one poem that was widely anthologized in the 20th century, even though his poetry had been disdained by his contemporaries?
... that in his book In Secret Tibet, author Theodore Illion relates how he twice saw what he called "flying lamas" who could supposedly sit on an ear of barley without bending its stalk?

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Did you know 20

Portal:Literature/Did you know/20

... that Wounds of Armenia, the first Armenian novel, was published 10 years after the disappearance of its author Khachatur Abovian?
... that James Nelson Barker's play The Indian Princess is largely responsible for the modern version of the Pocahontas story?
... that actor Andrew Robinson wrote the novel A Stitch in Time, which is about his character from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine?
... that Picasso's poetry has lines like "my grandmother's big balls are shining midst the thistles" and that one of his works depicts Franco as a jackbooted phallus?
... that the novel Passing by Nella Larsen, with its focus on "jealousy, psychological ambiguity and intrigue" has been described as a "skillfully executed and enduring work of art"?

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Did you know 21

Portal:Literature/Did you know/21

... that a stage adaptation of Kwee Tek Hoay's novel The Rose of Cikembang was made before he even finished writing it?
... that Shabnam Shakeel was a Pakistani Urdu poet who won the "President's Pride of Performance award" in 2004?
... that the 1987 novel The Firebrand, written by American author Marion Zimmer Bradley, depicts the Trojan War from the perspective of the prophet Kassandra, daughter of King Priam?
... that the admirers of poet Mary Elizabeth McGrath Blake included Theodore Roosevelt and Oliver Wendell Holmes?
... that one reason the medieval English writer Robert of Cricklade's biography of Thomas Becket may have been lost is it was too favourable to the side of King Henry II of England rather than Becket?

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Did you know 22

Portal:Literature/Did you know/22

... that in Juliet H. Lewis Campbell's novel Eros and Antieros the hero raises and marries the daughter of his unrequited love?
... that protests were organized against and calls were made out to expel writer Ekrem Eylisli from his native Azerbaijan following the publication of his novella?
... that most epic poems about the Babi Yar massacres were written by Russian and Ukrainian Jews who managed to survive the Holocaust?
... that Charles Stross's science-fiction novel Singularity Sky inspired a proposal to undermine the Taliban by giving every Afghan a free mobile phone?
... that after having written a poem on the 1625 great plague of London, the poet Abraham Holland died of the plague the following year?

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Did you know 23

Portal:Literature/Did you know/23

... that the 1993 romance novel Just This Once was authored by a computer in collaboration with its programmer?
... that, as a publisher and literary critic, Drago Siliqi increased translation of foreign literature into Albanian and encouraged Ismail Kadare to write his first novel, The General of the Dead Army?
... that Charlotte Mary Sanford Barnes' play Octavia Bragaldi moves the Kentucky Tragedy from 1825 to 15th century Milan?
... that novelist Shirley Barker's first book of poetry enraged poet Robert Frost?
... that Shackles was the first Indonesian novel to portray a prostitute sympathetically?

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Did you know 24

Portal:Literature/Did you know/24

... that in his 2013 book, Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir, food personality Eddie Huang relates his past activities, which include practising law, performing stand-up comedy, and dealing marijuana?
... that the Indonesian novel Atheist was decried by religious figures, Marxist–Leninists, and anarcho-nihilists?
... that one of the essays in William Gibson's new non-fiction collection Distrust That Particular Flavor caused Wired magazine to be banned in Singapore?
... that American poet Peter Filkins was the first to translate Czech writer H. G. Adler's novels, described by The New Yorker as "modernist masterpieces", into English?
... that it is widely suggested that the publication of the novel Oromay, depicting the Eritrean War, led to the disappearance of its author, Baalu Girma?

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Did you know 25

Portal:Literature/Did you know/25

... that author Elizabeth Jordan edited the first two novels of Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis?
... that the first Indonesian novel by a woman, Kalau Tak Untung, deals with an "inexorable fate" which all humans must face?
... that Maya Angelou, who recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Clinton's 1993 inauguration, was the first poet to read an inaugural poem since Robert Frost at Kennedy's in 1961?
... that the author of Awful Splendour: A Fire History of Canada worked 15 years as a wildland firefighter on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon?
... that Gambler's Lament, one of the few non–religious poems in the ancient Hindu scripture Rig Veda, testifies to the popularity of gambling among Vedic Aryans?

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Did you know 26

Portal:Literature/Did you know/26

... that although J. R. R. Tolkien translated the Old English poem Beowulf in the 1920s, he did not like the result so it was published only posthumously in 2014 as Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary?
... that the 1928 Hindi novel Nirmala uses fiction to promote social reform of the dowry system in India?
... that although Crown Duel's fictional setting of Sartorias-deles is most like New Zealand, its customs and fashions were inspired by the court of Louis XIV?
... that Crown Princess Yaza Datu Kalaya is the subject of some of the "most beautiful poems in Burmese literature" by her nephew and husband Natshinnaung?
... that as a young girl, Margaret George became interested in Cleopatra because they both had dark hair, and later wrote a best-selling novel about her?

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Did you know 27

Portal:Literature/Did you know/27

... that one scholar suggests Louisa May Alcott wrote the sensationalist novella Behind a Mask to subvert the fantasy of the perfect "little woman"?
... that the works of Georgette Heyer include her first novel The Black Moth (1921), which she based on a story she wrote for her haemophiliac younger brother?
... that British horror novelist Simon Clark wrote a sequel to John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids?
... that Cut Like Wound is Indian novelist Anita Nair's first work of detective fiction?
... that some of the most popular nautical fiction works, including those about Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey, were based upon the real adventures of the "sea wolf" – Lord Cochrane?

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