"In the work of every American playwright at the end of the twentieth century, there are only two stages: before she or he has read Maria Irene Fornes -- and after." Though Paula Vogel's words are a fitting tribute to this dramatist's sensitive works, it's not surprising if Fornes' name draws a b

Contemporary plays, Dark, Enigmatic, Event, Feminist theater, Ironic, Kinetic, Surreal

Unfortunately, little is known about the personal life of Thomas Pynchon, the man behind such innovative texts as "The Crying of Lot 49" (1966) and "Gravity's Rainbow" (1973). Carefully guarding his privacy ever since the 1961 publication of his first novel, "V.," Pynchon has nevertheless dazzled cri

Deconstructive, Excessive, Funny, Manic, Open-ended, Paranoid, Post-war literature, Postmodern fiction, Surreal, Trippy

"Curiouser and curiouser!" was Alice's verdict on her adventures down the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" (1865), a book that exposed the absurdity of adult conventions and manners above ground. Carroll (whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgeson) was a pathologically shy math

Fantastic, Fantasy, Layered, Mathematical, Quirky, Repetition, Surreal, Whimsical

Reality is a little less rigid in the stories of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Blurring the lines between belief and possibility, Garcia Marquez uses Magical Realism -- which presupposes the existence of a kind of supernatural order of things -- and a mythological style of storytelling to celebrate the inc

Elegant, Epic, Erotic, Fantastic, Magical realism, Polychromatic, Repetition, Surreal