Graham Swift seems to have little in common with his literary contemporaries. While most writers these days spatter their novels with pop culture references and play with distortions of time and narrative, Swift sets his books in a nineteenth-century context and tells good old-fashioned stories. He

Contemplative, Death, Dramatic, Paranoid, Tragic

"I really cannot carry on living with all that stuff stuck inside me," Emin once said, and proceeded to dredge up her tainted, passionate past and dish it out raw. The public at large has seen Emin grow up, in a fashion. She's been publicly processing her life since at least 1993, the time of her fir

Depressive, Dramatic, Neurotic, Repetition, Spiritual, Young british artists

It was only a matter of time before Chen Kaige, the child of a film director and an actress, pissed off the authorities in China. His fascination with sex, opium, costumes, and the individual in society exposed him as a romantic and a maverick. Chen's characters burst at the seams with personality. P

Dramatic, Epic, Huge, Mainland chinese (the 5th generation), Political, Sensual

In 1999, when Ann Hui was asked how she'd been spending her time, she replied that she'd been teaching. Was she on the faculty at the London Film School (her alma mater), or perhaps at some prestigious American university? No. Surprisingly, Hui was not working in film at all -- instead, she was payin

Dramatic, Eclectic, Elegant, Epic, Mainland chinese (the 5th generation), Sincere