Michael Tippett was never satisfied with one kind of musical form. Operas, symphonies, concertos, sonatas, choral works, string quartets -- he dabbled in them all. Even within a single work, he was fond of combining numerous influences, from Beethoven to English folk music to reggae to rap. Tippett's

20th-century music, Composed, Eclectic, Intense, Layered, Sensual

If Britain had a blacklist during the Thatcher era, Ken Loach was on it. Pound the pavement though he might, he couldn't persuade anyone to fund his films. His made-for-TV documentaries met with steep resistance -- in fact, his depiction of the 1984 coal miners' strike was banned outright. Why? Loach

British documentary movement, Gritty, Industrial, Intense, Political, Sincere, Violent, Young british/kitchen sink/free cinema

Geometric, Intense, Kinetic, Machinistic

"I have made London my home. For ten years, I avoided thinking about the China I had left behind. Then in 1988, my mother came to England to visit me. For the first time, she told me the story of her life and that of my grandmother. When she returned to Chengdu, I sat down and let my own memory surge

Intense, Political, Sincere, Spare, Women's literature