As an inquisitive woman with a critical eye, and as a member of the Chinese Communist Party who portrayed its flaws in her fiction, Ding Ling found herself in a precarious position. Her progressive vision moved her to both revere and criticize the Communist Party -- her critiques earned her ten years

Clever, Feminist, Pioneering, Political, Rebel, Women's literature

Oscar Wilde pursued a life -- an art -- of pure uselessness. This was not because he objected to pragmatic pursuits, if kept in their proper place: "We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it inten

Aestheticist fiction, Clever, Mythic, Perverse, Surreal, Witty

Saul Bellow became one of the twentieth century's great novelists by following the dictum that is repeated to all young fiction writers: Write what you know. Beginning with his first novel, Bellow's voice spoke from the center of his life and times. "The Dangling Man" (1944) tells the story of a youn

Anxiety, Clever, Jewish literature, Post-war literature, Psychological, Sophisticated

It might seem as if she lived an entire lifetime during the writing of "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek." Her voice is that of a wizened old woman with boundless patience and an endless amount of time to observe the smallest sublime moments in nature. But in fact, Annie Dillard wrote the book while she was s

Clever, Contemplative, Elegant, Intense, Literary fiction, Witty