The electrifying artistic force that was Elvis Presley can't be contained in a single account. Variously thought of as the King, Elvis the Pelvis, a degenerate, and a teen icon, Presley was the living confluence of America's multiple cultures. Born to poor parents in Tupelo, Mississippi, he lived w

Charming, Cool, Lush, Masculine, Mythic, Oldies rock, Pioneering, Pop, Sexy

Legend has it that Bertolt Brecht's world was turned upside down by a Chinese opera star. The European playwright, who felt that physicality had more integrity than speech, met a revelation of the body's true mutability in the person Mei Lan-Fang. To Brecht's amazement, Mei could use pure movement to

Chinese opera, Elegant, Epic, Mythic, Pioneering

Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎 駿, Miyazaki Hayao) is a prominent director of many popular animated feature films. He is also the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, an animation studio and production company. He remained largely unknown to the West, outside of animation communities, until Miramax released his

Anime & manga, Dark, Dystopic, Layered, Mythic, Pioneering

"Every writer is, in the long run, on his own, but it helps, in the most practical way to have a tradition. The English language was mine; the [English] tradition was not." Born and raised in Trinidad to a family of Indian Brahmin origin, writer V. S. Naipaul manipulates his rootlessness into an ab

Dystopic, Mythic, Open-ended, Political, Post-colonial literature