The magic barrel

We finally come to our last short story in the course… You’re going to miss it all, you’ll see!
The first step to take here is to consult one or two sites about Bernard Malamud, the author of “The magic barrel”:
- American Literature on the Web;
- The Unofficial Bernard Malamud Homepage;
- Encyclopedia Britannica [...]

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No name woman

The short story we are going to discuss today is a short story, of course, but it is also a chapter of a novel, Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston, a Chinese-American writer from California.
There are some sites you can consult to learn more about this author:
- Voices;
- Maxine [...]

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Everyday Use

All right, before anyone thinks he/she or his/her computer is going nuts, I’m already telling you that this post was supposed to be published on Monday only – but I’m in a hurry to wrap things up around here so I can stop worrying about the blog, Ok? You don’t have to comment [...]

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Bien Pretty

In relation to Sandra Cisneros’ “Bien Pretty”, your first step must be to learn about Spanglish, the language that is a mixture of Spanish and English. You can read a bit about it – and even listen to some examples – here.
You can also visit the author’s official website, by clicking here.
Cisneros’ most [...]

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The apple orchard

Before we even start talking about Rudolfo Anaya or Sandra Cisneros, you need an introduction to Chicano culture and literature. If you follow the link I posted here, you will be able to download a lecture I once gave about it: introducao-historia-cultura-e-literatura-chicanas
Next, you can read some information about the author if you click here [...]

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The Lone Ranger and Tonto fistfight in heaven

Today we cross the Atlantic definitively. From now up to the end of the course, all the authors we are going to study are from the United States.
But… as is stated in the title of this unit, we are studying “other voices”. That means the authors we are going to discuss from today on are [...]

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The English Woman

The author of the short story we are going to discuss today is Ruth Prawer Jhabavala, an Anglo-Indian writer who made a sucessful career as a screenwriter – she even won 2 Academy Awards for adaptations of E.M. Forster’s novels! If you are curious and would like to know more about her, click here or [...]

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Girl

This is the beginning of the second unit of our course, in which we are going to study the so-called “other voices” of literatures produced in the English language. Today we are stepping out of the canon and into the world of literatures produced away from the center of political and economic power.
Our first [...]

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The prophet’s hair

The short story we are going to discuss today was written by an author who is famous all around the world, whose name is familiar even to people who have never read a single line of his works: Salman Rushdie.
As there is a lot of good material about him available online, I’ve decided to [...]

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A family supper

Have you ever watched a film with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, called “The remains of the day?” If so, then you have already been in contact with the work of Kazuo Ishiguro, the author of the short story we are going to discuss today, “A family supper”. The film was based on his [...]

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