21st Century Literature

• Asia


  Largest continent in the world
• Asia has a vast literary tradition in terms of scope and length of existence
• Asia prospered and mirrored the developments in religion, war, and politics
• It is wise to study the Asian literature by geographical region
• China


  One of the world's cradles of civilization
• China started its unbroken literary tradition

  14th century BCE
• The preservation of the Chinese language (both spoken and written) has made the immeasurable prolonged existence of their literary traditions possible
• Du Fuor Tu Fu


  Greatest Chinese poet of all time
• Du Fu's Poem

  • The Ballad of the Army Cats
• Li Poor Li Bai


  A Chinese poet who is a competitor of Du Fu as China's greatest poet
• Li Po's poem

  • Alone and Drinking under the Moon
• Wang Wei


  • Poet, painter, musician, and statesman during the Tang dynasty
  • Established founder of the respected Southern school of painter-poets
• Mo Yan


  • A fictionist who won the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature
  • First novel and best-known work "Red Sorghum"
• Yu Hua


  • A world-acclaimed short story writer and considered as a champion for Chinese meta-fictional or postmodernist writing
  • Novel "To Live"
• Korea was greatly influenced by China's cultural dominance
• Hangul


  • Korean's distinct writing system and national alphabet
  • Developed in the 15th century
• Kim Ok


  • A Korean poet and included in the early modernism movement of Korean poetry
  • First Korean collection of translation from Western poetry "The Dance of Agony"
• Yun Hunggil


  • A South Korean novelist who won the 1977 Korean Literature Writers Award
  • Classic novel "Changma"
• Japan has a rich and unique literary history even though it has been influenced by the Chinese language and literature
• Haiku


  A short descriptive poem with 17 syllables
• Noh


  Traditional Japanese theatrical form and one of the oldest extant theatrical forms in the world
• Kabuki


  Traditional Japanese popular drama with singing and dancing performed in a highly stylized manner
• The Arabic literary tradition has been flourishing in the Middle East
• Islam is the foundation of culture in this region, an essential component
• Even European literature followed and imitated Arabic literature
• In contemporary times, Arabic writers experience difficulties due to the issue of freedom of expression and the tension between religious and secular movements
• India


  A clear cultural giant in South Asia
• Kalidasa


  Indian Shakespeare; Penned his masterpieces of plays, poems, epics in Sanskrit
• Gitanjali


  • Rabindranath Tagore's best-known collection of poetry
  • Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913
• Africa


  Cradle of the humankind
• Africa has a literature filled with the human spirit, desiring for freedom and contentment
• Languages of African literature

  • Oral tradition
  • Local languages brought by the colonizers (English, Portuguese, and French)
  • Written literature
• African literature is shaped by the experiences of the colonization and post colonization
• The colonization and slave trade has awakened the African psyche (the soul and mind)
• The literary works (newspaper) serve as a vehicle in exposing the psychological social impact of colonization
• African contemporary writers use literary works towards their government to express their disagreement with the constant corruption
• Though they use the European language to produce their literary works, the cry for independence has reached to the climax, so strong and effective, with the embodiment of the spirit of nationalism, gained worldwide acclaim and from colonial and postcolonial experiences
• Chinua Achebe


  Nigerian novelist, poet, critic, and professor
• Chinua Achebe won the Grand Prix de la Memoir of the 2019 edition of the Grand Prix of Literary Associations
• Chinua Achebe's first novel and masterpiece "Things Fall Apart" is the most widely read book in modern African literature