World writers in English

Library Journal

Edited by novelist, poet, and biographer Parini (English, Middlebury Coll.; Robert Frost: A Life), this two-volume collection offers biocritical essays on 40 non-European 20th-century Anglophone authors ranging from Chinua Achebe and Margaret Atwood to Katherine Mansfield and Salman Rushdie. The work thus ranges widely over the literatures of New Zealand, Canada, Africa, India, Australia, China, and Japan, covering a class of literature not treated in many other works. Each 18- to 22-page essay is written by a subject expert and includes a selective bibliography of primary and secondary materials that include books, articles, interviews, and reviews of the authors' works. The articles cited are from such authoritative sources as Contemporary Literary Criticism; books and essays by Harold Bloom, Frederick Grubb, and Angus Calder; and Modern Language Notes, PMLA, the Times Literary Supplement, the London Review of Books, and Research in African Literatures and Canadian Literature. The bibliographies are current to 2002. While the detailed index makes material in this set easily accessible, cross references do not appear in the essays themselves. For example, the Atwood essay includes several references to Alice Munro, but there are no cross references to the Munro article or any mention of Atwood in the Munro essay. Twenty-six of the authors discussed are still living, and the biographical information is accurate. A nice supplement to an existing literary criticism collection, this set will be of interest to large public libraries as well as to academic libraries supporting a literature curriculum. Though it is not a core title, like Contemporary Literary Criticism, World Literature Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Magill's Survey of World literature, and the various Modern Language Association publications, it would be next on the desiderata list-and, depending on the needs of a particular collection, might even be considered ahead of one of the core titles.-Laurie Selwyn, Grayson Cty. Law Lib., Sherman, TX Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up-A collection of 40 critical and biographical essays on writers from around the postcolonial world, including India and Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Africa, the Caribbean, and Canada, who write primarily in English. Most write fiction, though poets (Derek Walcott) and playwrights (Wole Soyinka) are also represented. Each 18- to 22-page signed essay includes excerpts from major works along with explication, with "special attention paid to the cultural matrix that figures in the evolution of [the] writer." Many high school reading-list authors (Chinua Achebe, R. K. Narayan, Alan Paton) and popular contemporary writers (Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguro, Salman Rushdie) will be readily familiar to students. Others will be less so: Bessie Head; Hanif Kureishi; Ngugi wa Thiong'o (a pronunciation guide for the writers' names would have come in handy). A selected bibliography of primary works and secondary sources concludes each essay. Portraits are not provided. The set includes a list of writers by nationality and an essential index for quick title access. Narrower in focus, with more contemporary authors than in the "British Writers" series (Scribners), the cleanly executed World Writers supports diversity in literature curricula by showcasing writers whose works "-bear a distinct cultural inflection but speak to the world of readers at large."-Mary Ann Carcich, Hampton Bays Public Library, NY Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.