Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.
The Time Traveler's Wife is the
debut novel of American author
Audrey Niffenegger, published in 2003. It is a love story about a man with a
genetic disorder that causes him to
time travel unpredictably, and about his wife, an artist, who has to cope with his frequent absences and dangerous experiences. Niffenegger, frustrated in love when she began the work, wrote the story as a
metaphor for her failed relationships. The tale's central relationship came to her suddenly and subsequently supplied the novel's title. The novel, which has been classified as both
science fiction and
romance, examines issues of love, loss, and
free will. In particular, it uses time travel to explore miscommunication and distance in relationships, while also investigating deeper
existential questions.
As a first-time novelist, Niffenegger had trouble finding a literary agent. She eventually sent the novel to MacAdam/Cage unsolicited and, after an auction took place for the rights, Niffenegger selected them as her publishers. The book became a bestseller after an endorsement from author and family friend Scott Turow on The Today Show, and as of March 2009 had sold nearly 2.5 million copies in the United States and the United Kingdom. The novel won the Exclusive Books Boeke Prize and a British Book Award.
Featured articles are displayed here.
-
Image 1Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole,
CBE (13 March 1884 – 1 June 1941) was an English novelist. He was the son of an
Anglican clergyman, intended for a career in the church but drawn instead to writing. Among those who encouraged him were the authors
Henry James and
Arnold Bennett. His skill at scene-setting and vivid plots, as well as his high profile as a lecturer, brought him a large readership in the United Kingdom and North America. He was a best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s but has been largely neglected since his death.
After his
first novel,
The Wooden Horse, in 1909, Walpole wrote prolifically, producing at least one book every year. He was a spontaneous story-teller, writing quickly to get all his ideas on paper, seldom revising. His first novel to achieve major success was his third,
Mr Perrin and Mr Traill, a tragicomic story of a fatal clash between two schoolmasters. During the First World War he served in the
Red Cross on the
Russian-Austrian front, and worked in British propaganda in
Petrograd and London. In the 1920s and 1930s Walpole was much in demand not only as a novelist but also as a lecturer on literature, making four exceptionally well-paid tours of North America. (
Full article...)
-
Image 2Du Fu (
Chinese:
杜甫;
pinyin:
Dù Fǔ;
Wade–Giles:
Tu Fu; 712–770) was a Chinese poet and politician during the
Tang dynasty. Together with his elder contemporary and friend
Li Bai, Du is often considered one of the greatest
Chinese poets of his time. His greatest ambition was to serve his country as a successful
civil servant, but Du proved unable to make the necessary accommodations. His life, like all of China, was devastated by the
An Lushan rebellion of 755, and his last 15 years were a time of almost constant unrest.
Although initially he was little-known to other writers, his works came to be hugely influential in both
Chinese and
Japanese literary culture. Of his poetic writing, nearly fifteen hundred poems have been preserved over the ages. He has been called the "Poet-Historian" and the "Poet-Sage" by Chinese critics, while the range of his work has allowed him to be introduced to Western readers as "the Chinese
Virgil,
Horace,
Ovid,
Shakespeare,
Milton,
Burns,
Wordsworth,
Béranger,
Hugo or
Baudelaire". (
Full article...)
-
Image 3
Amir Hamzah,
c. 1928–1937 (February 1911 – 20 March 1946) was an Indonesian poet and
National Hero of Indonesia. Born into a
Malay aristocratic family in the
Sultanate of Langkat in
North Sumatra, he was educated in both
Sumatra and
Java. While attending senior high school in
Surakarta around 1930, Amir became involved with the
nationalist movement and fell in love with a
Javanese schoolmate, Ilik Sundari. Even after Amir continued his studies in legal school in
Batavia (now
Jakarta) the two remained close, only separating in 1937 when Amir was recalled to Sumatra to marry the sultan's daughter and take on responsibilities of the court. Though unhappy with his marriage, he fulfilled his courtly duties. After
Indonesia proclaimed its independence in 1945, he served as the government's representative in Langkat. The following year he was killed in
a social revolution led by the PESINDO (
Pemuda Sosialis Indonesia), and buried in a mass grave.
Amir began writing poetry while still a teenager: though his works are undated, the earliest are thought to have been written when he first travelled to Java. Drawing influences from his own Malay culture and Islam, as well as from Christianity and Eastern literature, Amir wrote 50 poems, 18 pieces of lyrical prose, and numerous other works, including several translations. In 1932 he co-founded the literary magazine
Poedjangga Baroe. After his return to Sumatra, he stopped writing. Most of his poems were published in two collections,
Nyanyi Sunyi (1937) and
Buah Rindu (1941), first in
Poedjangga Baroe then as stand-alone books. (
Full article...)
-
Image 4Mário Raul de Morais Andrade (
Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈmaɾiu ʁaˈu dʒi moˈɾajs ɐ̃ˈdɾadʒi]; October 9, 1893 – February 25, 1945) was a Brazilian poet, novelist,
musicologist,
art historian and
critic, and
photographer. He wrote one of the first and most influential collections of modern Brazilian poetry,
Paulicéia Desvairada (
Hallucinated City), published in 1922. He has had considerable influence on modern
Brazilian literature, and as a scholar and essayist—he was a pioneer of the field of
ethnomusicology—his influence has reached far beyond Brazil.
Andrade was a central figure in the
avant-garde movement of
São Paulo for twenty years. Trained as a musician and best known as a poet and novelist, Andrade was personally involved in virtually every discipline that was connected with São Paulo modernism. His photography and essays on a wide variety of subjects, from history to literature and music, were widely published. He was the driving force behind the
Modern Art Week, the 1922 event that reshaped both literature and the
visual arts in Brazil, and a member of the avant-garde "Group of Five". The ideas behind the Week were further explored in the preface to his poetry collection
Pauliceia Desvairada, and in the poems themselves. (
Full article...)
-
Image 5Francis bin Fathallah bin Nasrallah Marrash (
Arabic:
فرنسيس بن فتح الله بن نصر الله مرّاش,
ALA-LC: Fransīs bin Fatḥ Allāh bin Naṣr Allāh Marrāsh; 1835 or 29 June 1836 – 1874), also known as
Francis al-Marrash or
Francis Marrash al-Halabi, was a Syrian
scholar, publicist,
writer and
poet of the
Nahda or the Arab Renaissance, and a physician. Most of his works revolve around science, history and religion, analysed under an
epistemological light. He traveled throughout
West Asia and
France in his youth, and after some
medical training and a year of practice in his native
Aleppo, during which he wrote several works, he enrolled in a
medical school in
Paris; yet, declining health and growing blindness forced him to return to Aleppo, where he produced more
literary works until his early death.
Historian Matti Moosa considered Marrash to have been the first truly cosmopolitan Arab intellectual and writer of modern times. Marrash adhered to the principles of the
French Revolution and defended them in his own works, implicitly criticizing
Ottoman rule in
West Asia and
North Africa. He was also influential in introducing
French romanticism in the
Arab world, especially through his use of poetic prose and
prose poetry, of which his writings were the first examples in modern
Arabic literature, according to
Salma Khadra Jayyusi and
Shmuel Moreh. His modes of thinking and feeling, and ways of expressing them, have had a lasting influence on contemporary Arab thought and on the
Mahjari poets. (
Full article...)
-
Image 6Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (18 November 1836 – 29 May 1911) was an English
dramatist,
librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his
collaboration with composer
Arthur Sullivan, which produced fourteen
comic operas. The most famous of these include
H.M.S. Pinafore,
The Pirates of Penzance and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre,
The Mikado. The popularity of these works was supported for over a century by year-round performances of them, in Britain and abroad, by the repertory company that Gilbert, Sullivan and their producer
Richard D'Oyly Carte founded, the
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. These
Savoy operas are still frequently performed in the English-speaking world and beyond.
Gilbert's creative output included over 75 plays and
libretti, and numerous short stories, poems and lyrics, both comic and serious. After brief careers as a government clerk and a lawyer, Gilbert began to focus, in the 1860s, on writing light verse, including his
Bab Ballads, short stories, theatre reviews and illustrations, often for
Fun magazine. He also began to write
burlesques and his first comic plays, developing a unique absurdist, inverted style that would later be known as his "topsy-turvy" style. He also developed a
realistic method of stage direction and a reputation as a strict theatre director. In the 1870s, Gilbert wrote 40 plays and libretti, including his
German Reed Entertainments, several blank-verse "fairy comedies", some serious plays, and his first five collaborations with Sullivan:
Thespis,
Trial by Jury,
The Sorcerer,
H.M.S. Pinafore and
The Pirates of Penzance. In the 1880s, Gilbert focused on the Savoy operas, including
Patience,
Iolanthe,
The Mikado,
The Yeomen of the Guard and
The Gondoliers. (
Full article...)
-
Image 7Maya Angelou (
AN-jə-loh; born
Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American
memoirist,
essayist,
poet, and
civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou's series of seven autobiographies focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first,
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.
She became a poet and writer after a string of odd jobs during her young adulthood. In 1982, Angelou was named the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at
Wake Forest University in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Angelou was active in the
Civil Rights Movement and worked with
Martin Luther King Jr. and
Malcolm X. Beginning in the 1990s, she made approximately 80 appearances a year on the
lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "
On the Pulse of Morning" (1993) at the
first inauguration of Bill Clinton, making her the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since
Robert Frost at the
inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. (
Full article...)
-
Image 8Chinua Achebe (; born
Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe; 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as a central figure of modern
African literature. His first novel and
magnum opus,
Things Fall Apart (1958), occupies a pivotal place in African literature and remains the most widely studied, translated, and read African novel. Along with
Things Fall Apart, his
No Longer at Ease (1960) and
Arrow of God (1964) complete the "African Trilogy". Later novels include
A Man of the People (1966) and
Anthills of the Savannah (1987). Achebe is often referred to as the "father of modern African literature", although he vigorously rejected the characterization.
Born in
Ogidi, Colonial Nigeria, Achebe's childhood was influenced by both
Igbo traditional culture and colonial Christianity. He excelled in school and attended what is now the
University of Ibadan, where he became fiercely critical of how
Western literature depicted Africa. Moving to
Lagos after graduation, he worked for the
Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS) and garnered international attention for his 1958 novel
Things Fall Apart. In less than 10 years, he would publish four further novels through the publisher
Heinemann, with whom he began the
Heinemann African Writers Series and galvanized the careers of African writers, such as
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and
Flora Nwapa. (
Full article...)
-
Image 9
Portrait of Sarah Trimmer, 1798
(
née Kirby; 6 January 1741 – 15 December 1810) was an English writer and critic of
18th-century British
children's literature, as well as an educational reformer. Her periodical,
The Guardian of Education, helped to define the emerging genre by seriously reviewing children's literature for the first time; it also provided the first history of children's literature, establishing a canon of the early landmarks of the genre that scholars still use today. Trimmer's most popular children's book,
Fabulous Histories, inspired numerous children's animal stories and remained in print for over a century.
Trimmer was also an active philanthropist. She founded several
Sunday schools and
charity schools in her parish. To further these educational projects, she wrote textbooks and manuals for women interested in starting their own schools. Trimmer's efforts inspired other women, such as
Hannah More, to establish Sunday school programmes and to write for children and the poor. (
Full article...)
-
Image 10Murasaki Shikibu (紫式部; [mɯ.ɾa.sa.kʲi ɕi̥.kiꜜ.bɯ, -ɕi̥ꜜ.kʲi-], c. 973 – c. 1014 or 1025), or
Shijo (紫女; [ɕiꜜ.(d)ʑo], lit. 'Lady Murasaki'), was a Japanese novelist,
poet and
lady-in-waiting at the
Imperial court in the
Heian period. She was best known as the author of
The Tale of Genji, widely considered to be one of the world's first
novels, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1012. Murasaki Shikibu is a descriptive name; her personal name is unknown, but she may have been
Fujiwara no Kaoruko (藤原香子), who was mentioned in a 1007 court diary as an imperial lady-in-waiting.
Heian women were traditionally excluded from learning
Chinese, the written language of government, but Murasaki, raised in her erudite father's household, showed a precocious aptitude for the
Chinese classics and managed to acquire fluency. She married in her mid-to-late twenties and gave birth to a daughter,
Daini no Sanmi. Her husband died after two years of marriage. It is uncertain when she began to write
The Tale of Genji, but it was probably while she was married or shortly after she was widowed. In about 1005, she was invited to serve as a lady-in-waiting to
Empress Shōshi at the Imperial court by
Fujiwara no Michinaga, probably because of her reputation as a writer. She continued to write during her service, adding scenes from court life to her work. After five or six years, she left court and retired with Shōshi to the
Lake Biwa region. Scholars differ on the year of her death; although most agree on 1014, others have suggested she was alive in 1025. (
Full article...)